Under pressure, Trump revives QAnon cult – around himself

WASHINGTON – Ensnared in legal probes as he mulls a second White House run in 2024, Mr Donald Trump is injecting new life into the fading QAnon conspiracy cult – whose members have embraced him as a new icon.

While the anonymous founder of the conspiracy – known only as “Q” – has disappeared from view, a Trump rally last weekend in Ohio clearly showed that it remains a force behind the former president.

Mr Trump’s supporters solemnly thrust their index fingers into the sky as he ended his speech to the electronic strains of a song identified by Media Matters, a progressive research group, as Where We Go One We Go All, or WWG1WGA – the QAnon motto.

The Republican ex-president used the same work in an Aug 9 video released right after the FBI raid on his Florida home. And he has played it elsewhere, with QAnon followers taking note online.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump has increasingly amplified QAnon postings on his Truth Social network. On Sept 13, he reposted a doctored picture of himself with a prominent “Q” on his lapel.

QAnon’s original followers subscribed to bizarre theories of a Democratic satanic child sex abuse network – an outlandishness summed up by images of one of them invading the US Capitol in a shamanic headdress.

QAnon, MAGA overlap

But experts say the movement is now embracing more Trump-centric theories of election denialism and the notion of an unaccountable Washington “deep state” – ideas central to Mr Trump’s “Make America Great Again”, or MAGA, movement.

The overlap between QAnon and MAGA is now “hard to distinguish”, said Ms Rachel Goldwasser, who researches right-wing extremism at the Southern Poverty Law Centre.

Mr Trump is now “sort of the hero of the conspiracy theory”, she said.

The QAnon movement took root in 2017 with cryptic posts on the fringes of social media by the anonymous “Q”.

Followers, who by 2020 numbered hundreds of thousands, embraced the belief that the world was controlled by a secret cabal of the rich and powerful, and groundless conspiracy theories about Covid-19.

Many would attend Trump reelection rallies carrying “QAnon” banners and wearing “Q” t-shirts. Mr Trump did not endorse them, but never distanced himself either. After he lost the election, and particularly after the Jan 6 attack on the US Capitol by his supporters, the movement lost momentum.

“Q” messages stopped, and a person associated with the website where they had appeared urged followers to move on and accept new President Joe Biden.