The Daily Beast Podcast - Inside QAnon’s Rise and How Trump Became It’s God Emperor

Episode Date: February 19, 2023

The Daily Beast’s Will Sommer takes Andy Levy from The New Abnormal through how QAnon has managed to evolve from a fringe group to now being more popular than many major religions in the U.S. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears.

Hello and welcome to another Sunday bonus episode of The New Abnormal. We thank you so much for being here. We have an extra special guest today with the Daily Beast Will Summer, who also hosts the Daily Beast Fever Dreams podcast. But he's here today to talk to us about his excellent new book, Trust the Plan, The Rise of Qaeda and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America. The book is truly amazing and he's going to give us some extra details from the the book. But first, let's have some fun. Are you guys ready for some clips?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Poor Seamus having to deal with that distortion. Okay. So I've been feeling bad. I feel like I've been torturing you guys a little bit. So I want to start off just going full stupid instead. Just full on stupid. Clips. So Newsmax is James Rosen. And as if the Newsmax didn't already clearly state this, well, he's a fucking moron. And he's going to demonstrate his style, as the kids say. Prominent themes that we hear from both elected Republicans and candidates has to do with what is called wokeism. And we hear about an anti-woke agenda.

And this entire subject reminds me of what Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said about obscenity, that he couldn't define it, but he knew it when he saw it. And so we hear so much talk about woke capitalism, woke military, and so on. And by way of trying to clarify this for the American people, I wonder if we couldn't begin with a threshold question to wit. Is President Biden woke? So let me tell you what the president cares about and what's important to this president. The president doesn't concern himself about what Republicans are trying to do in creating political stunts.

in making an issue out of the things that they feel benefits them politically, not the American people, not what matters to the American people, but what benefits them politically for their own ability to move forward. What the President cares about is exactly what I just talked about, and what he talked about at the legislative conference, which is how are we going to continue to deliver for the American people? You heard him say that at the State of the Union. You heard him talk about how the economy has grown. the last two years, the progress that we have made. And guess what?

He wants to continue that progress. He wants to continue to move forward to make sure that we lower the deficit, which he did the first two years by $1.7 trillion and be fiscally responsible. But he's, but he wants to work with Republicans on how we are going to continue to deliver, how we are going to build on the economic progress that we're seeing.

That's not what they want to do. What they want to do is they want to cut Social Security, What they want to do is they want to cut Medicare, and they want to take us back and not actually deal with issues that matter to the American people. Can you imagine? She goes on for about a minute and a half very eloquently retorting that and very well. Oh, Corinne.

Bravo to her. And reasons 8,064 million as to why I would never be able to have that job because I have no chill. Because I have absolutely no fucking chill. Because the face. that I would have given that fucking fool would have sent like laser beams through his body.

Like, because my response would have been are you dumb? And then next question. It is wild to me. The obsessions. It is wild to me what Republicans will waste their fucking time on and create all of this drama

around people being conscious because you want them to be a fucking sleep. The idea that we have incredibly real crises that are unfolding in America on a day-to-day basis, real things, real questions that you should be asking the press secretary of the president of the United States. That was not fucking one of them. And Republicans are not serious. They're just full of shit. And I wish that the American people would know that and get it and just move on and vote them out wherever they are. I mean, amen. A couple things. One, I think the correct answer to him would have been not

woke enough. Oh. But she'd probably be out of a job if she said that. Also, I just, I want to give a kudos to Newsmax. You know, James Rosen had to leave Fox News because of multiple accusations of sexual harassment, some of which were incredibly ugly. And thank God he didn't just get canceled and that a brave organization like Newsmax decided that he was so essential to the future of journalism that he needed to be back on the air. There's so many things about him that just blow my mind. Like the fact that he can even show his face in public.

Like without any shame or anything like that is amazing to me. That just means I suffer from the woke mind virus. Yeah, you can't shame the devil, Andy. You know that. No, I know. I know. So anyway, fuck that guy. Truly the thing we really lost on this clip, though, not having video,

was the looks of all the other people and the White House press room going, oh, my fucking God, I can't put my work with this fucking moron. The woke generals. All right. Well, the stupidity is going to continue. Mr. Trump, it turns out, everybody thinks he was parading those documents around a Russian oligarchs. He was hanging out selling state secrets to people. Nah, he had a better use for those documents.

Now, you also turned over an empty folder, marked, classified to investigators. Where was this folder and why was it turned over? The folder is kind of one of the more humorous aspects of this whole thing. This is not a classified folder. This is a folder that when my team went through in search, and they wrote up their report, which we turned over to DOJ, they saw it's a folder, manola folder that says classified evening summary on it. And it was in the president's bedroom.

He has one of those landline telephones next to his bed, and it has a blue light on it, and it keeps him up at night. So he took the manila folder and he put it over it so that it would keep the light down so he could sleep at night. And it's just this folder. it says classified evening brief evening summary on it is not a classification marking it's not anything that is controlled in any way there's nothing illegal about it there's nothing in it and when doj found that about it they went crazy and they said they actually gave me a subpoena to say give us over this

empty folder that means nothing how did they find out about a folder on his bed table we put it in our report we when we did all of our searches we wrote up reports on everywhere we searched everywhere we looked anything we found, where we found it. And we gave that to them because everything that we've done as part of that search has been in the spirit of full cooperation and compliance. And when they read that and they saw, oh, there's this folder here that is so far outside of the scope of the subpoena or anything else, they demanded it back. And so now the president has to find a different way to keep the blue light out of his

lies. I'm sure he has other options. But I beg me from wrong. Those Trump people lie a lot, but that time I believe them. That sounds reasonable to me. I don't give a shit about folders that say classified if there's no classified information in them. It's entirely possible that when I left the army, I took some stickers that said classified with me and put them on folders and stuff like that because I thought it was cool. Oh, so we're doing this from prison next week, huh, Andy?

It's entirely possible that I didn't do that. I honestly can't recall. Is this how you like sealed a Valentine's Day card or something? Honestly, can't recall. Okay, okay. I was trying to give law enforcement a lead. All I care about is actual classified documents. I do not give a shit about a Manila file folder that says classified on it if it's empty or whatever.

So, okay, fine. You know, I just feel like they should probably dust it for catch-up prints and then we'll know who's telling the truth. Speaking of telling on yourself, one Rick Scott, well, the rest of the Republican Party is saying, no, we don't want to cut Social Security and Medicare. We're very sorry to our base. He's like, yeah, hold my beer. I'll just subtly say it on cable news. Congress ought to tell you how they're going to preserve Medicare and Social Security that are going bankrupt.

Now, they say, oh, if I put it, I sit in there, we ought to review programs every five years. He said, somehow that's a cut. Well, you know what? If we, what do we do on defense? There's no 40-year plan for defense. There's no 100-year plan for defense. Every year we go through the defense budget. So if you don't support a 100-year defense plan,

you must be cutting defense every year. So this is disingenuous. I don't believe that we should ever be reduced in Medicare or Social Security benefits, but guess what? $31.5 trillion for the debt. When we get to $45 trillion of debt, is somebody going to take this stuff seriously,

say how do we preserve these programs? You know, I mean, you know what's funny, is that they never mentioned, they always talk about the whole number, but somehow they forget that only Donald Trump in four years added $7 trillion to our debt. Like, it's really fascinating to me all of the parts of the truth

that they actually leave out there. And again, there is no quiet part with Republicans anymore. Everything that they think, they just vomit out on a loudspeaker and then say, oh, no, I didn't say that. Oh, no, that's not what I meant. Oh, no, that's not what I typed.

It's like, we all know. It's funny to me because I'm like, we keep running out of money, and yet the government keeps taking taxes from us, and I'm just wondering where it goes. But, oh, my God, it's just a whole fucking basket of fuck those guys. Those are my thoughts. Yeah, it's funny that he brought up the defense budget, and then at the end wondered, like, where's all this money going?

have you looked at those defense budgets? Have you looked about how they escalate every year regardless of what they ask for? That we are facing or what they ask for that we, you know, one of the few federal departments that actually sometimes gets more money than they ask for. I mean, you know, I don't know, put two and two together and maybe you'll be able to cut the budget. It's also the thing like, I'm asking for the right to be able to cut this, but I'm not actually going to cut it. It's like, yeah, sure. You're like the guy saying, what if we open this relationship? Not that I want to cheat.

Right. I just want the option. Yeah, yeah. It's an ethical thing, you know. Yeah. And every five years we can review this policy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a reoccurring character on this show since Herschel Walker set out into the pasture of not getting to the brightest body of people, the United States Senate.

But John Kennedy is still out there. sending cries for a help to finish his lobotomy job because he's crying today. What do you think of how the federal government has been handling this? And should the Secretary of Transportation be out there talking to folks? Well, this is why God made pipelines. They're much safer than trucks are trains. Now, I understand this particular chemical could not have been transported by a pipeline. But all you can do is require the truckers and require the railroads to be as safe as they possibly can. But when you can, do it through a pipeline.

What? What? What is he talking about? My point is I have no point. Is he saying pot plant, pod plant? What is he talking about? I thought that too, but it's pipeline. Pipeline.

Pipeline. I got that. Oh my God. You need to run that fucking tape back because that is not what that man said. I thought the same thing the first time I heard it. But then, you know, I spent a lot of time in New Orleans. and I've gotten adjusted to that accent. He's talking about pot plants.

Don't be out here trying to make me a fool. Look, if the trains would carry pot plants. Yeah. And then if they had to set them on fire, at least the people in wherever town the train derailed would have a pleasant time. This is true. True.

All right, I saved the queen for last. Oh, God. If this isn't Beyonce, Jesse, I'm going to come be you. Just for the record, Rihanna's my queen right now. Oh, okay. Oh, right. Okay. But unfortunately, I'm talking about the queen of stupid because we're talking stupid.

Marjorie Taylor Green, she thinks that everybody's got their priorities wrong when it comes to the environment. She really is the woke one when it comes to the environment. I'm not sure. I don't know why AOC isn't dressed in white and crying for the dead whales that keep washing on the beach. from wind farms that are being placed all over the ocean and people are calling the alarms over how this is not only killing unknown thousands of bird species but also causing whales to beach themselves at record numbers

I was going to look that up and then I realized I'm like no if Marjorie Tala Green says it it must be true I've shocking news for you that when you go on Google it really really apparently says that this is not the truth That is absolutely shocking to me. Who would have thug that it was just a Google away and yet she couldn't do it? I thought it was my people's space lasers that were killing the whales. I thought it was wokeism.

I thought that they were singing to themselves in the depths of the ocean. You know what they were doing? They were singing the black national anthem. Yeah, lift every whale and sing. Yeah. Hillary Clinton will be arrested between 7.45 a.m. and 8. 8.30 a.m. on Monday, the morning of October 30th, 2017. This was the first posting on the message boards known as 4chan from the anonymous user or users who came to be known as Q. And unfortunately,

the rest is not only history, but also the present and future. Joining me now is Daily Beast Politics reporter, co-host of the Beast podcast Fever Dreams, and author of the fantastic new book out Tuesday called Trust the Plan, The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy that Unhinged America, Will Summer. Will, thanks for being here. I'm glad to be back. So, Will, even after reading your book, which I loved. My overarching question is, how the hell did this happen? Now, obviously, you explained very clearly how it happened, but my question still is, how the hell did this happen?

How did one anonymous conspiracy theory account among a host of them on 4chan and elsewhere explode the way Q did? And a follow-up was the internet a mistake. Well, I think that second one, you know, recording this amid all of these transcripts of these AI computers saying, like, you know, leave your wife for me and all this stuff. So I think between that and QAnon, I think it's fair to say it was a mistake. What attracted me to this story is that it is so bizarre and it's so relevant and it is a, I think it says so much about both politics and belief and I think

what people want out of life often in very unfortunate ways. But as you said, I mean, QAnon started in October with a couple anonymous message board posts from a figure named Q. This was someone who was sort of in many ways sort of like just the latest kind of fake whistleblower on these forums, a 4chan. But basically, a lot of conspiracy theorists latched onto it and made it much, much bigger to the point that today we have Donald Trump posting QAnon memes himself. As I mentioned in my intro, the first message was about Hillary Clinton being arrested. And then she was not arrested. So you would think, you know, as a normal person, you're reading that she going, well, that's the end of that poster, you know. And of course, no, all that does

is fuel more conspiracy theories that become more and more outlandish that she was secretly arrested and is actually wearing, I think, as you mentioned, like billowy pants to hide an ankle bracelet, or that she has been replaced by a clone. And it's just unreal how this goes from one, honestly, idiotic post that bore not the slightest resemblance to truth. But that, the fact that what the poster put up there didn't happen only became more evidence that it did happen, but that everything was much more insidious than we thought. Exactly. I mean, the genius of QAnon, and I think so much of its appeal, is how,

vague these clues are. I mean, we've had, obviously, plenty of conspiracy theories before. But really, up until Q&N, we never had this sort of gamified aspect where you had this anonymous figure, giving out clues, certainly not at this scale. And so when these things inevitably fail to happen, I mean, when Q kind of makes a big splash saying, Hillary Clinton's going to be arrested in two weeks, and people go, wow, okay, great. And then it doesn't happen. So why are we still dealing with Q&ON six years later? Well, the reason is because people have all of these ways to square the cognitive dissonance in their heads. And so they say, in the case of getting arrested, Like you said, I mean, she's wearing an ankle bracelet or maybe we'll look at a picture of Hillary Clinton and she's got a wrinkle we didn't see before.

So maybe that's a sign that they messed up the cloning process. You know, maybe the real Hillary's in Guantanamo or perhaps, as you said, I mean, maybe the deep state that Donald Trump's out to get is so powerful that they couldn't quite arrest her yet. But the true message of Q&ON is still real. Look, all of this would be unbelievably amusing and entertaining, except that it's not. And as you point out, this is now a decent sized group of events. the American public that believes this stuff. It really is when you look at the numbers. I think it can be startling.

You know, as people who, you know, seek to live in the world of reality, I think we can, you know, it can often be comforting to say, in particular before January 6th, I would often hear from people who would say, you know, well, that's just a joke, right? Or people are just trolling or, you know, what is that? There's a couple cooks online. But when you look at the polls, let's go with the most conservative estimates because, you know, I think this can be tough to poll. But polls will show roughly 7% of Republicans believe in QAnon and, you know,

other polls show much higher than that. And so when you think about that, I mean, you know, that's roughly half the country and maybe a little less than that. I mean, we're talking about millions and millions of people. I mean, there was one poll that I think the time summed up well is that, you know, QAnon in the United States is more popular than a lot of major religions. It's absolutely unbelievable. You touched on this earlier, but talk about Donald Trump's relationship with Q&on, because it seems pretty clear in the book that, you know, he started off kind of ignoring it and he would be asked questions about it early in his term and he would say he didn't know what it was. And And he eventually recognized that these people, a lot of them kind of worshipped him.

And then in Trump brain, that, of course, means that they're good and smart Americans. So he kind of went from saying he didn't know much about them to saying, well, I know they like me very much. And then, as you said, we're now at the point where he sort of reposts Q&on memes. So from the perspective of Q&N believers, Donald Trump is the God figure. I mean, they jokingly call him the God emperor, you know, maybe semi-jokingly. Right. And so, I mean, he's their savior.

figure. So for them, ever since QAnon started, what they wanted was an acknowledgement from Donald Trump. And so they wanted him to say, yes, QNon is real. Because, you know, as you get into QNon and everyone in your life is saying you're a nut, you're just like, well, you know, once Donald Trump comes out and says it and, you know, maybe starts this great purge of Democrats, I'll be proven right. And so they would do these things like, you know, I get into it in this book. There was a woman who was saying, she was right to recruit Matt Gates, his staff to help her infiltrate the White House and ask Donald Trump about it. I mean, fortunately, they did not participate in this route. There are all these kind of various schemes, and so where they would harass reporters to ask Trump about QAnon. And initially, I think in particular, after there was a Trump rally, people may remember. This is kind of when QAnon really goes mainstream as a concept in 2018. And all these QNon people show up at a Trump rally. And they're all over the TV news. And people are saying, what are all these Q shirts about? So initially, the Trump campaign is trying to distance themselves from them while not quite offending them.

You know, Trump isn't coming out and saying, this is fake, get a life. They're just kind of saying, let's kind of put these people a little behind the cameras. in the future. But then, especially when 2020 gets going, Trump's getting more persistent questions about it as Q&N gets bigger. And I think as we hear these stories about Trump and his approach to extremists. I think of people like Charlottesville Marches, for example. And he sort of sees these people as just members of the Trump super fan club. It's certainly in the case of QAnon. And he says, they say, well, you know, you're supposed to be out to get this cabal of pedophiles. You know, that's ridiculous, right? And he says, well, maybe it's not so ridiculous. And what would be wrong

about that? So he starts kind of cozying up to them. And then as of now, where we're You see Trump kind of embattled by Ron DeSantis and other Republican forces. Now he's just posting. He's straight up Q posting. Yeah, it really is unbelievable. And then indeed, as we saw on January 6th, 2021, QAnon people made up a sizable portion of the mob that stormed the Capitol, right? In the book, one of the things I wanted to get into was I think QAnon is often misunderstood

and its role in January 6th is, I don't know, given the credit or the discredit that it deserves. I mean, when I was there before the riot started, people were just convinced that this would be the moment that marked the storm, which in Q&N lore is sort of the start of Donald Trump's fascist dictatorship of America. And multiple people who died that day believe that. We know Ashley Babette was convinced, she tweeted, you know, time for the storm, essentially. And so this idea that, you know, when you convince people that they're in a sort of apocalyptic battle against pedophiles, and that on the other side is this sort of utopia that's awaiting you, you know, I think that really helped rev people

up for January 6th. Yeah, it really is unreal. There were a couple of things you wrote in the book that I want to really get into. You write that by the election, this is 2020. Q had become about much more than just symbols in the clues and strange messages. It'd become a way of life for Q's followers, a way of seeing the world, politics, and a community all at once. Q's most devoted fans abandoned their old lives to pursue their own dreams of the storm. This is a story we've seen a lot of examples of, at least if you're steeped in online culture and stuff like that. The idea that there are a lot of these QAnoners who have lost their families, their friends, et cetera, in their pursuit of, again, their own dreams of the storm, as you put it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I talk to so many people,

whether QAnon believers or family members of QAnon people who just, I mean, in some ways, you know, it sounds simplistic, but it's almost like a mind virus where it just, once it gets into your life, for many QAnon believers, it becomes really all consuming. And if you think about it from their perspective, they're hearing that everything in the world they've learned is a lie and that the most powerful people in the world are drinking children's blood and worshipping the devil. And so suddenly, you know, I think you can understand why that becomes the most important thing for them, particularly when their family members start ignoring it. And so whether it be, you know, we think in the most extreme cases, the people who essentially moved to Dallas and created a cult

to, you know, await JFK Jr's return, what I wanted to include in the book is the effect QAnon has really across the country in so many different ways. And while I think there's some very headline grabbing aspects like January 6th, or we, when QAnon followers murder their family members. There's also this aspect of just really, really wrecking people in so many different ways. Yeah. And there's a passage in the book that stuck out to me because, well, because it mirrored my own thoughts, which is always the sign of genius, obviously. And we tend to identify Q&N with people. When I say we, I mean, like what the media latches onto for obvious reasons. People like the Q&ONM

in his animal skins and his horns, you know. But as you point out, that really doesn't describe the vast majority of adherence to QAnon who outwardly appear normal and you write, they could have a convo with you about the weather, then casually mention that the government controls the weather. They could be parents at your children's school, fellow customers in the grocery store or politicians, all of them divorced from reality by a conspiracy theory that began with a few much mocked posts on 4chan. So to me, those people are far more dangerous than the outright whack jobs in costumes, because it's the people that look normal who end up on school boards, and lead us to groups, as you point out, like save the children, right?

Absolutely. I mean, I think you're right on the money here, Andy, which is that we think of people, these kind of like raving lunatics as Q and on believers. But often they are otherwise normal people who exist in a sort of half reality away from the rest of us, where if, you know, a picture of Bill Barr wearing red shoes doesn't mean he chose red shoes that day, but that he's admitting that he worships Lucifer. I mean, all of these symbols, this kind of stuff, I mean, you know, like a California wildfire is not climate change, but rather that George Soros has a space laser. And then how do these

people interact in the real world? Well, I think, you know, particularly since 2020, we've seen it, this idea that any kind of talk about sex or gay rights in schools is part of a plot to molest children. I mean, this stuff has real world impacts at the local level as well. And so, you know, also when you start talking about politics where, you know, Q&M believers are helping to elect fellow QAnon believers like Marjorie Taylor Green to Congress, you know, how do we have a democratic process based on compromise and give and take when you elect someone who thinks that, you know, Nancy Pelosi drinks children's blood. Yeah. We used to have conversations in this country, you know, could liberals and conservatives date each other? And that seems so quaint and charming right now in this

world where we're talking about people who believe the things you said and, you know, and how you are supposed to interact with these people. So you talk in the book about a priestly class within Q&ON. Can you describe that? Who are these priests? Sure. So these are the, the QAnon promoters. I mean, these are people with Twitter accounts, especially, yeah, I was not to say, they used to have Twitter accounts, but now that Elon Musk is in charge, they once again have Twitter accounts, Facebook, YouTube. These are sort of the leaders of Q&ON, because I think we have a good chance of understanding that the Watkins family has shown in the HBO documentary. Essentially, these people in the Philippines were behind Q&N, at least in its latest form. The Q is essentially faceless, certainly if you're a Q&N believer. So then this kind of subclass comes in below that and offers some sort of stylings, their own take. on Q&ON. And so these clues are often very cryptic and they're kind of a pain in the neck to reach in the first place. So you have these people who make money off of Q&N and they'll say, well, let me tell you, actually Q&N is about my pet issue. And here's how to buy nutritional supplements for me and stuff like this. I write in a book about, you know, various kind of

Q&N entrepreneurs, perhaps, a guy named like Vincent Fuska, a guy who a lot of people think is JFK Jr. Right. In disguise and who sort of maddeningly, to me, is more than happy to talk with me all day, except about the one kind of interesting thing about him, which is that everyone thinks he's JFK Jr. And so he's clearly enjoying this notoriety. And he goes, oh, you know, see you later. And people are taking selfies with them and all this stuff. Or all of these operators and part of the joy of covering the right wing for me more broadly is that there are just so many grifters and hucksters and bizarre personalities that are attracted to it. And QAnon is such a rich space for that. And you say this in the book. Some of these priests are obviously grifters and or they're

enjoying their 15 minutes or whatever. Some of them are true believers, though, correct? Oh, absolutely. I mean, these are often people who, you know, not to get insulting about it, but often these are people who, if you sort of look at the basics of their life, you don't have a ton going on, but then can become, you know, raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from QAnon believers, or they become kind of big players just entirely on the basis of being charismatic promoters of QAnon. So I get into, for example, this guy named Neon Revolt, who in reality was a, failed screenwriter and essentially a grocery store clerk. But he got really into QAnon, and then he sort of took his obsession with Hollywood and his feelings that he had been snubbed as a white male

screenwriter and sort of shaped that into his Q&on dreams. And so whereas once he was writing fiction, kind of Quentin Tarantino knockoffs, he could now write fiction about QAnon and sort of direct his QAnon believers at his perceived enemies and raise all this money. So for me, I mean, it was just fascinating to watch people transform their lives by mustering these QAnon armies. that would issue death threats and, you know, sort of do their bidding. Yeah, it really is unbelievable. I mentioned earlier the group called Save the Children that had a little bit of notoriety and fame. Was it last year or the year before?

2020. 2020. Okay. I mean, they really are like basically QAnon with a normal face, right? Exactly. I mean, the genius of so much with Q&N and ultimately this kind of Save the Children front group is that when your whole movement is based on the idea that, you know, children are being sacrificed to the devil, you certainly don't put that up for.

That's not page one of the pitch. I often compare it to Scientology where they don't tell you about Xenu until you're a decade in. The appeal of QNon is when you say, all these children are being abused, I mean, that strikes it such a primal issue for people. And so in the case of Save the Children, this pops up during the pandemic. Before that, the average Q&N believer looked a lot like someone at a Trump rally. They're more likely to be white, older, evangelical. But with Save the Children, it appeals to people saying, like, you know, oh, 600,000 kids go missing

a year, which is not true. but, you know, you put that, you kind of put that in an infographic, and it can go much wider than the Trump base. I mean, Save the Children really proliferated on Instagram. It blends with kind of like Yoga Q&N, wellness circles. And so suddenly you have these kind of pastel graphics where you might see something in the past about, you know, saying, put a tablespoon of cider vinegar in your coffee. You know, this will give you some wellness benefits. Suddenly, it's being used to recruit people into QAnon.

That's amazing. And Save the Children, it took the media a little bit to figure out the fact that this was basically a Q&O group, right? Because I remember when they first popped up that they were, you know, sort of reported on as a, as a serious group that truly cared about the kids. Absolutely. I mean, people saw a lot of local media reports would say, oh, there's a march. There's a march downtown against human trafficking. Isn't that great? And then these guys get all this attention. But then you look at the signs and amid the stop human trafficking signs, there's one that says, you know, Google QAnon or something like that. And then that, and you have these characters from the Q&ONN universe sort of rebranding themselves as Save the

children activists. This is something we see over and over is that this kind of fundamental idea of Q&N that Democrats are eating children or that the world is corrupt and Donald Trump needs to end American democracy. They have to kind of keep rebranding it because the brand will get tarnished. People say, oh, I know about Q&ON, you're a bunch of nuts. So then they have to say, okay, well, actually, we're saved the children now. Yeah. And it's very similar to almost exactly, as you noted that, you know, the kind of things that Donald Trump would say when asked about QAnon and he would say, well, they're against, you know, pedophilia. That's a good thing. You can't, you know, you can't argue with that, you know, so you see a group called Save the Children.

And you're like, well, you can't argue with that. Who doesn't want to save the children? Exactly. Just in its broadest strokes, it sounds really appealing. And then I get into it in the book is people will get into QAnon through Save the Children and say, well, how can I, you know, join my local anti-trafficking group? And then suddenly a year later, they're completely convinced that it's real. Roseanne Boylan, for example, who died at January 6th, she was brought in through Save the Children. I mean, these people who just get really revved up about that entryway.

and then, you know, soon they're deep into QAnon. So what is the future of Q&N? Because it's now a global movement, isn't it? It certainly is. I mean, Japan has a thriving Q&N scene with kind of varying factions. One of them, like the, I think it's called the Michael Flynn Q Army, which is, it's so bizarre how the internet can translate all these American culture war issues. In France, Q&N had a bunch of kidnapping plots.

There was supposedly a Q&N plot to overthrow the government in France. Additionally, in Germany, folks may remember a few months ago, there were. was a, you know, it's a little unclear how large the plot was, but there was some plot in the security services to do a coup, a bunch of people there were motivated by QAnon. So like I said, I mean, QAnon in some ways can be so mutable that you can change it to local conditions. And that's really what we're seeing is that in Germany, it sort of blends with the local conspiracy theories and moves on. Yeah, it really is amazing. And, you know, I was telling you before you started, the interview, after reading your book, I'm, I'm sitting there going, okay, this is the most dangerous threat to

America and freedom in the world today. So congratulations, Will, you've done your job. You've scared me shitless. Thank you. Thank you. There's so much more in the book I didn't have a chance to get to. I urge listeners to get their hands on it. It's called Trust the Plan, the Rise of Q&ON and the conspiracy that unhinged America. It's out this coming Tuesday. Will, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend and keep the conversation going. This podcast, is a Daily Beast production with production by Jesse Cannon and Seamus Calder.

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