QAA Podcast - Episode 123: International QAnon (The Netherlands) feat Marc-André Argentino

Episode Date: December 31, 2020

Pilled hip hop, the Fall Cabal "documentary" and legal weed. Travis spoke to dutch reporter Rudy Bouma and examines the country's forays into QAnon. Then we speak to Marc-André Argentino about the emergence of the conspiracy theory in over 80 countries around the world. ↓↓↓↓ SUBSCRIBE FOR $5 A MONTH SO YOU DON'T MISS THE SECOND WEEKLY EPISODE ↓↓↓↓ https://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous Follow Marc-André Argentino: http://twitter.com/_MAArgentino QAA Merch / Join the Discord Community / Find the Lost Episodes / Etc: https://qanonanonymous.com Episode music by Nick Sena (http://nicksenamusic.com)

What's up QAA listeners? The fun games have begun. I found a way to connect to the internet. I'm sorry, boy. Welcome, listener, to chapter one, two, three of the Q&ONANANANANAS podcast, the Q&N international, the Netherlands episode. As always, we are your host, Jake Rockatansky, Julian Fields, and Travis View. This week, we are beginning what is undoubtedly an on-convance. investigation into QAnon on the international stage.

First stop, the Netherlands. Even though New Amsterdam was eventually renamed New York, the Dutch are a huge part of the European colonization of North America and were serious competitors to the English when it came to self-enrichment, genocide, and butter. Years later, unsurprisingly, the Dutch were some of the first in line when it came to embracing the various conspiracy theories promoted by QAnon and its community. Today, the Netherlands hosts a stable of characters promoting the Q lifestyle as an alternative to watching the mainstream news.

One of them, Janet Osbarred, also gave us the gift of content by releasing Fall of the Cabal, also known as just Fall Cabal, a movie responsible for red-pilling people over here in the United States in mass. So Travis has prepared a segment on the matter, including clips from a conversation he had with Dutch journalist Rudy Bauma, followed by an interview, of course, with repeat guest Mark Andre Argentino, in which we discuss his extensive research into international QAnon. But before all that,

Q&ON News. First up, viral 4chan hoax tricks presidential electors and pro-Trump media. Credit goes to Alex Kaplan at Media Matters for reporting this one. Earlier this month, Texas urged the Supreme Court to throw out the election results in states that went to president-elect Biden. On December 11th, the Supreme Court rejected the case. That same evening, an anonymous user of 4-Chance poll board posed as a Supreme Court clerk and claimed that they overheard the justices arguing. Specifically, they claim that

Chief Justice John Roberts was yelling things like, are you going to be responsible for the rioting if we hear this case? It's obviously all bullshit. The following day, Hal Turner, a white nationalist radio host with a long history of spreading false claims and hoaxes, posted the story on his site, claiming it came from, quote, a source deep inside the U.S. Supreme Court. In actuality, Turner just copied the 4chand post. But it didn't stop there. On December 14th, the day the Electoral College delegates met to cast their votes, Texas electorate Matt Patrick gave his speech in the state legislature in which he repeated the story.

But in his version, John Roberts is swearing for some reason. Yeah, because he's bad to the bone. But when a Texas case was brought up, he said he heard screaming through the walls as Justice Roberts and the other liberal justices were insisting that this case not be taken up. And the reason, the words that were heard through the wall when Justice Thomas and Justice Alito were citing Bush versus Gore from John Roberts were, I don't give about that case, I don't want to hear about it. At that time, we didn't have riots.

So what he was saying was that he was afraid of what would happen if they did the right thing. And I'm sorry, but that is moral cowardice. I heard through the wall, or someone else heard through the wall, really. Yeah, someone else. What was heard through the wall about a person I can't name, I mean, confidence. In the Texas state legislature, getting just hopping mad about bullshit. You invent a thing, you read a thing, a fictional story on 4chan, and you get furious about it. To something that's supposed to be a serious place.

This is like a new conservative formula, the if true, then I'm furious. And they just get furious. But that's not all. The pro-Trump news outlet Newsmax promoted the hoax in several segments. A Newsmax hosts called the 100% bullshit made up story from 4%. 4chan, a bombshell report. Listen to this. A bombshell whistleblower report, alleging Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, voted against hearing the election lawsuit that was brought on by the state of Texas, not on the merits, but because he was worried about riots.

What important takeaway from this incident, I think, is that even like QAnon went away forever. That would just create like a Q&ONSI's hole that would be replaced by Supreme Court Clercanon or whatever else. They're just an endless stream of bullshit on these anonymous web forums and people want to believe them. In a way, 4chan and 8chan are kind of this competition to come up with suggestions for how to fill the spiritual void. What could take up this empty hole inside us? And they come up with all kinds of fantastic shapes. Most of them we refuse outright because these people are crazy.

But if you get enough people that are hyper-intelligent and off-balance, just spitball and, you know, spitball. eventually you're going to find something and it's like well actually this bit's just great and that i think qanon was one of those things for my next story qanon continues to thrive on facebook despite ban according to a report yeah they're not going to keep us down i mean i called this one that that Travis and mark andre and all of their cohorts would fail fail so all the way back on october 6 2020 facebook cracked down on qanon content on their site banning thousands of pages and that promoted the conspiracy theory. But they were not able to ban their resolve.

So it's been over two months, so it's fair to ask, how effective was that crackdown on actually curbing Q&N content? And according to a new report from the Anti-Extremism Organization Institute for Strategic Dialogue, not very effective at all. That report titled The Boom Before the Ban, finds that baseless Q&N conspiracy theories continue to be spread by several personal Facebook pages. Yeah.

One of the super spreaders is a man named Larry Cook, an anti-vaccination activist who started sharing Q&ON conspiracy theories earlier this year. In the month after the ban, Larry Cook continued to make and share videos that included Q&N explainers for newcomers and claims that the government was running a secret detention camp. I like this Larry Cooked guy. Though Cook was banned by Facebook in mid-November, he still has an account on Instagram. You know that even if we ban all the regular like chatting structures, They would just go to, like, Facebook Marketplace and list, like, the truth for $0.00. No, they would go to, like, Venmo or something. They would do it anywhere.

And, and comment on people's payments, you know. They would take over a social media. Whatever is left. They'll take it over. They'll find a way. Life finds a way. Have you ever seen those little plants that grow through the asphalt cracks? Mm-hmm.

That's right, motherfucker. They didn't know we were seeds. Other accounts that remained active on Facebook included those run by yoga and wellness coaches who share QAnon content and false claims like tying the COVID-19 vaccines to a vast government conspiracy theory. The report found that Q&N is promoted on Facebook internationally as well. Three of the 10 most active communities posting Q&N content on Facebook were German language groups. You know, I'm glad you skipped Germany and went straight to the Dutch. That would be such a depressing beginning to the international episode, admitting how much the

Germans love this shit. The Dutch, yeah, the Dutch was more interesting to me. Yeah, it's more subtle. And they have a good rapper. I mean, the Germans don't have their longer france yet. Maybe one day. For my next story, Trump considered naming QAnon lawyer Sidney Powell Special Counsel. Isn't this kind of like one of those reports where it's like we heard that he was discussing it and it got printed in like print media?

Well, this was reported by Politico, Axios, and the New York Times. Right. And the main players in this didn't deny the main details. Okay, fair enough. Okay. On the evening of December 18th, Trump reportedly met in the Oval Office with QAnon promoting lawyer Sidney Powell, despite the fact that Trump team fired Powell like last month. In that meeting, Trump discussed the possibility of appointing Powell as White House special counsel to oversee an investigation into the baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in last month's election, as well as the possibility of giving her a security clearance to pursue her work. Oh, that would be so cool.

We need way more queued on people with like active security clearances. Just go and get the information you need. And you can actually leak from inside the government then because you have the access. So you can become your own queue like effectively. That would be a really fun one. It's interesting to me that somebody could watch Sidney Powell's performance over the last three weeks, four weeks, and go, you know what? She deserves a promotion. I mean, it's just because because at this point, I mean, it's loyalty.

And she has that. She never dropped it. She's willing to piss off the Republican establishment to make sure Trump like gets stuff overturned, even if it risks like losing stuff like Georgia. I mean, she doesn't give a fuck. Of course he loves her. Yeah. She's risking her legal career because people are talking sanctions because she's pushing all this bullshit in the courts.

Also, we talked about how what looked really bad right before she got fired was Rudy, not her. I mean, she said dumb shit, but she looked fine. Also present that evening was Powell's most famous client, General Michael. Flynn. See, I'm telling you, they're getting the whole crew back together. Everyone who got pushed off the island. I want Gorka back in this fold. Let's get them all back. This is worrying to me because it does seem like we talked before about the possibility that Trump is going to try and larp Q&O and on into reality. And now he's like bringing all these QAW on people into the Oval Office and talking about their ideas. We've talked about QT team, but this is the closest

to getting closer and closer to Trump just doing the my fellow Americans, the Storm is upon us tweet. QAnon in the Netherlands. We are recording this episode a few days before Christmas, which means it's time for me to think about the Netherlands. Now, before I started research for this episode, to me, it was a country best known for high-quality drugs, Vincent Van Gogh, Trials of International Criminals, and Sinterklaas, the legendary figure that was partly the basis for Santa Claus.

Yeah. In the Netherlands, Sinter Claus is portrayed with a long, wavy white beard, a red and gold pointy popes hat, and writing a white horse. Instead of elves, Sinter Claus is assisted by a Moorish man named Black Pete. Black Pete is typically portrayed by white Dutch people wearing black face. Yeah, Schwartz of Peets is what they call him. Yeah, this is apparently a source of controversy in the country. Oh, really, apparently.

Yeah. You can't tell why. I mean, France also has awful stuff like this. Like, we have this, for a very long time, we had like a powdered, like, kind of chocolate banana drink, and the front was just an absolute racist caricature, just horrifying racist caricature giant printed on every box available at every supermarket. Yeah, I was saying, you know, considering our own history, it is kind of like a miracle that Black Pete wasn't included the American conception of Santa Claus, because that could

have happened very, very easily. The Netherlands also happens to have a very act of QAnon community. Amongst all European countries, the Netherlands ranks third for most Q&ONN activity on Facebook and Instagram, according to analysis by the BBC. The two top QAnon countries in Europe are the UK and Germany. To try and get a better handle on Q&N in the Netherlands, earlier this week I spoke to Dutch reporter Rudy Bauma. I'm a reporter at the public television current affairs program called NewsHour,

which is comparable to BBC Newsnight. It's a daily current affairs program on Channel 2. And we also pay attention to conspiracy theories, disinformation and those kinds of topics. That's one of my specializations. I'm the reporter who's doing that. Rudy Bauma told me that he first noticed the growth of Q&ON in the Netherlands when it started showing up at anti-lockdown protests. I noticed Q&L slogans at anti-lockdown protests late spring, early summer, I would say. But there were also a few significant incidents around politicians who were harassed by Q&L fans. Most noticeably this summer when a Christian

Democrat Parliament member was chased by a group calling him Satanist and deep state and things like that. And also protesters yelled a pedophile to our Minister of Health. So we also saw Q&N move from online to real life. The harassment of politicians is apparently a departure from the normally relaxed and civil political culture in the Netherlands. For example, the Dutch Prime Minister was often photographed riding his bike to work without security. But the growth of conspiracy theories has eroded Dutch civility over the past year. Like Bauma mentioned, one of the most famous incidents involved conspiracy theory-driven protesters confronting the politician Peter Olmsecht in the street. You believe it now that it's, your frail he has it

self-gues. So how so can it, that it's now in a while, it's all right? You're always, he's just kind of he's always he's always he's all right he's he's he's not

he's just kind of getting chased by some lads with half beers they've just spotted him and Jewish went and kind of harassed

him as he walked but they're getting into his face and blocking his path it's yeah it's very confrontational it's very inspirational

I mean intimidating Omstek later told Bloomberg that he was bewildered by the confrontation it all felt felt very threatening and it did not seem like they were open to a conversation. People are calling you a pedophile Satanist. It's like, oh, let's talk this out. You don't seem

very open to a back and forth on this issue. This paranoia even affected small towns. In the Dutch town of Almello, someone wrote QAnon rhetoric in chalk outside the town hall. It said in Dutch, we are ruled by satanic pedophiles. You know, I have to say it was awfully thoughtful for the vandals to do their graffiti in like washable chalk. Like our Q&O vandals, like they went into like a Catholic church and then they fucked up the altar. But in Netherlands, they just do like chalk that can be like a wash off of a hose real quick.

Reporters were also targeted by hostile conspiracy theorists. According to the Dutch broadcaster, NOS, its journalists dealt with verbal abuse and garbage being thrown at them. In one incident, a person urinated on an NOS van, this continual harassment was so bad that NOS. decided to remove its company logo from all news vans to prevent them from being targeted. These sorts of incidents made Dutch public officials take the threat posed by Q&N seriously. Four times a year, the country's national coordinator for security and counterterrorism

publishes a terrorist threat assessment for the Netherlands. The most recent report, published in November, warns about the radicalizing effects of social media and conspiracy theories. Since the coronavirus pandemic began, expressions of social dissatisfaction. satisfaction have increased both online and offline. Some of the groups and individuals involved have found common ground rejecting the authorities or government policy. This sentiment is rooted less in ideological motives than in feelings of injustice, strong discontent or a different perception of reality.

In addition, people who have a long-standing distrust of government, science and traditional media can now see their ideologies confirmed in conspiracy theories and disinformation. Social media play a facilitating and mobilizing role in this regard and add further fuel to the fire. Alongside the diverse law-abiding upper layer of activists, there is also a radical undercurrent in which staunch distrust of the authorities can lead to extremist conduct. This is so, I mean, it really makes me think because, you know, a lot of the issues that QAnon brings up, we talk about how they broadly have the right feeling about things, that things are corrupt and things are wrong. And then, but what people do to defend the system broadly against that is they put them all in one thing, right? So here they're listing three different things.

Distrust of government, science, and traditional media. It's like, I'm sorry, but two of those are fine. And the science thing, that's on you. That's your educational system that should be fucking taking care of it. But the two others, distrust in government, how would they have that? Distrust in media? How dare they? How dare they with the history of all these countries?

I mean, I don't know. That's where I think I block up on this because it's just too easy to tie them together and be like, they don't trust any of this stuff. Yeah, I get true. saying. There's concern that because people are, you know, calling, you know, journalist Satanist, and that's a reason to, like, criminalize or sort of, like, make a, or stigmatize all criticism of the media or something. Well, even within the group of people who call them pedophile and Satanist, you'll have maybe 20% calling them pedophiles and Satanists, and the rest don't. They're just like, you're corrupt. You're lying to us. You're bought and paid for. And that's the

part they don't want to listen to. And it's very easy to put the clip in of the person saying Satan, pedophile, even if the rest of the critique was decent, or if the animus comes from a place that is actually informed. At least one Dutch QAnon follower is attempting to penetrate the world of business. The Dutch public relations professional Ronald Heister, along with UK Q&M promoter Martin Gettys, created a consulting company called Bossmaker. This consulting company is dedicated to helping businesses through The Great Awakening. The idea is that the events prophesied by QAnon, such as the collaboration.

Lapse of the mainstream media and the mass arrest of the political and cultural elite will have a big impact on businesses in all industries. They're basically trying to be the McKenzie and Company for QAnon. Yes. But instead of things like accelerating the opioid epidemic, Bossmaker will supposedly help guide your business through the risks and opportunities that will arise in the aftermath of Hillary Clinton's execution. Their website reads, trust your plan. Navigate the Storm. Here's how Ronald Heister describes Bossmaker. Top open source intelligence analyst Martin Geddes and I will discuss why it is crucial

for you as a private individual, a corporate or civic leader, or as a professional advisor, to have the proper insight on the unprecedented, unfolding, geopolitical situation, a situation that will change everything in your corporate and private life. If it wasn't a contentious term, Bossmaker would be subtitled the Great Awakening for Business. Dutch Q&ON has also had an impact on the worldwide growth of the movement. Most significantly, the country has given the world the Dutch conspiracy theorist Jeanette Olsebart, who created the 10-part video series Fall of the Cabal. Now, Fall of the Cabal is probably responsible for radicalizing more people in the Q&N than any other video.

It was mentioned on the pier by Jessica Prim. Yes. And it's been mentioned many times by promoters. and people in new age circles that have switched over. Yeah, whenever people talk about, like, you know, what was it that radicalized you? It was either, like, Joe M's videos or possibly, you know, out of shadows or fall a cabal.

Yeah, the first words out of Jessica Prim's mouth when she pulled down the window to talk to the cop was, have you seen Fall of the Cabal? And she's just crying. Even though Fall of the Cabal isn't very well produced, it may have been successful, in part, because of its gripping introduction. We are about to witness one of the greatest

events in human history. The world as we know it is crumbling before our very eyes and the majority of the world population is not aware of it. Power structures that have been in place for thousands of years are taken down as we speak. Soon will be shown evidence of an elite plan so evil, so all-encompassing that people will be shocked to the core. This document was made to help you deal with what's coming. Is it a good thing? Oh, yes. It's the best thing that could possibly happen to us.

If you listen to this podcast, you're probably already familiar with the conspiracy theories promoted in the fall of the cabal. It goes over everything from anti-vaccine conspiracy theories to endocrine to Bill Gates' conspiracy theories to the Seth Rich conspiracy theory

and a lot more. Part 10 of the video series even promotes the JFK Jr. Lives conspiracy theory. So it just goes all out. Osabard was mostly unknown in fringe, even in the Netherlands, until this video was released. This is despite the fact that Osabard has been publishing conspiracy theory content for decades. According to her own account, she never thought about conspiracy theories at the beginning of her life.

In the 1980s, she studied language and literature at the University of Ronadin, after which she started a translation and communications consultancy. But all that changed in 1994 when she saw what she saw what she was. believed to be a UFO crop circle. This experience which she had in the town of Witten changed her profoundly and she became obsessed with crop circles. As we often see with conspiracy theorists, Osabard's obsession hurt her personal life. In a 2019 documentary, Al-Sabard said this. My parents said, you have gone mad. I had a lot of problems with family, lost friends. They always made the same jokes on birthdays. Being roasted by your friends on your birthday, man.

That's rough. They're calling me again a loser. Why have they waited till today, the day of my birth? Happy birthday, Janet, you're a fucking loser. To phone me over and over, ridiculing me. Soon after Osabard got pilled, she joined an organization called the Dutch Center for Crop Circle Studies. She wrote books about crop circles and gave guided tours of supposed crop circle sites. And in 2005, she became the chair of the organization.

But all of this was a mere lead-up to her production of the fall of the cabal movie, which earned her worldwide fame in the conspiracy theory world. As the press started to scrutinize her, she responded by being hostile towards reporters. For example, after the journalist Chris Klomp wrote about her earlier this year, Ossibur told her followers to bombard him with messages. This resulted in the journalist receiving a ton of messages wishing death on him, threatening sexual violence, calling him a pedophile. you know, pretty standard fare.

Apparently, many of these messages are in bad Dutch, so they don't translate very well. But one of the messages roughly translated to, you are a dirty cancer pedophile. When I see you, I will fuck you so you no longer walk. Hors child. According to Rudy Balma, Janet Alsabard is known for being eccentric and temperamental.

Well, according to people around her, she's got a pretty much of a temper, walks away when asked critical questions. attacks journalists online, connects journalists, some of them, to pedophilia, walks around naked at a campsite where she writes her stuff and where she works, and arrests people with plans to build a UFO landing spot. So you can't really say she is taken seriously at all in the Netherlands, but yeah, as you were mentioning her Falts Cabal videos, although looking a little bit amateuristic, I might say,

are, yeah, watched millions and millions of times. She's running her own nudist colony? Yeah, and also she's trying to build apparently a UFO landing site at her kind of cabin where she lives. We should have her on the podcast, but like go to her. Sure.

Field trip. Like in the United States, a handful of celebrities in the Netherlands jumped on the Q&M bandwagon. For example, the Dutch former soccer player Brian Roy is a Q&M promoter. During an appearance, on a British Q&ON podcast, Brian Roy said that he got pilled

after watching the conspiracy theory film Zeitgeist on the recommendation of UK pop singer Robbie Williams. Nice. Well, the moment I thought something is totally off here in this world was the moment that I saw

on Facebook, Robbie Williams. That was in 2011, I guess, 11, 12, 12, and he told something about you should see, you guys, you should see this movie. It has a total different fuel on society. And that was zeitgeist. The classic conspiracy film, zeitgeist.

That loose change, old school, brings back memories. In the realm of pastel QAnon, Rudy Bauma told me that Dutch Victoria's Secret model Dautzen-Kruits frequently promotes conspiracy theories on Instagram. And one of our famous models, which is Dautzen-Cruz. She used to be one of the models in the larger race shows of Victoria's Secrets. She has also turned conspiracy thinker on Instagram. She is a little bit fake about it, but she is also, well, posting words like, I think it was The Great Awakening, stuff like that, you know.

So she doesn't really explain it, but she flirts with it as well. But the most significant Dutch celebrity QAnon promoter is the rapper and television presenter Franz Christian Fredericks, better known by his stage name Lange Franz. Kike to the lute, peaned brust, my brain rust. Ge brainwashed through TV, I get no rust. I know, only my set rich was no rust. Give official zero fucks and don't cut

Selves in my shadow is it smold. Rudy Baumah told me that the music of Lange France has always had a conspiratorial bent but in 2020 the rapper pivoted right into Q and on. And he's a pretty famous rapper in the Netherlands he raps in the Dutch language

and well it's probably pretty popular for many years now. He had been speaking about all kinds of conspiracy theories like 9-11 and stuff like that for a longer time. But this spring he released a track called Lockdown Fal-Kalqabal, mentioning the Qaeda slogan, When We Go One We Go All in the lyrics. And also mentioning in his lyrics, Shannette Ossan Baerter, the Dutch producer of the Fall to Cabal documentaries.

Yeah. Lange France. Benji up the beat. Welcome on the all lippest festival. Langell You have a This is the fall of the cabal

Where we go one We go all There hanged what in the Lugt It is the lintefast Lost a screw for Noid me Into fast

Goud Ehrlich as the Kheness was The ball He goes not Therein Lange France Also has his own

podcast in the Netherlands The podcast is in Dutch So while listening to it I was only able to make out The occasional phrase Like the laptop

of Anthony Weiner. FBI and satanic blood drinking elite. Nice. And the laptop of Anthony Weiner is, obviously, all a year in the business of the FBI and police and the legion. There are also super blast and things. And this is also

that I hope to very long that it not war is. But the verhaler that the back come via various ways are that we're regeered by, and I can it not shorter and chariere than this, an in-in-in-in-slech and in a satanistice

blood-drinkinging elite God damn Dutch is such a beautiful language I mean I think this is kind of like the beauty of being a modern conspiracy theorists since it's global

like I can go to like anywhere in the world and to where the pilled people are and say the word like frazzle drip and they'll know exactly what I'm talking about their eyes will light up Elve made a new friend. Ah, Fraseltrip. The Universal Language.

Lange Franz invites on other conspiracy theorists onto his podcast like Janet Asabard. In fact, Rudy Bauma told me that the rapper's conversation with Janet Osabart generated some controversy because they fantasized about killing the prime minister. This episode became controversial here because together they fantasized about, let's say, the necessity of stopping our prime minister, Mark Rutzen,

it's a corona policies and they then both said they well they they like fantasized about killing him but also saying they didn't want to kill him themselves because they wanted to keep their karma clean or something like that so that was picked up and and made headlines here in the netherlands also helped organize a save the children rally in the netherlands this was part of the save the children rallies and marches that were held in countries all over the world. These rallies, of course, were designed to provide a soft front for QAnon, allowing them to promote Q&N theories without actually admitting that they are Qadonon rallies. Rudy Bauma asked Langefran's about Q&N at the save of the children rally. But since this was supposed to be a soft front, Langefran's,

of course, responded by saying this. I'm not going to talk about that at all. You are being very annoying right now. I'm just telling you that we are not going to talk about. I'm leaving. I don't like this at all. There are always two minds to be like, oh, we need to get the word out. We need the red pill the world. But then like, so this is a QAnon rally. I don't want to talk about. Shut up.

Go away. Being very annoying right now. In October, Langa Franz's YouTube channel was removed. YouTube said it was because of repeated violations of the community guidelines. Langefranz, of course, claimed that he was being censored. And that he was banned because he was recently mocked on the Dutch satirical show. Zonda met Lubach So they made fun of me

So I got banned Yep Lange Franz was far from the only Dutch QAnon promoter who got the banhammer from social media In early November

Twitter removed at least 90 Dutch accounts that supported and shared conspiracy theories by QAnon Also like in the United States QAnon in the Netherlands intersects with mainstream politics

Rudy Bauma told me that a far right member of the Dutch parliament appeared on Langa Franz's podcast Actually, he invited a Dutch politician on the far right, Viberen van Haga. And this politician, obviously, he was also criticized because, yeah, he was a guest in such a podcast filled with a lot of conspiracy theorists, because he is not only doing Q&O and all stuff, but, well, he's probably every, every conspiracy theorist in Netherlands probably has been a guest in his podcast. He's doing, like, all kinds of stuff. doesn't have a good reputation anymore, but nevertheless, one of our parliament members

talk to him for an hour or so. Tragic that Viberin von Haha is gaining such a political power. There has been a cozy relationship between the Dutch Far Right Party Forum for Democracy and QAnon. The party leader of Forum for Democracy, Thierry Bodei has frequently retweeted Q&N accounts and promoted other conspiracy theories. And this is significant because this is not a totally marginal party. There are over a dozen political parties represented in the Dutch Senate, but in 2019,

Forum for Democracy won a plurality of votes in the provincial elections. That gave them more Senate seats than the Prime Minister's Liberal Party, People's Party for Freedom and Democracy. However, the conspiracy theories that fuel that parties rise also led to its downfall. On November 21st of this year, a Dutch newspaper published screenshots of conversations among members of the youth wing of the Forum for Democracy Party. One party member praised the economic policies of the Nazis. Oh. Others made...

I mean, that's what Candice fucking Owens did over here. Others made overtly anti-Semitic and homophobic remarks. It was later revealed that the party expelled five whistleblowers who raised concerns about the rhetoric. One of the Forum for Democracy members who was elected in that 2019 landslide election also revealed that party leader Tieri Baudet promoted coronavirus conspiracy theories.

Specifically, Baudet claimed that George Soros introduced coronavirus to steal our freedoms. Yeah, he introduced it. The ploy, he explained, was meant to accomplish what, quote, Hillary Clinton and the pedophiles failed to do. These revelations caused the far right party to collapse. Senators stepped down, party members tore into Baudet for his poor leadership, and Baudet himself resigned as party chairman and leader for the 2021 election campaign. Now, even though QAnon has caught on in the Netherlands, this shows to me that the Dutch still have kind of an underdeveloped conspiracy theory culture when, you know, compared to ours, you know, there are no consequences for promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories here. In 2018, there are actually rewards.

Yes, exactly. In 2018, Florida congressman Matt Gates said that a migrant caravan was being financed by George Soros. And he did it on Twitter, not like in a private conversation. And then last month, he was re-elected with two-thirds of a vote. So the idea that a politician could face political consequences for privately saying that George Soros is the Jewish puppeteer for everything that bad that happens in the world is, I don't know, kind of mind-blowing to me. Studying Dutch QAnon was fascinating because I'm not very familiar with the Dutch culture or the political system, but I was able to recognize how QAnon infected that culture and political system. You know, celebrities acting as advertising towers for QAnon, how conspiracy theorists gained huge audiences thanks to Q&N, the Save the Children rallies, and the far right exploiting and promoting QAnon are all things we've also seen in the United States. So that made me curious about why QNon seems to cross borders so easily and how much QAnon has spread across the globe.

To get a better handle in international QAnon, I've invited Mark Andre Argentino, a PhD candidate from Concordia University, can't Canadian and three-time podcast guest. Yeah. Mark Andre, thanks again for coming on the show. Thank you very much for having me. You've been tracking the international growth of Q&N. So how many countries have a Q&N presence, according to your data? Right now, I'm up to 85 countries to have a Q&N presence.

Though I'll caveat that some of these countries have this presence because of European expats. So if we take, for example, something like Martinique, it's going to be mostly French expats living in there talking about French politics rather than more of a domestic audience in some of the cases. I mean, it sounds like your people are just pilling the world, Julian. So in this episode, we specifically covered, like, Dutch QAnon. So what has your data uncovered about, like, the growth of Q&ONN in the Netherlands? I think Q&N Netherlands plays an important role within the Q&N circle, even before, like,

looking at the politics themselves, we just, you know, the documentary, it's fall cabal is from a Dutch conspiracy theorist. But I think similar to the U.S., what I've seen is, you know, QAnon has tied itself to the political right in both the Netherlands and in the U.S. If you're looking at the election that recently happened in the Netherlands, you really saw candidates that were echoing or that were Donald Trump-like having a Dutch base that were linked to QAnon. And you've seen that as well with the anti-mask protests or they saved them.

children protests are happening in the Netherlands this summer, they're all carrying along a mixed bag of domestic content as well as Q&ON. That's kind of what we've seen in the Netherlands. Yeah, it seems like this is something that we see a lot. It's like Q&ON is just sort of like an add-on to like the far right. It's like a plug and play, a way to like energize the far right in any country in effects. No, it is. And if like in the Netherlands, it was initially Geert Wilders that was really finding that Q&N base, but even now, one of the candidates in a primary minister's race

that is being called the Dutch Donald Trump. Thierry Bodei? Yeah, his name has been appearing a lot recently on Dutch QAnon Telegram. They're not very big channels. You have about 6,000,000 people there, but it's still a decently active community, and it's kind of representative of,

I think, the type of populations that are present in the Netherlands. It doesn't take a lot of conspiracy theorists to have an impact on the narratives and the conversations, especially on social media. So are there any factors that, like, that contributed to the growth of, of QAnon in Europe specifically? Because this is something I often get when people, I tell people international Q&ONM. It's like, why would people in Europe, for example, latch themselves on to a movement

that's fixated on Donald Trump, what they think is an entirely American phenomenon? I think it's important to realize that it's no longer just fixated on Donald Trump. When we were talking about the early QAnon stuff in 2018, 2019, it really was this perception that Donald Trump was going to travel to other countries and liberate them from the deep state. But the narrative has shifted in the past 12 to 15 months where a lot more of the international Q&O communities believe that the U.S. was the first country to awaken to their deep state, but every other country has a deep state of their own, and they need to awaken to fight it. And now this is kind of how you break away from the necessity of Donald Trump. And it really blends into more the domestic political landscape. So you still have this role where it's a typical conspiracy. You have the deep state.

They're all satanic pedophiles. So you're taking like the traditional NWO conspiracy from the 90s and blending it in with Q&N and, you know, international politics now. And this is how they're surviving. But the core features are still there. It's still an apocalyptic movement. They still think that cue drops are applicable to international countries. They're like, oh, it's like the really obscure ones that necessarily mention American political actors. Some of them reference content that could be interpreted to, you know, Dutch politics or German politics or Australian politics.

You don't necessarily need to have that American lens. And you're still seeing that, you know, you're still have a responsibility as an anon to awaken most people, more people to your cause and help them fight the deep state. and it still answers those needs. It feels sometimes that this stuff travels along the lines of globalization, but also austerity, countries that have experienced austerity from basically both parties, both parties proposing to them a future that has less opportunities than in the past. Are we seeing kind of like first reactionary push against something that is going to cause these countries to go down this path? because it is surprising that Q&ON has worked much, much better in the developed countries.

The UK, the United States, France, the Dutch. I mean, these are people that are at the core of the old empire and also at the core of the project of globalization. I think you have to have the bandwidth to participate in conspiracy theories. And it's kind of like this, it's a luxury belief in a way that if you have real struggles and you're in a quote unquote comfortable state, conspiracy theories might be a way for you to benefit from this. But let's be honest, in places like in the countries in the global south where you're suffering a lot more, conspiracy theories might not be the necessity or the exit that you'll need because you're not trying to scapegoat someone for your problems, but it's actually more about survival and like believing conspiracy theories

does not provide you that survival factor. It really is in these industrialized wealthy countries because it's a luxury and a first world problem in a sense that, oh, I'm, you know, I'm at home and I lost my job because of the pandemic, but the pandemic was created by a deep state world order that's trying to control the population, right? It makes more sense from that perspective. But don't you think like in a first world country where collectivist decisions like we're all going to take a vaccine are just kind of given to you vertically, you know, from a top down structure, things that used to perhaps be a project of a society now feel like. edicts from this kind of ivory tower. And do you think that that dynamic in these developed countries has also contributed to it? Because I don't buy that it's only people who have the extra time. I think that conspiracy theories confessor in any environment, even with people under extreme duress who work long days and don't have as much leisure time. But it does seem to be

taking more in these countries where we are experiencing more of a project of social control rather than countries that are more chaotic where the top-down structure is hit and miss or inconsistent, you know? It makes sense in that way as well, but the reason why I'm talking about it from the perspective of suffering and like the luxury of being from these global countries

is, you know, the suffering that people have gone through in a global pandemic is not something a lot of us experience on the day to day. You know, we've had, we've never really had political strife and economic strife and a health crisis all happening at once. But if you're in certain parts of the global, global south, that is your daily reality. And you've developed mechanisms to navigate that space

that doesn't require conspiracy theories. Whereas for, you know, your typical, let's say, white elite male in his 20s to his 30s or in his 40s or in his 50s who's gone through a wave of conspiracy theories in his younger years, you know, returning to that past or adopting this type of conspiracy narrative makes a lot more sense because you're not used to navigating difficult and complex scenarios of suffering and, you know, something like a conspiracy will provide you an easy answer that you don't have to make more difficult decisions and adaptations. And I think that's where the difference is. It's not necessarily that you don't have time, but it's that you don't have the mechanisms because you're so used to living a more comfortable life. And it also feels

like there's basically no friction for some of those people until there is. They don't actually have to be confronted by reality at any point. They can grow up in a bubble in their school, in a bubble of wealth in the First World Country, in a bubble of entertainment, in a bubble of online expressing of yourself, your true self. And so eventually it's like, yeah, there's almost no friction there. Of course, they're not developing the same stuff that's functional because in a world where you need the result of your actions to accomplish something, you know, like you said, in a third world country where it can be a life and death or survival is on the line, then, yeah, you are confronted with reality. And I think that in the West, in some of these countries, people are often not confronted with reality. And then when they find out that this system is rigged or unfair, they go, they freak out and they go straight to some of the more extreme stuff because they're just not used to thinking that their system is a fucking disaster. Whereas someone in a third world country is like, oh yeah, the government's totally corrupt.

And like, oh, yeah, the U.S. like tried to like, you know, basically take over our country at one point in the past. They're also awful. They live in that knowledge, right? Whereas QAnon people often, it feels like they're discovering it for the first time. The government's lying to us. You know, it's like they're fucking, it's hilarious because it's like, like we said, they have had not much friction in their lives and not much use for political speech. QAnon is really about a movement that's engaged in a power struggle.

And that's why it could, it's targeted and attractive to both elites and, you know, subordinate groups within our societies. So, you know, you find that you have this real, like, oh, I'm a Q&N believer. I'm in this community. I have this sense of effectiveness and community that I might not get at home in my own social circles. And then you have like 2020 that pops up and you have these unfair social and economic situations that fuels basically Q&ON's populist resentment. And this is when governments are unable or unwilling to challenge the inequality. So during the pandemic where, you know, oh, I don't want to wear a mask.

I don't want to be locked down. My business is closed. I can't have a job. I can't go to school. I can't see my friends. I can't go drinking at the beach like I do at festivals every summer. Whatever it is, you know, the fact that you have this governments that are trying to deal with a situation that most have never experienced or been. prepared for, it fuels this resentment by people. And this is why they're turning to conspiracy

theories. And it's why it's attractive to different demographics and populations. This populist resentment is transnational. It's not unique to the U.S. It's something that's common in all these countries. And this is why it's this is what mobilizes them. And you resent up the government and the elites and you want to demonize them and scapegoat them by using conspiracy narratives. Interestingly, I mean, I think you can see the same Gulf and the same. kind of width of different life experiences in the original American revolution. You had people who wanted the revolution for very different reasons. The workers who were enlisted to actually fight that war, they were under unjust circumstances. And the landowners that wanted those people

to go to war, they didn't want to pay the taxes of the English. So to understand it in terms of the wealthy and the poor buying into it as a solution, you can see it as a project that would actually benefit them both. I mean, one, it will never benefit. It's a lie. And they're being kind of basically uses cannon fodder. And then for the others, they will see financial benefit and increase in power because they are basically in a geopolitical struggle on a higher level and they want to defeat their enemies. And so they know, hey, take the populist power, pointed at the other guy and let them lose.

Who gives a shit what they're talking about? QAnon, who cares? So is there an example of international Q&ONO that has been especially worrying to you as you're researching this stuff? I think the two biggest worries I have would be QAnon, well, I'll be biased, I'm Canadian, so I am worried about Q&N Canada, but it's not, you know, it's not the most, I guess it's not the most worrying yet. But I think Q&N France and Q&N Germany are the two most worrisome, in my opinion. Germany mainly because of the large, well, there's been some reporting recently about that, but the issue that they have with, you know, right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists actively participating in their police and military. it's a similar pattern we have here in Canada.

France has been worried me recently because QAnon France has organized itself similarly to what they were doing with yellow vests on telegram where every region, which is assigned a number in France, it basically now has its own telegram channel where people could communicate locally with other believers. And in the past two weeks, they've gone from just communication channels

to a channel that people have been creating to say, for those who want to move offline and actively participate in training and drills. So there's been actually a couple of groups that were created. It's basically called Le Grand Rivee, Active or Pro-Axif or something like that. And basically they want people to come training. So they have this piece of land in the south of France where people are able to go do tactical field medic training.

They have a gun range, survival techniques, everything. And the group has about 400 members right now that are planning to meet and train and these are like ex-Gendarmerie royale, ex-parachutist, military infantrymen. So there's people who actually have training and military acumen that are trying to organize offline.

And that's concerning in the sense that it's happening in France and a European country that has more difficult access to like weapons than you would in the US. And if it's happening in France, it's happening in other countries. So it makes me wonder

in countries that are not necessarily on telegram because it's mostly a European platform. form, you know, what's happening in place like the U.S. or Canada, which is likely having similar patterns of behavior. So you're seeing that, like, in countries that are already there where QAnon is actively trying to train offline for more, you know, physical action is concerning because QAnon-France is also very Macron-focused. They don't really care about Trump, even though they watch the politics of it. It's really more about their domestic politics and everything's going on. And that's how, you know, if you're already frustrated

over years of yellow vests protests, you're already frustrated with the government, and now you have this movement and you're training offline. That's a little concerning. 400 people and they're all going to be just targeting Macron? Pretty much. They hate him. Okay. Sounds,

Cher citoyen, I'm right now. So that's going to be a piece I'm writing right now for the early 2021 about this. It's not, that's a little more concerning. When like a conspiracy theory group starts training, it's kind of what I spoke about with my buddy Amar and the CTC Sentinel piece this summer is that if you had people,

you know, become, who develop this, you know, military acumen and training to bring about the realization of QAnod's plan, that's when it gets scary because it's no longer about the information war. Anything that's happening right now because it's pandemic situation, it's, it's really an unprecedented time, an election, civil rights movements and protests, a pandemic and like global chaos everywhere. No one's really gone through this. Like for me, like my biggest challenge of year was the ice storm in 1998 when I was a kid and we lost power for two. weeks and I was stuck playing board games with no heat and no power in my house.

But there is also like the fraying of participatory democracy. There is. The feeling I think among many countries that it doesn't actually fucking matter who you vote for because these people are all in like an elaborate theater just kind of shuffling the seats and you're just going to get, you know, increased kind of pro-corporate law and increased, you know, tighten up your belt for the rest. And so I do think that we are at a kind of crisis point. But like you said, you know, if you also lock everybody in,

door, suddenly the government's telling you what to do at a time where there's already a crisis of trust in the government. So that's a, that's a lethal combination. It is. And I think like if we would have been talking, you know, a year and a half ago, I don't think we'd be, like, it wasn't the Q&N movement we have today. And I don't think Travis and I and you guys, right, we wouldn't all be concerned the same way that we are. And we wouldn't be looking at this the same way. It would be easier to look at Q&N with humor in 2019. Right now, it's really becoming we've all seen this move and turn extremists and accelerated because of the pandemic because if it would just continue the trajectory it had in 2019 we'd still be focusing more on like you know

yes it's a threat but it's a future threat there's potentials and it's kind of more like you know okay let's see what happens it's not that serious now we're all sitting around this table and we're all talking about this on like online and articles and an interview is like yeah this is a crisis now we've been talking about it for years but we never expected it to accelerate it And I don't think any of us could have said it's going to end up in 85 countries. The worst part is that we're preparing ourselves now for essentially the first potential great disappointment or, you know, more like a great hangover. And that's the period where things get grim because we know that this damage kind of happens to people around the people who are involved in it or to themselves in majority. So, you know, I think those kinds of like, yeah, I don't want to see what it looks like to have Q&N on Deaths of Despair.

Yeah. What do you know about how QAnon is sort of developing of the global east? I know Q&N and the global east has had some growth. Japan has seen a decent amount of growth, especially around the popularity of General Flynn. I'm not the Japanese expert on Q&N, but I know it's one of the growing areas, but also places like Korea, the Philippines,

I have seen a huge amount of growth in those communities. And by huge, I've seen them go from, a few hundred to a few thousand in the case of uh japan it's it's you know 60,000 individuals that I've seen about on social media so it's still a a large segment of the population. So we're going to see an anime Flynn. I honestly would not be surprised if there is already some type of anime Flynn but honestly I think that anywhere where there is these type of wealthy countries there's going to be a capacity to do this. Japan has had though a huge history of conspiracy culture. So it doesn't surprise me too much that they're participating

there. But again, I'm not the top expert. Mark Andre, thanks so much for coming on the show and terrifying us, yet again. It's always a pleasure. You guys could find me on Twitter at underscore M.A. Argentina. Thank you so much. Go follow the man. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Q&on Anonymous podcast. Please go to patreon.com slash Q&ONANonymous. You can subscribe there for five bucks a month and get a whole second episode. every week, that's eight episodes a month instead of four. Plus, you'll get access to our entire archive of premium episodes. There's over 100 of them now.

When you subscribe, you help us stay advertising-free and editorially independent, which we value a lot and we've been that way since the beginning. We usually stream twice a week at twitch.tv. com. We can follow us there. We'll be resuming our streams in January. And for everything else, we have QAnonanananonymous.com, where you'll find merch, a link to our Discord. Access to the Lost Episodes 2 to 6.

Please stop writing in, et cetera. Before we go, I want to thank my Dutch Twitter followers, who all offer to help with this episode. This includes Rudy Bama for his insight, Gert van Dyck for directing me to Dutch reporting about Q&N and at Spot Too Tall on Twitter for some translation assistance. You're very generous with your time, and I would like to formally apologize on behalf of the United States for unleashing Q&N on your fine country. And also taking America. I mean, we could have had a Dutch, we could have had a Dutch utopia, you know. We could be living like them right now.

It could be New Amsterdam instead of New York. If you go up to Solvane, you'll see it. You'll get a little piece of what paradise could have looked like. I don't want these towns where they give you like a wooden mug and you pretend to be German in America and just eat hot dogs. Why not? There's a great casino there too. It's pretty fun. Okay.

All right. Sold. The Netherlands looks like a beautiful place and I hope I get the opportunity to visit one day. It really is. We're going to go there with the podcast. If there's enough people listening to this over in the Netherlands, we'll come to your city. It's very easy to attract this to Amsterdam, a lovely city. Lausterarish, that volhandeve it, and may deities ya Zeyhanan and behooed.

It's not a conspiracy, it's a fact. And now, today's auto queue. snipping at their toes. Fools tried carols swinging boats by a while, but folks stepped up to whistleblow. Now everybody knows it's murky but old sleepy Joe make his treason bright

finding lots of their lives all aglow they'll find it hard to sleep tonight because we know we know Atlanta's going to pay they loaded

lots of votes and pilots in their suitcase while every mega's child was trained to spy to watch those demon grots cheat the vote and lie lie lie lie and so i'm offering this simple phrase free trips for dirties free trips for dirt rhinos too oh amen although it's been said many times many ways merry gittmas no i said Thank you. You know,