As the world watched Joe Biden being sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, one corner of the American public struggled to grasp whether the historic moment was indeed real.
In the few online spaces where they are still allowed to operate openly, followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory reacted with a mixture of shock and horror as Biden put his hand on the Bible to be sworn in.
The ludicrous and completely baseless notion predicted that the Bidens, and other prominent Democrats including the Obamas and the Clintons, would be rounded up and summarily executed for treason and other crimes before Biden ever had a chance to be sworn in Wednesday, and that Donald Trump would then be swept back into office having saved the country from sex-trafficking pedophiles.
For true believers, it was supposed to be a heroic final act to keep Trump in power after more than 60 frivolous voter fraud lawsuits and an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol failed to do so.
But the moment never came.
Voices on underground digital communication channels such as Gab and Telegram, which were used by far-right extremists as sites for virtual watch parties, expressed disappointment.
As Kamala Harris took the vice presidential oath before Biden, many on the sites were incredulous because events were not playing out as they believed they would.
“Well this popcorn just got cold,” one QAnon supporter wrote. “When do the arrests start??” another asked, still hopeful the conspiracy would come true.
“HOW COULD WE BELIEVE THIS FOR SO LONG? ARE WE ALL IDIOTS?” one person exclaimed on Telegram as Biden took the oath.
“WE’VE BEEN SCAMMED INTO BELIEVING Q,” another user declared.
“Anyone else feeling beyond let down right now?” someone wrote on a prominent forum dedicated to the conspiracy theory. “It’s like being a kid and seeing the big gift under the tree thinking it is exactly what you want only to open it and realize it was a lump of coal the whole time,” the user, only known as FL350, wrote.
Their sentiments were echoed by Ron Watkins, the former moderator of the internet forum 8kun, which until last year was the intellectual center of the conspiracy theory.
“We gave it our all,” Watkins wrote. “Now we need to keep our chins up and go back to our lives as best we are able.”
Others were angrier. “Q was created by the left to get real patriots to sit on their hands and trust the plan while they stole our country,” a user named Bart posted in a Telegram channel dedicated to the conspiracy theory.
At its most basic level, QAnon is a pro-Trump conspiracy theory that posited the now-former president was in a secret war against pedophiles — a supposed cabal of “deep state” liberals in politics and Hollywood. At some point, the theory goes, Trump is supposed to unleash “the Storm” to expose and punish his enemies.
Since last summer, social networks have been cracking down on the conspiracy theory. Facebook announced on Tuesday that from August to Nov. 30, it removed 3,000 pages, 9,800 groups, 16,200 Facebook profiles and 25,000 Instagram accounts for violating its policies against the conspiracy theory.
Believers began to slowly splinter at the end of 2020 when new posts from Q, the anonymous individual at the center of the system, stopped appearing on 8kun.
Some QAnon adherents speculated that the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol marked the beginning of the Storm. But Biden’s swearing-in on Wednesday — preceded by Trump’s departure aboard Air Force One, headed to Florida — offered a stunning visual rebuke to some of the conspiracy theory’s central tenets.
Still, there were some QAnon followers who weren’t ready to give up on the idea. On the same forum where the post from FL350 appeared, a user asking for a headcount of those who “still have faith” attracted 239 comments by Wednesday afternoon in New York.
On the Telegram messaging app, groups and channels dedicated to QAnon were filled with devout followers imploring them to “trust the plan” in the hours after Biden’s inauguration.
Travis View, host of a podcast that analyzes QAnon and other conspiracy theories, called QAnon Anonymous, said he expects some followers to become disillusioned and fall away, some to “trust the plan” and some others to “get funneled into ever darker extremist movements.”
“Regardless of the specifics,” he said, “the growth of QAnon and its consequences will likely be part of the American landscape for at least a generation.”
Information provided by Tribune News Service was used to compile this report.
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