The “QAnon Caucus” Inside The US Republican Party

US media is report­ing on what is described as the “QAnon cau­cus” with­in the Repub­li­can Par­ty. Accord­ing to a CNN report:

Jan­u­ary 16, 2020 Don­ald Trump may be leav­ing the White House in a few days, but the umbrel­la of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries he inspired is only just arriv­ing in Washington.The chief the­o­ry known as QAnon — that the US gov­ern­ment is run by a cabal of Satan-wor­ship­ping pedophiles only Trump can expose — began near­ly four years ago as a fringe move­ment in the dark cor­ners of the inter­net. Now QAnon has adher­ents in posi­tions of pow­er with­in the Repub­li­can Par­ty and in the halls of Con­gress. The Jan­u­ary 6 domes­tic ter­ror attack on the US Capi­tol was the vio­lent man­i­fes­ta­tion of that move­ment and its atten­dant the­o­ries — includ­ing that the 2020 elec­tion was stolen. Thou­sands of its adher­ents, steeped in years of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries espoused by Trump, stormed the Capi­tol ready for vio­lence — seem­ing­ly cer­tain they were the ones lib­er­at­ing the coun­try. Many dis­played cloth­ing and para­pher­na­lia asso­ci­at­ed with the movement.

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The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ed last week on how the con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry known as QAnon helped to influ­ence the vio­lent events at the US Capi­tol build­ing last week. Oth­er rel­e­vant GIOR report­ing has included:

• A report last week that Twit­ter had removed the accounts of high-pro­file sup­port­ers of Pres­i­dent Trump who pro­mot­ed the QAnon con­spir­a­cy theory.

• A report ear­li­er this month on the influ­ence of QAnon on the Repub­li­can Party

• A report ear­li­er this month that a new­ly elect­ed mem­ber of the US House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives is a sup­port­er of QAnon.

• A report in Octo­ber 2020 that Russia’s Inter­net Research Agency troll farm was attempt­ing to use social media accounts to boost the role of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries pro­mot­ed by QAnon.

• A report in Octo­ber 2020 that YouTube had joined Face­book and oth­er social media com­pa­nies in tak­ing action against QAnon.

The BBC has described QAnon as follows:

At its heart, QAnon is a wide-rang­ing, unfound­ed con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that says that Pres­i­dent Trump is wag­ing a secret war against elite Satan-wor­ship­ping pae­dophiles in gov­ern­ment, busi­ness and the media. QAnon believ­ers have spec­u­lat­ed that this fight will lead to a day of reck­on­ing where promi­nent peo­ple such as for­mer pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Hillary Clin­ton will be arrest­ed and executed.media cap­tion­Trump on QAnon: ‘They do like me’ That’s the basic sto­ry, but there are so many off­shoots, detours and inter­nal debates that the total list of QAnon claims is enor­mous — and often con­tra­dic­to­ry. Adher­ents draw in news events, his­tor­i­cal facts and numerol­o­gy to devel­op their own far-fetched conclusions.