QAA Podcast - Lock Him Up feat. Ali Breland (E281)

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

Folks, they finally got him. A jury of Donald Trump’s peers determined that he violated New York Penal Law 175-10 in the first degree. We chat about how the conspiracist right is reacting to the news with a combination of vows for revenge, lamenting the fall of the nation, and insisting that this is good for Trump, actually. Plus we touch on the film 2000 Mules getting pulled by its distributor in response to a lawsuit and the DOJ alleging that Epoch Times is funded through a giant money laundering operation. After that, we are joined by journalist Ali Breland to discuss his recent Mother Jones article “How Q Became Everything: The conspiracy group’s goal was to convince people the world is run by pedophiles, and, well, mission accomplished.” REFERENCES How Q Became Everything: The conspiracy group’s goal was to convince people the world is run by pedophiles, and, well, mission accomplished https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/06/how-q-became-everything-big-feature-wayfair-balenciaga/ Ali Breland On Twitter https://x.com/alibreland Guilty: Trump becomes first former US president convicted of felony crimes https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-deliberations-jury-testimony-verdict-85558c6d08efb434d05b694364470aa0 The upside-down American flag goes mainstream as a form of right-wing protest https://www.npr.org/2024/06/03/nx-s1-4987590/upside-down-american-flag-protest-symbol-history Publisher of ‘2,000 Mules’ election conspiracy theory film issues apology https://www.npr.org/2024/05/31/g-s1-2298/publisher-of-2000-mules-election-conspiracy-theory-film-issues-apology Epoch Times Executive Accused of Laundering $67 Million https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/03/us/politics/epoch-times-money-laundering-doj.html Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to podcast mini-series like Manclan, Trickle Down, Perverts and The Spectral Voyager: www.patreon.com/QAA Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (instagram.com/theyylivve / sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (pedrocorrea.com) qaapodcast.com QAA was formerly known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.

Keep mehaphton. If you're hearing this, well done. You found a way to connect to the Internet. Welcome to the QAA podcast, episode 281. Lock him up. As always, we are your host, Jake Rockatansky, Julian Fields, and Travis View. Folks, they finally got him. A jury of Donald Trump's peers determined that he violated New York penal law 175-10 in the first degree.

What does that mean? Why do I still feel empty inside? How are conspiracists reacting to the news? We'll answer one or more of those questions on today's episode, and we'll also talk about two more stories of conspiracies getting nab by Johnny Law. The producers of the election conspiracy film 2000 Mules pulled it in response to a lawsuit, plus the very weird media outlet, Epic Times, is actually just a money laundering operation according to the DOJ.

After that, we'll tone down the celebrations to speak with Ali Breland about his recent Mother Jones article exploring the current state of Qaeda. Tangerine Hitler is going to jail. Finally, he's going to get a full body suit that matches the color of his skin, which is orange. You know, you can use your lib-resist voice all you like, but they got it done. Historic case, they posted and meaned Trump into this legal trouble, possibly jail. Wow, you sound like a radical left. podcaster type.

I do suggest if you're a liberal and you are really wanting extra Schadenfreude, you should subscribe to Donald Trump's campaign emails because I've been getting the funniest shit. Just emails from him and it just

shows up as the header like in your inbox and it says from President Donald Trump and the subject line is, I'm guilty. I'm guilty of wanting a better America. Travis, I'm excited that you have dressed for the occasion, you are wearing a Hawaiian shirt. So I guess you're looking forward to the civil war that will result from a president being unjustly persecuted in what I can only describe as a witch hunt. I disagree. The tuft of chest hair with the absence

of tactical vest signifies that Travis is one of the good Hawaiian shirt wearers and not a part of a pro second Civil War movement. Jake, tell us more about your observations around the tuft of chest hair. Well, he's got his top button undone. He's looking relaxed. He's looking festive. We could put a Miami vice in his hands.

He would be really enjoying it on a beach somewhere. I see no weapons. I see no flack jacket. So I think your observations are wrong. He's not wearing any pants or underwear either, so it's a very strange look. You know, it's just a beautiful, day here in Southern California. It's in the 80s now. I want to wear a loose-fitting, very

comfortable shirt to enjoy the sunshine while I can. You're airing out the boys, as you should. I'm with you. I'm with you. Technically, physically, but spiritually, we are brothers, and I would love to spiritually on an astral plane kiss you on the mouth. So let's get into it. So a Manhattan jury found President Donald Trump guilty of all 34 counts of false. business records. The jurors said that they unanimously agree Trump falsified those business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in order to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. So this is just one of four criminal cases that the former president is dealing with, but right now, none of those other three have trial dates. I guess it's

illegal to get laid now. I guess we can't have any more fun in America. I mean, this is a very Trumpian way to finally get nab. The whole, you know, being a secret Russian back dealer thing, you know, that didn't have as much juice as he am just paying off a porn star. That makes more sense. Yeah, they should have always just, they should have always just gone for what he really is, which is like a shitty criminal business owner, you know, a greasy casino guy. That's where, that's where all the crimes laid all along.

I just like that all of America has to peer over these grubby, cum-stained. documents so that we can finally get this guy to squirm in front of a camera. And you know what? He might actually go down, but maybe it'll be related to the fact that he keeps essentially being held in contempt and that those can escalate. But I mean, okay, so I did some reading about this very, very cursory. It seems like he could still run even if he goes to jail and that he probably won't go to jail.

So we're still going to get him running, right? Oh, yeah, absolutely. So the, yeah, the sentencing is scheduled for July 11th, just four days before the start of the Republican National Convention, where he is set to become the official presidential nominee of the Republican Party. So, yeah, he could. He's like, even if, so we're going to find out if he actually is going to spend some time in jail. That will be wild. That will be wild. Because I'm told that, like, Secret Service would have to join him in prison.

Oh, my God. They would have such a good time. He's going to appeal immediately. And during that appeal, the election will happen. Because it takes a while. So I doubt he's going to do any jail time. That would be very strange. It's also his first offense, right?

So, you know. Yeah, he's never done anything wrong before this. That's a good fact. That's a good point. Well, the eyes of the law, he's been an angel for all like eight decades or so. He's been on earth. Yeah, but let's be real. So this is basically optics plus like he's like a multiple felon now.

But are they going to lock him up? Well, we're going to find out. But I mean, like I said, you're doing a teaser like, oh, keep paying attention to the episode, folks. They might lock him up unless Travis Hugh tells you the opposite later on. That's what you're doing? Yeah. Well, each count carries with it a maximum sentence of five years in jail. So technically, I mean, technically, I don't think it'll happen.

But, you know, he could get five years for every single charge, which would be quite a lot of jail time. I don't think that that's going to happen. I imagine he's going to get a fine. and maybe some kind of sort of performative jail sentence, like 10 days, which, let's be honest, would be great for his campaign. I think if the police walked Donald Trump up to the podium at the Republican National Convention in handcuffs, I think it'd probably be the loudest cheer that he would get from his supporters. I mean, to them, this is just another feather in the cap of, you know, the state trying to persecute.

the best president that they've ever had. I don't think that this sentence is going to change anybody's mind who supports him. And really, really, the main difference is going to be that when, you know, internet pundits, you know, talk about Donald Trump, they will add a 34-time convicted felon after twice impeached. You always call them pundits. That's what they are. They're like pundits.

No, they're pundits. I punt them down the football field. I do think that they should put him in like a black and white striped pajama with like a big ball and chain attached to his ankle. He's like, I really like hamburgers, okay? They've dressed me up as the hamburger, which is what I am. I stole all those hamburgers for the young football players. You should have the little black mask. My favorite is like this MAGA argument that like, oh, you think you won?

You think you beat him? Huh, good job. Now he has street cred. That's so cool. I love that argument. That's extremely funny. And I would argue, Jake, that it's not just about the base when it comes to the election. You're going to need a few extra voters in there.

So, who knows? It's going to be interesting. Has America really given up on all this kind of how things look? Or do they care if something is a bad look? Yeah. Are optics a thing of the past? One could argue that his entire existence is proof that optics are somewhat a thing of the past. But who knows?

I think another, you know, the final thing that I think is worth mentioning is the fact that A former president committed a crime and was charged with it and convicted of it. I mean, I think that there is some semblance of justice there. You know, you left it to the jury. They could have acquitted him if the evidence didn't, didn't, you know, look right to them or didn't match up or they didn't think that the prosecutors made a good case, but they did, you know, and he'll have a chance to appeal it just like every other citizen. But, you know, I do think that on some level, whether or not it has any kind of effect,

on the outcome of the election or Donald Trump supporters, the fact that this guy did something illegal, especially concerning, you know, his campaign and how he, you know, presented, you know, these sort of payments. You know, I think it's good that he got caught. I think it's good that he got charged. I think it's good that the jury found him guilty. It does show on some level whether or not I think it's going to make any kind of difference doesn't really matter. It does show that, you know, for lack of a better phrase, that no one is above the law if you speak badly of other politicians and the news at large. I would argue that there's one argument I've seen made that I do have to kind of hand it to. And that is that the fact that this is what an American president is being prosecuted successfully for is extremely funny considering what Bush did to get us into the Iraq.

Of course. Absolutely. Illegal surveillance, like the drone program. War crimes. There's a good argument that a lot of these guys should be in jail. Yeah. And I think, unfortunately, it is kind of a decent argument that Trump is being kind of, not unfairly, but at least like maybe targeted a little more than others that we'll probably not get

to see this again much. No. And we certainly won't see it about larger scale crimes that cost millions of lives. No, agreed, because this is a safe crime to charge a former president with. You know what I mean? it doesn't highlight, you know, any of the other atrocities. It seems to be almost kind of, like, isolated in its own sort of bubble of Trump and his dealings as a businessman.

Basically, you can do white-collar crime, but if you do lower-end white-collar crime, like the kind of white-collar crime you would do if you were like a used car salesman, that will be punished. Anything above that, eh, whatever. I do think that one result of this is that our political system will devolve into one party just trying to get the other guy in jail or girl in jail, you know, as much as they can. I was even seeing tweets from, you know, MAGA supporters basically being like, all right, like, all right Republicans, like start getting, you know, start finding crimes.

Like I think that we are about to be ushered into an era where instead of our politicians and our government sort of like trying to make lives better for the American citizens, they will just be trying to find ways to put each other in jail, which is funny, but also we all. all lose. We all lose, and we'll continue to lose. Joe Biden does seem to already be in a kind of spiritual solitary, where you have to slip his meals in the little slit to reach him. I'll spit my coffee out. Woo. All right. Travis, take us away. So let's talk about the reactions from the right. So among even like mainstream conservative media figures, the reaction range between like promises of retribution, lamenting that America has become a banana republic, or saying that

this is awesome, actually, because it makes Trump look like a badass. Fox News host Jesse Waters, who has been friendly with Q&N before, promised revenge. Trump was found guilty because he beat Hillary and is about to beat Joe Biden. I thought I'd be angry, but I feel this cool resignation, this resoluteness that were wounded as a country, and we're not going to go down, that we're going to get back up, we're going to regain our strength, and then we're going to vanquish the evil forces that are destroying this republic. And if you look at the American people, how are they looking at this? People are desperate for help from these politicians, for safety, for security, and these nitwits consumed with hate.

hatred are trying to destroy a man because he threatens their power. These are wicked people obsessed with a person and we will seek justice. We guarantee that. God, the fact that anyone would be willing to even kind of metaphorically take a bullet for this guy is so funny to me. Oh yeah, we're all under attack. Donald Trump is the representative of us, incredible. Yeah, and like what forces of evil are you talking?

about, dude. Like, the current president just used an executive order to enact like, you know, the majority of, like, Donald Trump's immigration policies. Like, what are you, like, I don't understand. What are you fighting again? He's got Jesse Waters using D&D language. Like, ah, we will vanquish the evil forces. I just don't understand what they're fighting against. What are they so unhappy about? Yeah, I mean, these people don't care about, like, policies. It's a soul in the world of, it's sports, basically. It's our guy versus their guy, and the goal is to make their guys look bad and prevent them from looking like our guys look bad.

So you made our guy look bad, we're going to make your guy. That's all it is. It's just, they live in this world of representation and aesthetics. The substance behind things doesn't matter to them. You know, Charlie Kirk had a lot of dramatic things to say about the momentous importance of the conviction of Donald Trump. Yesterday is a day unlike any other. It will go down in the memory of the nation.

Like the JFK assassination, like 9-11, it'll go down like the 2008 financial crisis, like COVID. It'll go down like the 2016 election. You will remember where you were on May 30. Relieffactor.com, 100% drug-free relief factor, knee pain, back pain, joint pain, elbow pain. And he's already wrong. I don't remember where I was on May 30. And that was like less than a week ago. Also, I would love if this, you know, went down in history.

as similarly to what happened to JFK, that would be so much better than what we're getting. You know what I mean? To just see, like, part of a fucking blonde toupee on the back of a car. Oh, boy, you are getting. I really hope the four intelligence officers that listen to this podcast, no, to not take Julian seriously.

He's off his meds, folks. He's ducking about things that he doesn't know. I would not be. I'd be driving in, um, Mercedes-Benz, not whatever he had, because... You couldn't think of the car? Mercedes-Benz, they do a lot better in terms of the lights that go under the door. Okay, there are lights under the door.

I think that the person you're impersonating, I don't know who it is, but I think that person should get... All right, God. Damn it. Well, he did. He did get domed by Stormy Daniels, and that's kind of where this whole thing started, really. Yeah, he got two types of dome. He got dome, and then he got...

Travis is giving his two weeks notice. All right, let's move on. I'm giving him my one second notice that everything he says in this episode will just be one long beep. And then it'll be my death threat, and then it'll continue to beep as he continues with his script.

Please continue. Laurel Lumer will appear on... Oh, wait, wait. I'm sorry, one second. Sure. I would also like Charlie Kirk to be... All right, fantastic. Jesus Christ, come on. This is just a podcast, man.

Come on. Yeah, continue, please. Laura Lumer while appearing on Tim Poole show, suggested that Democrats should get the death penalty for treason. And this led the live stream for Tim Poole show to just being immediately shut down. Wow. I would love it if Laura Lumer and Tim Poole got domed and g-ed. The idea that we decide, I'll put it this way, should Democrats be in jail? No question.

When Donald Trump gets elected, should he start locking them up? No question. Should there be lists of Democrats that need to go to jail 100%. The reason for that is they've committed crimes. We need to make sure that when Donald Trump wins, we've got an attorney general, a deputy attorney general, ahead of the CIA and the FBI. Cash Patel would be fantastic. We can have attorney general.

There's some names floating around. And then they can start having their investigators and the feds issuing subpoenas, pulling up evidence, and with real evidence, bring them to judges for warrants. then these people can spend three years of their lives fighting tooth and nail for the crime against the government for crimes they committed and we can prove. And the reason why we put them in trial is that we can show the whole world. We will uncover what you've done. We will make sure everyone knows and you will be held accountable for it. Not just jail.

They should get the death penalty. You know, we actually used to have the punishment for treason in this country. Yo. Okay. Careful what you wish for. That's cool, man. Yeah. All right, guys.

They do realize that the defense got to be a part of picking the jury, too, right? It's not like, you know, it's not like Hillary Clinton like went down to the courthouse. It was like, one, two, three, four, you, you, you, you know, there was a whole process to select the jury. And, and I would imagine that, you know, the defense was, you know, they wouldn't really let the trial go on if they felt like they had 12, you know, MSNBC, you know, stands, you know, deciding the fate of President Trump. don't care about the process. Again, what matters is that is the end result and it makes them mad. There was something that happened that made their guy look bad and they have to deal with legal consequences. And so they want to strike back. I mean, again, it's just this Hatfield-McCoy vision of politics. Like, you get her a guy? We'll get your guy. Totally. And if he had been

acquitted, they would have gone, see the, you can't pull the wool over the eyes of the American people, 12 heroic jurors did what was right for the country. You know, hats off to this judge. Hats off to this jury. I mean, it would have been, you know, you know. I think it is something we're going to be discussing later in the episode, but we have gotten to like peak kind of Q and on just being everywhere and everything, where you just have people being like, yeah, they should fucking execute that entire political party when something doesn't go their way. That is incredible. I mean, you used to have to tune into some weird rumble channel to hear that kind of shit. We're still on a weird rumble channel. No, we're not.

The Rumble Channel is all the channels now. The world is buffering. The world is buffering. The world is bitchute. Michael Flynn, fresh off of his nationwide tour promoting his movie, had this melodramatic response in a post on Twitter. Wherever you are, remember this moment for the rest of your life. Again, I don't think people are going to remember that. No.

People weren't even following the trial, mostly. It wasn't like the Mueller investigation got just constant coverage. People get the, it's like, it's like more Trump stuff happening. Yeah. People there are more interesting stories people are following generally. He has an upside down American flag as his AVI, which is extremely funny. But I don't know about that, Travis. I don't know if you read the front page of like CNN or tune into the 24 hour news networks.

They definitely were following this thing. No, I think he meant conservatives. I've seen a lot of court drawings of Donald Trump's deformed dome. So yeah, yeah. He changed his, his Twitter profile image. to an upside-down American flag. So he wasn't the only one to do this. Representative Marjorie Taylor Green,

Fox News contributor Guy Benson, and far-right conspiracist Ali Alexander also posted images of upside-down American flags. Also, this follows a report from the New York Times last month, which revealed that an upside-down American flag flew outside the Virginia home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in January of 2021. They have melted wives, one and all.

It was another Supreme Court wife. We need to do something about Supreme Court wife apparently just makes you lose your mind. Being married to a Supreme Court justice makes you go off the rails. We got to discuss the Supreme Court wife to majorly pilled pipeline. I don't think we need to discuss it. I think it needs to be a reality show that follows the real housewives of Orange County. You know, the housewives of the Supreme Court, what are they doing? What do they drink it?

What are they searching on Duck, Duck Go? You know, I think that that could be a really interesting show for a lot of people. So the upside down American flag was originally used by naval vessels to indicate that their ship was in distress, but has taken on political dimensions. Now, interestingly, I read that the inverted American flag was at times used by American left-wing protesters, such as those protesting the Vietnam War in the 60s and 70s. But in recent years, it's been used more frequently by far-right extremists. For example, the white nationalist group Patriot Front has repeatedly shown up to protest bearing upside-down U.S. flags. One of the many ways that Trump himself reacted to the news was by denying that he said, lock her up in reference to Hillary Clinton. He did this during an interview on Fox and Friends.

You famously said regarding Hillary Clinton, lock her up. You declined to do that as president. I beat her. It's easier when you win. And they all said lock her. And I felt, and I could have done it, but I felt it would have been a terrible thing. And then this happened to me. and so I may feel differently about it. I can't tell you, I'm not sure I can answer the question. Hillary Clinton, I didn't say lock her up, but the people would all say, lock her up, lock her up, okay. Then we won.

And I say, and I said pretty openly, I say, all right, come on, just relax. Let's go. We've got to make our country grade. Yeah. And it would have been, think of it. You lock up the wife of a president of the United States. Yeah, that's good, though, if he becomes president, he's just aggravated and no longer even.

cares about the few things that the few parts of decorum that he seemed to care about during his term. Who knows? I'm just amazed to have like how readily he threw his like his most passionate followers on the bottom. I don't say that. The fucking people are like, lock it up, like whatever.

He's like he's so contemptuous of everyone, including the people who, you know, showed up to his rallies. Of course, the claim that he didn't say lock her up is ludicrous. There are many compilations of Trump himself saying lock her up which were posted online. I will say this. Hillary Clinton has to go to jail, okay?

She has to go to jail. For what she's done, they should lock her up. So it's, I mean, it's weird that he would like this, like, this is like one of the main things that like people support him. This is one of the things that birthed QAnon, remember. He said lock her up and then like several months into his presidency, it doesn't seem like there was much movement on the locker up front. So instead, a bunch of people online who are out of their minds decided that actually there's

a secret plan to lock her up. Also, everyone else I hate. He wasn't lying. He wasn't just bullshitting us to get elected. It's going to happen, but it's happening in secret. You know what? I actually advised Donald Trump to take the Q-Nonstance on this and just start saying that he did lock her up. No, she's locked up.

No, exactly. Yeah, I was say like, yeah, just say it's like, that's just a clone. You see her? That's a clone. I've locked Hillary up. I win. Oh, Jake made the Trump face that he makes right before he does an imitation. And then he pulled back and he started vaping.

Wow. Restraint. But I want to know how the wider Q&N community was handling this news because, you know, one big part of the Q&N fantasy is that the justice system would, like, crack down on Trump's enemies. But here, Trump is the one facing all these problems with the criminal courts. The common theme among Q&N followers was that this is good, actually. There was this comment from the Q&O influencer War clandestine. The Deep State just signed their own death warrant. Trump's polls are about to skyrocket. He is still going to win, and now he has the precedent established to bring the full

letter of the law down on every single corrupt bureaucrat and politician in D.C. Game on. Smiley devil face. Yeah. And we have a picture of Trump. His hair is blown from left to right by the gales of wind and rain. I'm assuming the storm, but he must have removed the roof of the White House or maybe a window is open. In his 2028 presidential election acceptance speech, he's going to be like, yeah, they got me on falsifying business, lots of business.

But Hillary Clinton, she's human trafficking. These are two very different charges, okay? Two very different charges. They might have gotten me on falsifying business. But who doesn't, honestly? But a lot of people are not human trafficking, but Hillary Clinton is. So compare the crimes. I'm just saying, compare the crimes.

And you'll see who's different. and who's not, and who's locked up, and who paid the fine. Who's executed and who had to rejigger some of their business practices? It's a big difference, folks, and we're here for it. Another common theme in the Q&N community was that what is done to Trump is going to boomerang back to Trump's political enemies. This is a reference to a Q-Drump that said boomerang. Now, this is how this idea was expressed on the Q&N show, Eye of the Storm.

We just have to have to stay on rails, stay focused, friends, you know, I understand that everything that's happening is for exposure and thus far, everything that's happened to him is boomerang right back on them. And I'm not just talking about the court stuff. I'm talking about ever since he took the oath of office. Everything they've tried on him has boomerang right back on them. This will be no different. Okay, we've got a guy here who has a blue striped punisher skull. So this is like a combination of the thin blue line and the punisher skull. Yeah. And a mounted boomerang behind him on the wall. So that's good. You see and you say it's clear. I mean, they just have this endless ability to read the news and say, this means

I'm winning, actually, every single time. Do they know that, like, the person who throws the boomerang just catches it when it comes back? I mean, I guess they didn't really think through the metaphor, no. A lot of Q&L followers kept noticing the reappearance of the number 34. So Trump was found guilty on 34 counts. And shortly after this happened, the Trump campaign announced that they had raised $34.8 million. Trump also posted a 34-second video on Truth Social. Trump's press conference lasted 34 minutes. Now, what's the relevance here?

Well, first of all, 34 is 17 times two, so we got a 17 in there. Perfect. Okay. And then, so in addition of that, according to them, it's all pointing to Q drop 34, which is, of course, the first Q drop where Q clearance is referenced. 34 charges, 34-rays, 34-second video, 34-minute speech posted also in the middle that speech at the 1134 minute mark so what is the big deal about 34 okay as why don't you read for the audience this particular cue and then you can give your take on what what uh what basically is

pointing to brother sure thing dude uh secure cue drop 34 came on november 1st 2017 uh cue clearance patriot my fellow americans over the course of the next several days you will undoubtedly realize that we are taking back our great country the land of the free yeah they He goes on to read the whole Q drop for this show. That's basically it. Whenever anything happens to Trump, they just, you know, they just return to the pile of entrails and bones to read, to divine the future. Well, good play, liberals.

Have you considered that I am rubber and you are glue? Yeah. I mean, why not just make it 17? Why not put out a 17 second video? You know, the fact that I got to divide the number by two to get the code is like, yeah, it's a little much. Who the hell had learned how to divide 34? That's crazy.

That's what makes it, you know, a little bit more participatory. You got to take that extra step. I mean, if it just said 17 everywhere, any weirdo normie could see what was going on there. The fact is 34. You got to work for it to figure out where the 17 is. Because Trump knew all along, all along how many charges he was going to get convicted of. Now, I also wanted to discuss an update regarding Dinesh D'Souza's film 2000 Mules. This is a film that falsely claimed that the 2020 election was decided.

thanks to so-called ballot mules, stuffing votes into these ballot drop boxes. One of the people accused in this film was a man named Mark Andrews, who was shown putting five ballots into a drop box in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Now, it's perfectly legal to drop off ballots for other people in Georgia, so that's not evidence of doing anything illegal. In the film, DeSuzza falsely claimed that what Andrews was doing was criminal, describing the votes as fraudulent. And so, Mark Andrews sued Salem Media.

the organization that produced the film and this lawsuit was successful in response Salem Media released a statement disowning 2000 Mules and declared that they will no longer distribute it and here's what that statement said Salem Media Group Incorporated and its former publishing division

Regnery Publishing published a film and book entitled 2000 Mules that examines allegations of voter fraud related to the 2020 presidential election. In publishing the film and the book we relied on representations made to us by Dinesh DeSuzza and True the Vote Incorporated TTV that the individuals depicted in the videos provided to us by TTV, including Mr. Andrews,

illegally deposited ballots. We have learned that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has cleared Mr. Andrews of illegal voting activity in connection with the event depicted in 2000 Mules. It was never our intent that the publication of the 2000 Mules film and book would harm Mr. Andrews. We apologize for the hurt the inclusion of Mr. Andrews's image in the movie, book, and promotional materials have caused Mr. Andrews and his family. We have removed the film from Salem's platforms, and there will be no future distribution of the film or the book by Salem. So that ends a long, pointless saga. I also like the idea.

It's like, well, listen, fucking Dinesh D'Souza said you committed a crime, and we just believed them. So we didn't really look into it too deeply. Now, perhaps you're familiar with Epic Times. We covered them on this podcast all the way back in January of 2020, more than four years ago. And they were on our radar because they actively promoted QAnon. Now, this is a media company with a far-right conspiracy slant that offers these free Epic Times

newspapers, which are possibly stacked up in the corner of your parents' house for some reason. You may also know them from their weird billboards that just say, number one, trusted news next to a picture of some dude. Have you seen these? I mean, I sometimes see them driving on the freeway. Oh, yeah, I thought this was a picture that I took because I did post one on Twitter back in the day. I've seen this. I thought the billboard at first was for an accident lawyer, and then I realized it was, it was

epic times. Yeah, it's awesome that, like, weird Chinese anti-communists who've been exiled for being in a cult are, you know, just kind of fooling around here in the United States and partaking in the culture. Yeah. Well, you know, I think, so I think the Falun Gong cult, they sort of, they noticed the success that, you know, the unification church cult had and manipulating U.S. politics, really embedding with the Republican Party and the right. And they said, like, hey, I can do that. And they could. Well, according to the Justice Department, this media company was at the center of a fraudulent money laundering and cryptocurrency scam involving tens of millions of dollars. This information was revealed in an indictment of the company's chief financial officer Bill Gwan.

Now, Gwan is accused of mastermiding a scheme in which he managed an overseas team, which was called Make Money Online. I get this ad in between rounds of words with friends, too. It brings us no pleasure to announce that Jake is now in the poor house. So here's from a statement about that indictment. Under Guant's management, members of the team and others used cryptocurrency to knowingly purchase tens of millions of dollars in crime proceeds, including proceeds of fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits that had been loaded onto tens of thousands of prepaid debit cards.

The proceeds were then allegedly laundered through a certain cryptocurrency platform, then turned into digital currency at 70 to 80 cents on the dollar. The team members then use stolen personal identification information to open accounts and funnel the profits there and subsequently into accounts held in their own names. Now, they got caught because investigators noticed that Epic Times enjoyed a massive 410% increase in annual revenue from about $15 million to $62 million. When these investigators asked about it, Guan lied about the source of the money, claiming it was all from donations. So this actually, this answers a lot of questions about how they. were able to grow so quickly. How is it like this weird, obscure, cult-owned media company was like on every corner

and then all of a sudden every sort of weird, you know, conservative that, you know, is getting it delivered to their, and then all of a sudden there are all these billboards. Well, it was a massive money laundering scheme, which, you know, also answers the question, like, how do you succeed as a media company? Massive money laundering. Oh, yeah. So this is illegal now? God damn it.

This is America. To further discuss. the state of QAnon. We are joined by journalist Ali Bredland. He has written for The Guardian, the New York Times Magazine, Bloomberg Business Week, and Vice News. But his latest for Mother Jones has the provocative headline, how Q became everything. And I really like the subheadline, which is the conspiracy group's goal was to convince people the world is run by pedophiles, and well, mission accomplished. So, Ali, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yeah, we're doing the last episode.

episode. We, because this is it, right? QAnon 1. It's over. Yeah, well, yeah. Congratulations. We're closing up shop. Yeah, I've got all my, I've logged out of all my accounts. That was our goal. We needed to get it there and now we're done. You should have waited to do the name change until I did this. Then we could have timed it perfectly. Yeah. That's so true. You know, I'm glad you wrote this because it articulated something we've tried to talk about before the podcast, which is how like essentially QAnonon style paranoia is in the bloodstream of the discourse now. It's not some sort of weird, fringe thing that you have to seek out. It's everywhere.

And you point to two specific examples of popular conspiracism related to child trafficking. And one is the Wayfair conspiracy theory and the other was a controversy related to the fashion brand Balenciaga. So we've covered this on the podcast before, but could you like go over what those were about? Yeah. In like 2020, I guess like everyone's like sitting around on their computers, like stressed out about like COVID or a whatever. And this, like, weird conspiracy theory goes, like, super viral about Wayfair. And, like, the short of it was that people were saying that, like, kids are being trafficked via, like, armoas or, like, pieces of furniture. And it was, like, super absurd. And, like, in retrospect,

it's, like, crazy. But it was, like, so, I guess, like, it was so powerful that it had this, like, truly viral moment to the point where, like, the Washington Post and other outlets had to write about it and, like, not take it seriously, but be, like, all of these people believe this. And it was weird. It was this, like, very piercing of the veil moment where, like, Q and on and like this sort of conspiratorial belief became super mainstream. The other sort of like analog that I actually didn't write about in the story, but it was like sort of adjacent to this was like there was a similar panic with the Netflix documentary about QD's called QD's, which like, I forget the specifics,

but basically like right wingers were sort of accusing it of being this like groomer type of movie, which was like adjacent kind of fears. But there was like still, there were still both of these were like very, very big moments in the sort of like Q&on evolving into this other thing and these conspiratorial beliefs about children being abused, but like they were still kind of confined to the right a little bit. But then like, and they also seem like too ludicrous to continue. It was like this is like the apex. Like, it can't get any more nutty than this. Like this is going to recede. Like people will have learned their lesson. But then Balenciaga is where it hits this like weird point that

surpasses like either of these moments. And basically what happened was there was these two separate ad campaigns. One of them depicted children showing bears in bondage in like living rooms with like stuff like around them and then the other ad campaign was this one this campaign that featured like adults no children in an office setting and then if you like zoomed in on one of the documents in the table it was like a reference to a supreme court case that I think like had some sort of like relation to child pornography and so this like balloons into like a massive scandal people are like whoa balenciaga is like messed up and it's not just like the right that is concerned about this it's not just like hew and on people it's like everyone like yashir ali this

this journalist who is arguably left of center is saying the Balenciag is doing something messed up, Kim Kardashian, who is not a right winger, is saying, well, this is like very, I was shaken to my core by this. Even like Julia Fox, who had a sort of nuanced perspective was still like, you know, I thought it was like disgusting. So it was like this thing that was like in the zeitgeist that hit like way beyond, um, even what Wayfair had before. I love that like two of those have were probably texted by Kanye. Hey, check this out. I feel I feel like maybe, like he, he would have just said something, you know. Did he? I forget. Kanye would have wore the same things that the bears were wearing. Because when you say bondage, it sounds way more intense. It's like they had like

little black straps. They were just teddy bears like. Yeah. You know, it's it's BDSM culture and you make the argument in your in your article that like this has far surpassed the actual BDSM scene. It's like in fashion. It's, you know, it's it's everywhere. I spent time like in Ohio in the 2000s as a kid and like I didn't realize that there was like a sexual sort of component to like leather and like chains in black. I thought it was like a mall got thing. And there was like mall got kids at my middle school. And there was mall got kids at the mall that my family would go to. And like they were edgy looking. But like they were just people. I didn't think. And like I came across it later and like raving and like metal. And it was like I don't know. It took me. Maybe I was like a little too old by the time I learned that it had like a sort of sexual meaning to it. Yeah. To me it was always just like, oh, the guy in the basement in Pulp Fiction. Yeah. Well, that is sexual. That Jake has somewhat of a sexual love.

Yeah, but I didn't put that together when I watch Pulp Fiction. I just like, ah, it's a monster. It's a leather monster. That guy is a bald man. He loves hanging out in his home. That is such a good insight into your brain. It's funny because, you know, when I tell people, even nowadays, you know, if people ask what I do and I say, oh, I do this podcast about, you know, kind of debunking conspiracy theories and politics and all this stuff. And they'll say, oh, conspiracy theories, what do you think about the. Wayfair thing. Like, people still ask about that. It is, it is still part of the, the collective consciousness. The other one that I get all the time is, what do you think about the moon landing?

So, Wayfair and the moon, two of the topics, you know, at the front of the general public's mind. Yeah, people who smoke bowls on couches with Jake's mind. Nobody smokes bowls with couches on me anymore. I do all my, I do all my smoking by myself, okay? I will let the audience enjoy that last sentence you just provided us. Yeah, I remember the wayfair one was, was really bewildering because, number one, like, had the, the absurdity of the premise that, like, you just go to a mainstream website, retail websites, and just purchase children was the idea, it was the accusation being made, which has these secret names. And then the other element that made it very weird and scary was how popular was. It wasn't just constrained

to even, like, you know, like, you know, boomer or Facebook or whatever. It was like, it was on TikTok. These young people in their 20s were panicking about this absurd idea that somehow Wayfair was a hub for human trafficking. And it led to, like, some young people even being harassed because of the idea that they might have been human trafficking victims. And it's like, you're right, very few of those people were even aware of QAnon. It was just sort of this stance, this feeling like you are righteous in being very panicked

about this absurd idea, this cartoonish. false idea of how child trafficking works. Hey guys, I am currently doing this TikTok from inside an armoire. There's like a, not to make too much about aggression, but like, and I'm not like a big techno determinist, but like there's like something about TikTok that also just makes it like really right for this. Like I remember there was like the car seat like woman abduction conspiracy that like ripped through for like two days.

The Travis Scott like quasi satanic panic after like that tragic concert Astro World in Houston was like doing just numbers on their, I don't know, weird platform, but maybe that's why they want to ban it. TikTok, everything you can point your finger up at. Yeah. But if you had like 20 fingers at once. Yeah. I mean, I definitely think it says something about, especially during, you know, 2020, when the world seemed so unrecognizable and the, what seemed like kind of an old world problem

was now front and center and, you know, tens of thousands of people were. You know, I think it plays to the fact that people are desperate for any kind of distraction and conspiracy theories are a great distraction. And they also develop this sense of community. So two things that you're kind of lacking during these, you know, during these lockdowns are satisfied within these. There's something that's kind of apolitical about that, which which might help to explain why, you know, some of these theories kind of can cross the aisle, so to speak. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, COVID led to a lot of like weird digital behavior. A lot of people and like crypto think that like crypto did super well because like people were just sitting at home

with like extra time on their hands. And like while I do think that these things, we can get into this more later, I get into this in the essay, but like these things are the basis of like social and political forces. Like there is also just like whatever is happening in the moment, like both the mediums that these things exist on like social media, but then also like just other like material factors can help like exacerbate it or like flip in the other direction as people find other stuff to do. Totally. You have like a lot of, you know, and a lot of these, especially the influencers who are smart are saying, you know, at the end of their video, they're saying comment below, what do you think it is? Or what do you think is really happening? And when you get a lot

of engagement in people doing comments, you know, that lets the algorithm know to bring those topics further to the top for more eyes to see because it sees that they're getting a lot of engagements. So in a lot of ways, yeah, it is a snake eating itself perpetually. Yeah, yeah. That sounds like TikTok. It's like a constant. I'm going to mess up the pronunciation, but like an auriboros of just like stuff, just like it goes over and over and over and I don't know, produces like, I'm going to sound like a boomer, but it produces like overly produces deleterious effects from time to time for sure. Now, you discuss in your article how the most obvious like anteceded to Q&on was the satanic panic of the 80s. And that was generally

seen as a response to the changing family order in which more women were entering the workforce, more children were spending time in daycare. Your article discusses how this modern conspiracies panic is also driven by paranoia regarding the family order. And what is that as you see it? Yeah, not to like to my own horn too much. In fact, I think both of us were very prescient in this. So like when we sat down in 2019, me and you, Travis, like, we had this conversation at the time. And I was like trying to understand like the social and political forces that like had sort of grounded and were generating Q&ON. And I kind of had an idea, but I didn't fully understand. And like you said this really interesting thing, which I

cited in this current essay about Q&N winning. And, like, it was, you talked about, like, how Q&N was very preoccupied with, like, a return to this, like, economic order of, like, a prior age. And then, like, you also talked about how it had these, like, weird preoccupations with, I guess, like, traditional sexuality and things like that. And it seemed like that was, like, what was, like, I guess, like, the actual function of Q&N. But, like, and I noted that at the time, but, like, it wasn't 100% clear that that was, like, definitely going to be the case. And then by the time we hit, like, Balenciaga, it's, like, kind of clear that that was, like, I don't know if it was, like, the end game, but it was, like, certainly, like, woven into

the DNA of, like, what animated and motivated it and then galvanized. And, like, every step of the way, this sort of, like, energy around, like, fighting back against, like, the acceptance of trans people, this, like, sort of trad energy and, like, restoring this, like, Fortis family wage was, like, always just, like, bubbling underneath the surface. And, like, that's what got it, I don't know, like, helped, I guess, like, Balenciaga blossom. Actually, you know, I went off so far. I forgot the original question.

What were we getting at originally? Oh, yeah, yeah. So if the ADC, Tentan panic was driven by a change in the family order, what are the modern changes that are driving people into QAnon? Like we talked about it, just ended up being, I think, like, this sort of fear of, I guess like this trans panic, this, like, sort of homophobic impulse that had, like, it seemed like it had already been, like, litigated out. Like, it was like, even though there was still, like, plenty of homophobia in the United States

in like 2018, it seemed like inevitable that the LGBT coup community, at least to me it seemed like they would win. It seemed like it had been like a lockstep issue that even like Republicans had kind of retreated on. They tried the bathroom bills and the late teens in North Carolina and those were just like failed miserably. And it seemed like their assaults on the trans and home and gay communities would like not work. And then QAnon like help them establish like a grammar and a vocabulary to kind of come back and like fight these things. And that was like what was animating this sort of like panic that, like, metastasized into Balenciaga. Well, I think you bring up a really interesting point, and I definitely, I really resonated

with, with this piece of your essay. You know, we talked a little bit earlier in the episode before you hopped on, you know, after the Trump guilty verdict, you know, you have all of these right-wing talk show hosts and, you know, supporters kind of saying, you know, we got to fight back. You know, we have to fight back at this, you know, these forces of evil, I believe is what Jesse Waters was saying. And I brought up this point. I said, what are you fighting back against?

You know, and I brought up the point that, you know, the current president is enacting immigration policy that a lot of, you know, right-winger's would agree with. In fact, they were championing for Donald Trump to do. And yet it was done just today, I believe, with an executive order. And I think what it really boils down to is just that. It's anti-LGB, you know, anti-gay, anti-trans. That's really kind of what the forces of evil. I think they're talking about because policy-wise in a lot of other areas, you know, they're

kind of getting what they had hoped for in a weird way. And so what you're left with is this total inacceptance and total hatred of people who are different from them, especially, you know, in their sexuality or gender. And, you know, it's almost like for a while they couldn't just come out and say that, right? Because to some extent, it had kind of been a lockstep issue. and this idea that they have this new language regarding the nuclear family, which is ironic, too, because Q, you know, Q clearance stands for, you know, somebody who has, you know, has clearance at the nuclear level. That didn't make any sense, but we're going to keep it in. You know, you really do see that it is kind of a very simple thing that they really are rallying against, and it really is this, you know, women's position and status finally, finally at least being acknowledged on a grand scale that it, that it, that it, still remains to be, you know, it still remains unequal, but that there are people that are fighting

to change that, as well as, you know, visibility of gay and especially trans people. Yeah, it's something that, like, really bothers, like, a lot of people on the right and the far right to, like, a very large degree. And, like, QAnon, like, I guess, like, yeah, makes it very easy to, by, like, situating these things in, like, a sort of fear of, like, pedophiles or fear of children being groomed, like, which QAnon was, like, that was, like, what, I guess, like, what started it and what was, like, always, like, how, I guess the vocabulary of it and like how it was like established was like by like trying to talk about these things instead of talking about transphobia homophobia it was like a way in to talk about these issues like

lips of tic talk is like obviously like extremely homophobic and transphobic and the way like she gets around this is just by talking about grooming and like by like invoking the children and that's exactly what happened in the satanic panic which like I'm sure you guys have gotten into except at that point in time the issue was like feminism the issue is women in the workplace and so instead of like feminism and like kind of been litigated out it was like a thing that was like established it was on a path to like relative victory obviously we still have like a lot of sexism even now but like as a sort of project it was like doing what it had set out to do and so it was hard to beat that back but like what was easier to beat back was the idea that children were

under threat so by like linking feminism and linking the totems of feminism which were daycares which like helped women enter the workplace like the kids could be stored in a place so that women could have jobs and like no longer be reliant simply on men and be reliant on like their husbands, that sort of specific totem was attacked via the children being like in harm's way. And like, so that's just happening again. But this time you replace feminism and women with like the LGBTQ community, trans people, gay people. It's just like a way to it's a way to like sort of it's like almost like there's that like famous quote by I want to say it's that Nixon strategist. And he's like, yeah, we like lost the battle on talking about black people. We can't like be racist. But like we can like invoke crime and we can like in this sort of like thinly built way in public. Basically. talk about black people without talking about black people and be racist and like sort of win those voters over. This is like a different version of that. But instead you get to be homophobic without being homophobic. Yeah. How do you say Q without saying Q? Yeah. You know, exactly. Yeah. Well, and one more thing I think that's worth, worth discussing. And you talk about this in your piece, which we encourage

everybody to check out if you have not, you know, about this, this idea of some of these, some of these tenants of QAnon and right wing ideology kind of seeping into other areas. One thing I've noticed that's pretty troubling over the last couple of years is liberal sort of not talking heads or whether they're people on Twitter. I call them pundits, but Julian says that that's not necessarily the right word. No, I'm not challenging you saying that, but you call them pundits. Oh, instead of pundits? Is it pundits? Who cares? Anyway, I'm sure my mom will care. She'll be like, no, that's incorrect. You're going to embarrass me in front of my media friends. But like one thing I've noticed is that in an effort to kind of own Republicans online or whatever, they will call them gay or they will use things because it feels like they think that if their base sees their heroes as potentially gay, that they won't like them as much anymore.

But somehow in turn, like use like it's still homophobic. Like I don't know. I've noticed it, you know, kind of a lot recently, especially with, you know, Mike J. Johnson being elected the Speaker of the House. And it's just like, it's, yeah, it's very weird to see people who claim to be progressives using homophobic, you know, rhetoric to essentially own the other side while still doing homophobia. I feel like that is a relatively new thing, you know, in the last couple of years. But maybe I'm, maybe I'm off. Yeah, I think people, there's like a tendency among like some segments of, I guess, like liberals to like, I guess, like forget about the sort of cemetery potentially, like what they're engaging in with, like,

some of the critiques. I guess, like, the defense that some people would say is, like, well, we're just, like, attacking them on the terms that they've accepted. Like, I'm not homophobic, but, like, if this guy hates gay people, then, like, you know, there is, like, a hypocrisy to it. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. It's a slippery slope, though, because, you know, gay people are still seeing that and, you know, doesn't feel good using it as a dis, you know, you saying, you know, oh, Trump and Putin insert some kind of homophobic, you know, homophobic slur. Yeah, it's not good. I think people, the conversation has been dragged so low into the mud that I think people

don't see and it's happened so gradually over time that some of this stuff became so popular and became so mainstream that it sort of warmed its way into your own rhetoric. And it's just something I think for people to be conscious of. Yeah, I think it also speaks to, and this is like a bit of a tangent we don't have to go into, but like the, I don't know, the lack of like imagination and the. American body politic for like what's possible. Like America has always been like a place of extremely limited set of like political possibilities. Yeah. And like that's like widened up a little bit recently. And like it's like very destabilizing and upsetting to a lot of people on the

left and the right. So yeah. There's one paragraph from your article I really liked, which ran through the instances of casual and unevidence accusations of child abuse on the mainstream right. I mean, it's just shocking how, you know, easily and effortlessly, people make accusations of one of those horrible things you can possibly do. But, yeah, this paragraph I thought was really interesting. Public figures who embrace the traditional atomic family, like DeSantis, Racheck, and Rufo, smoothed out the grammar that Q established into more palatable versions, as people wholly unconnected to Q&N use this echoing rhetoric.

Serial plagiarist Benny Johnson likes to call President Joe Biden a groomer. Fox News's Laura Ingram has claimed public schools are sites of grooming. Republican lawmakers introduced anti-grooming legislation. Roger Stone recently accused 2024 GOP Senate candidate Larry Hogan, Maryland's former governor, of having a, quote, record of involvement with pedophiles. Yeah, I don't, yeah, like, I mean, I kind of watch these things happen and, like, this is, like, watching this stuff happen in real time as, like, the sort of mental genesis of this essay, I was like, oh, like, it's just, it's gone.

Like, it's, like, not just, like, on eight cune. And, like, I don't know, yeah, it was just, like, not this, like, thing at the rally where, like, I'd go and, like, talk to, like, robot interiors or whoever I was, like, talking to at Trump rallies back, like, pre-2020. It was just, like, this thing that, like, fully existed everywhere. And, like, these are, like, the, I guess, like, the biggest cases of it, too. But I feel like it's, like, infected so many things beyond that. Like, I was just kind of thinking earlier about how when Elon called that diver a pedophile,

that would still be an insane thing to do right now. But at the time, it had this, like, in addition to just being very shocking, it had this novelty to it. Like, I knew it was, like, floating around 4chan as a thing. thing, but it was like just so weirdly online. And like now it feels like it's like totally gone beyond that, which is part of why I felt like it was like useful to write and like acknowledge this. Like it is like a sort of like language that these people all kind of speak casually to one another. And they, they all understand it to be politically inventatious. Like I don't think that

they're just like sort of like unwitting sponges absorbing it either. They understand that their base is kind of like rabbit around these kinds of issues. And if they try to connect that and then like redirect it, it's politically expedient for them. This is a huge victory for Chan culture because originally accusing everything of being pedophilia or child porn was the joke, right? They would say anything with the initial CP, Captain Picard, cheese pizza. All of that is actually a reference to child pornography. And this was just a joke, a meme. And now we have it in real life.

Just everybody's saying, oh, yeah, I see it there. I see it there. You know, innocuous things are suddenly child pornography or everyone's accusing each other of being pedophiles, you know, even in the latest beef that you pointed out between Drake and Kendrick, you know. I mean, it has become just a way of like ending an argument of basically claiming that your enemy is ontologically evil. Right. Right. If you guys read Charles Portis as Master of Atlantis? It's a novel by Charles Portis like of true of fame or whatever. And I like just drew this connection now, but like that as you were just talking Julian about this, like you, the book basically starts off and is about

this like society of these like very goofy sort of like quasi-religious people that build this kind of cult society thing akin to the Freemasons. It's like very loopy. And the entire book is about that. And it's all built out of like one guy at the beginning, getting scammed by someone who makes up the cult. But like it's just purely a fiction that is like they're scamming the protagonist into like giving them money and then they disappear. But this guy just takes it seriously. And he takes the joke for real and builds an entire secret society out of it, which is like the plot of the novel for the next like several hundred pages. And yeah, like Q&A and like this whole grammar is like the same thing. It's like these jokes from

4chan ended up like building out this novel on accident. And obviously like tapped into real things in the culture, tapped into real social political forces, which like galvanized and pushed it further. But it is unendingly like goofy and funny that it just came out of some people doing a larp as a bit. They did not expect like these other things to happen. Yeah. I mean, what really strikes me is we talk to this about this on the show is the way this rhetoric absolutely fails to address the underlying problem, but also at the same time trivializes it. Because, you know, I would argue that society has repeatedly failed to protect children from predators. And that is a horrible thing. And, you know, in that it deserves to be acknowledged and

corrected. But instead of doing anything that's actually helpful, they turn this accusation of pedophilia into just a punchline, just an insult. Like, you know, as casual as calling someone stupid or soft on crime or something. It's really, I mean, it's really, really outrageous because it, it just waters down an accusation of something that used to be considered, you know, a textbook case of libel if it's false. Yeah, both directly to that point and more broadly, like the problem with Q&N too, or one of the sort of secondary problems that has always been like this like tool of misdirection. Like it's gotten these people who are like aggrieved for like sometimes like kind of legitimate reasons, sometimes not. And it like completely distracts.

them away from, like, material considerations for things that could actually make their lives better, could actually, like, reduce the suffering of, like, themselves and their communities and, like, refocuses it on to this, like, weird, fictitious, like, thing. And then, like, also, it has this other effect, too, of, like, redirecting actual energy from resolving, like, the abuse of children in, like, all of these different ways and communities onto this, like, absurd thing. I mean, I've heard you guys talk about this, like, a million times. You don't need to hear it from me, but, like, yeah, it's... Well, yeah, I mean, you even... I mean, you you note in the, in your article that, you know, during the whole,

wayfair scandal, you know, the actual human trafficking resources basically had to put out a statement saying, hey, we are like inundated with calls about this. And it is hindering us from investigating and, you know, potentially helping real victims. And, you know, we've talked about that before on the show, but, but it, you know, it's worth bringing up again that, you know, it seems like for all that, you know, for all that these people care about the safety of children, they are actually getting in the way of real of real investigations and real groups that, you know, that are tracking this down. Unfortunately, for the groups, it's just that they don't also believe in QAnon. If they also believed in QAnon, it would be great. They would leave them alone, but that's not the case. It's just a rhetorical

and a debate technique for reactionaries. You know, you point to children or you point to pedophilia, and that closes the kind of conversation because there's a moral imperative to condemn violence done to children and the actions of pedophiles, which, you know, that is true, but it is just a bludgeon. This sort of thing happened, too, like, with the hospitals, like, when hospitals were inundated by, like, Q&N people calling them up to oppose, like, I guess, like, gender for me care, care for trans children, which is also, like, some of the specifics of, like, what, like, I think Q&O people were getting their facts wrong, but, like, by calling these hospitals to

save children, they were, like, getting in the way of the hospital's resources and time to, like, treat kids and were getting in the way of people who, like, needed help. calling in about their kids. So, yeah, it's not, I don't know. It is, like, certainly more self-serving than it ends up being about, like, the children that they profess to want to care about. We'll be talking to Allie Breiland.

That article on Mother Jones is how Q became everything. We'll link to it in the show notes. Ali, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. Obviously, been a big fan since even before the show. And so, yeah, super great to be on. And where can people find more of your work?

I have Twitter, which is my name, Ali Breland. That's probably the best place. I write for The Atlantic now, even though the story's from Mother Jones, just got a new job. So if you want to follow my work, follow me on Twitter or you can go to my page at the Atlantic. Thank you, Ali. And thank you, listener, for tuning in to another episode of the QAA podcast. You can go to patreon.com slash QAA and subscribe for five bucks a month to get a whole second episode every week, plus access to our entire archive of premium episodes. It's a good deal. Go do it. For everything else, we've got a website, qa-a-a-a-podcast.com. Listener, until next week, may the deep dish bless you and keep you.

We have auto-keyed content based on your preferences. This was a disgrace. This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt. It's a rigged trial, a disgrace. They wouldn't give us a venue change. We were at 5% or 6% in this district in this area. This was a rigged disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November 5th by the people. And they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here. You have a sore respect, DA, and the whole thing.

We didn't do a thing wrong. I'm a very innocent man and it's okay I'm fighting for our country I'm fighting for our constitution our whole country is being rigged right now this was done by the Biden administration in order to wound or hurt

an opponent, a political opponent and I think it's just a disgrace and we'll keep fighting we'll fight till the end and we'll win because our country's gone to hell we don't have the same country anymore we have a divided mess. We're nation and declined, serious decline,

millions and millions of people pouring into our country right now from prisons and from mental institutions, terrorists, and they're taking over our country. We have a country that's in big trouble, but this was a rigged decision right from day one with a conflicted judge who should have never been allowed to try this case, never. And we will fight for our Constitution.

This is long from over. Thank you very much.