Q is Joe Biden, another non-US Politics thread (Q Anon, Qanon, Q_anon, Joe Biden is Q)

They have a branch in Romania, so you're onto something.

xp haha I think it's 'patriot sunt eu' (I am a patriot), 'Satana sunt ∞' (Satan are… the infinity sign? OO? I don't know what it's supposed to stand for here).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aerqIZ5aebE

It's really confusing because I can't find anything on the QAnon meaning of infinity aside for… 8chan aka ∞chan. So if '8chan are Satan' is what they're going for, well… totally, yeah.

death's head flags always a sign you're among good people

I don't know if this is from the same Shaman-guy interview that was posted yesterday, but I just saw a clip of him saying that a) Shamanism is all about creating positive vibrations in a sacred space like the Senate building, and b) he actually stopped someone from stealing some muffins on Jan. 6.

Wait, so he's the good guy in this whole thing?! Hmmmm...

In the midst of a muffin crisis, evidently.

Muffin Crisis <-----incroyable name for a band

There's going to be a Qruise pic.twitter.com/P9jnw8KObC

— Feminist Proper Gander (@dappergander) December 11, 2020

Come on norovirus, do your job.

Sorry but it was called off a few days later (check the date).

How disappointing. They'd have never gotten the Bud Light squirts out of the carpet.

Just heard my first "listener stories" ep of QAA and it was both terrifying and so, so sad

A Q cruise through the Bermuda Triangle sounds like something we need to send Patricia Lockwood on.

the Love Boeber
Soon will be making another run

A heavy but I’m sure very typical read.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/albertsamaha/qanon-parents-millennial-children

don't have the link handy but there's an entire subreddit collecting these stories now

Trump’s 4th of July speech at Mount Rushmore came to an end without John F. Kennedy Jr. revealing he was alive and stepping in as the president’s new running mate.

missed this one

unfortunately the paywall will prevent most from reading this, but it's the most relatable thing i've read on families that were destroyed by rightwing brain worms.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2021/disinformation-conspiracy-family/

here's the first few paragraphs

In a country where disinformation was spreading like a disease, Celina Knippling resolved to administer facts to her mom like medicine­. She and her four siblings could do nothing about the lies that had spread outward from Washington since Election Day, or the violence it had provoked. But maybe they could do something to stop dangerous political fantasies and extremism from metastasizing within their family. Maybe they could do something about Claire.

And so on one Saturday in February, Celina meticulously assembled a spreadsheet of every court case filed by former president Trump and his allies to contest the 2020 election. From her home outside Baltimore, she coded by date, state, case number and outcome. She analyzed how many lawsuits had been won, lost or dismissed and on what grounds. She broke down whether the presiding judges had been appointed by Democrats or Republicans.

Celina, 50, was not overly hopeful. She knew that her mom no longer trusted the mainstream media to tell the truth, nor the country’s democratic institutions to adjudicate an election she was certain had been stolen. It was her anti-Trump children, Claire Ryan contended, who were brainwashed.

Nevertheless, Celina gathered her spreadsheet and her notes and emailed them to Claire, 71, who lived in Maine with Celina’s stepfather. She had to know whom her mother trusted more: her own children, or strangers on the Internet.

She got her reply an hour later.

Claire suggested that Celina watch a video called “Absolute Proof” being promoted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, one of the most visible proponents of the false narrative that the election had featured widespread voter fraud. The 120-minute-long video was hosted on a platform called Rumble and purported to reveal conclusive evidence that the 2020 election had been stolen from Trump. It repackaged claims that had already been disproved by the media and dismissed by the courts, which was spelled out in the exhaustive set of court filings and links Celina had sent her mom.

“Please share with everyone you know to save our country!” Lindell urged viewers on his personal website.

Celina lost her temper. It was bulls---, she said.

“Your response was to find some idiot’s video...and think that somehow that proves your point,” she wrote back. “I gave up my weekend to make sure you had access to see what real evidence and research looks like, and you somehow think a video is … what? Evidence? Proof?”

What Celina wrote as a closing rebuke: “You used to be smarter than this.”

What Celina had been thinking for months now but could not find a way to say: “I want my mom back. I’m terrified for her.”

* * *

“Your response was to find some idiot’s video...and think that somehow that proves your point,” she wrote back. “I gave up my weekend to make sure you had access to see what real evidence and research looks like, and you somehow think a video is … what? Evidence? Proof?”

this part in particular, (as well as several others in the story) is eerily similar to some of my experiences. there is a relentlessly horrifying feeling you get when a family members says something completely and obviously wrong, you spend a ton of time trying to prove it so conclusively that there can be no doubt, and then you get a link to the dumbest thing of all time as their response. it's a really sinking, awful feeling.

and this, many paragraphs later, the closing words:

Toward the end of February, Claire invited Laurie over to her house for coffee and scones. They did not talk about politics. Laurie urged Claire to get the coronavirus vaccine like she had just done, but Claire again declined.

They left it at that.

“It’s when we try to convince each other, that’s when things get so divisive,” Claire said. “There are videos, there are interviews that I find that are meaningful, but when I send them to the kids they get upset. So I’m not going to send them anymore.”

as a white midwesterner, i get that this kind of story is closer to my experience than for many others, but THAT is the most relatable thing i've read in several years

I've definitely had that experience of someome suggesting some video that makes lots of interesting points or whatever. My response at these days is to just shut them down immediately and make it clear that I have no interest or time to sit through someone's crackpot theories. I also point out that you can look up any topic you want on Google News and get dozens of articles across the political spectrum if you really are interested in sorting out fact from fiction on a given topic.

i had someone quote a Babylon Bee article at me and when I pointed out that it was not only satire but that the website actually labeled itself as satire, she replied "WHO ARE YOU TO SAY THIS IS SATIRE??? THIS IS REAL!"

What else did Sean Davis say

The satire is generally more real than the dull reality, it's true

this part in particular, (as well as several others in the story) is eerily similar to some of my experiences. there is a relentlessly horrifying feeling you get when a family members says something completely and obviously wrong, you spend a ton of time trying to prove it so conclusively that there can be no doubt, and then you get a link to the dumbest thing of all time as their response. it's a really sinking, awful feeling.

not a family member but a pretty good friend got deep into this fake outrage hellhole during the trump years and esp during the pandemic. he thinks I live in a city under siege by antia death squads or something and sometimes sends me obv bullshit that anyone with a normally functioning brain would be able to spot for what it is. I walked down to the supposed scene of a riot one time and snapped some pics. nothing had happened, of course. sunny day, people shopping and hanging out.

called him on it the next time he brought up some new nonsense. said something like "your sources are bad, you shouldn't trust them, here's an example that I personally disproved." but response was similar... he just found yet more videos from these garbage twitter accounts and sent me those. "maybe you didn't get there in time, windows can be repaired" etc. instead of, you know, just believing your friend that literally lives there and just sent you photo evidence.

shit sucks.

and this person used to have cool and weird hobbies that were a lot of fun to talk about! all of that now almost entirely displaced by... this updated and only barely different riff on... 'the war on xmas'? arghhh.

just like hobbies form part of your identity, so does associating with qAnon, except instead of becoming part of your identity, it IS your identity. and then they can't shut it off.

I hear their meaningless lives are imbued with meaning now.

except instead of becoming part of your identity, it IS your identity. and then they can't shut it off

yea, even when I try to talk about normal stuff and diffuse the politics, I can just tell he really wants to talk about whatever is going on in maga land at the moment instead. and I'll eventually get a link to, like... an article about how sacha baron cohen is a hypocrite or something, zzzzz

I hear their meaningless lives are imbued with meaning now.

Fighting for the redemption of the world, it's the same job as superheroes!

and the best superheroes are the ones that are also persecuted and not even thanked for their efforts

My mom has some...odd beliefs, but I'm blessed that I know absolutely no one that fits these profiles, or that I cut them off years ago.

https://www.reddit.com/r/qanoncasualties

for all your horrifying QAnon testimonial needs

Am I naive to ask if this level of delusion is unprecedented in human history?

One I cut off years ago was a high school friend. He exists in the area where left-wing hippie spirituality shit mixes with libertarian anti-vaxx racism. Judging by his open profiles on the internet, he's still on that beat.

Sad. I used to love getting stoned and listening to dub with him.

Halfway, I mean...not to sound glib, but there are billions of people who believe in a literal skydad.

Yes, but most religious people have been able to reconcile belief and reality to the extent that they could exist in society with those who didn't believe.

Am I naive to ask if this level of delusion is unprecedented in human history?

Remember the Children’s Crusade?

Sure, and that turned out OK! No worries.

I think the difference between generic SkyDad belief and Q cultism (or any such niche belief) is that a lot of people grow up within SkyDad belief systems and just accept them as the natural way of the world — which is easy to do, when the majority of other people you interact with also adhere to some version of SkyDadism. Whereas with Q, you have to really do the work — do the research! — to get immersed, it's not going to just happen passively. (Although algorithms I guess allow it happen somewhat passively. But you still have to click and keep clicking.)

don't worry we'll have entire Q households with second generations of Q pilled weirdos before long

'God-Emperor' will no longer be a metaphor a couple of generations from now.

most religious people have been able to reconcile belief and reality to the extent that they could exist in society with those who didn't believe.

don't know if that's historically accurate

There have definitely been instances of greater mass delusion but they mostly belong to an era before rationality (or at least some half-hearted simulacrum thereof) became a primary driver of human society. Like back when the execution of suspected witches was an everyday thing.

I feel bad for the people who take all the time to meticulously assemble counter-cases like the one above, but that’s not really how you change someone’s belief system, is it?

If you try to directly attack a closely held belief that someone forms part of their identity without addressing the underlying belief(s) that supports that one and giving them a more cogent replacement, they’re just going to re-cement their belief in deeper.

Like back when the execution of suspected witches was an everyday thing.

Pfft, implying Trump wasn't the victim of the greatest witch hunt in the history of America.

Who needs QAnon when you've got Sabmyk?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/20/revealed-man-behind-fast-growing-cult-becoming-the-new-qanon-sabmyk-network

Ok I havent read this thread but did scan it; anyone watching the Qanon doc on HBO? Two episodes so far and lengthy time spent in the home of JIm Watkins and his son. Jesus christ these people are weird. Dude who started 8chan (hotwheels) seems like a paragon of normality compared to both of them.

Meanwhile, what’s really on that ship ????

https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy8n9q/suez-canal-qanon-cargo-ship-conspiracies-are-getting-wild