What is QAnon? What to know about the baseless, far-right conspiracy theory connected to Marjorie Taylor Greene

With the House set to vote Thursday on whether to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from her committee posts, the baseless and dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory is again in the spotlight.

Greene has previously expressed support for QAnon and other outlandish and false theories about mass shootings. She has also used violent and xenophobic rhetoric targeted at minorities and Democrats.

Groups that track the spread of the QAnon and its harmful effects say Greene has repeatedly backed the theory and called Q, the anonymous poster that is behind it, a “patriot.”

Greene said on the House floor Thursday, however, that she regretted her past social media posts. “These were words of the past, and these things do not represent me, they do not represent my district and they do not represent my values,” Greene said.

QAnon falsely alleges the existence of a satanic “deep state” apparatus that supports a child sex trafficking ring, and its followers played prominent roles in the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, incited by former President Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy claimed ignorance about QAnon while defending Greene, but McCarthy has been questioned about and commented on it before, previously condemning its role in the Republican party.

How to spot a conspiracy theory:Debunked QAnon conspiracy theories are seeping into mainstream social media. Don’t be fooled.

What is QAnon and where did it come from?

The QAnon conspiracy theory baselessly claims that there is a “deep state” apparatus run by political elites, business leaders and Hollywood celebrities who are also pedophiles and actively working against Trump.

Travis View, who has been researching QAnon for the past two years and co-hosts the QAnon Anonymous podcast, described it as a meta conspiracy theory that provides an underlying narrative for other baseless theories. According to View, its followers believe that this “worldwide cabal of satanic pedophiles” run “all the major levers of power,” including government, media, business and Hollywood.

Since late 2017, the theory has been spearheaded by an anonymous poster who goes by Q, claiming to have insider information about the government. With no supporting evidence for cryptic posts, the theory has touched on a wide range of topics including the media, politicians and COVID-19.

From August:How QAnon and other dark forces are radicalizing Americans as the COVID-19 pandemic rages and election looms

Central to its belief system, though, is Trump, View told USA TODAY in July. Those who espouse the theory believed Trump’s presidency would put an end to the “cabal” and bring about a “storm” of arrests holding those in power accountable.

“It sounds completely nutty, and it is,” Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters for America, told USA TODAY in July. Carusone’s group tracks misinformation in the United States.

What has Marjorie Taylor Greene said about QAnon and how have Republicans reacted?

Greene, a Trump-backed Georgia Republican, on numerous occasions lent support to QAnon theories, according to research from Media Matters for America.

Greene has defended Q in social media posts, said the messages were “worth listening to” and used popular slogans and hashtags among its adherents, according to Media Matters.

Greene has also pushed false theories about fraud in the 2020 election, which many QAnon believers latched onto as well.

Media Matters found that Greene previously posted about other false theories on the 2018 Parkland school shooting, the 2017 Las Vegas shooting and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A viral video also shows Greene heckling David Hogg, a teen survivor of the Parkland shooting.

In a Facebook post from April 2018, Greene responded to a post from a person who asked whether former President Barack Obama and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton could be hanged, CNN reported. Greene replied by saying the “stage is being set. Players are being put in place. We must be patient. This must be done perfectly or liberal judges would let them off,” CNN reported. 

She has also targeted Muslim members of Congress and promoted anti-Semitic rhetoric, Media Matters found.

GOP quiet on Greene:Newly-elected Rep. has put GOP in a bind

Greene on the House floor Thursday said she began believing in QAnon at the end of 2017. She said she became very interested in it, but later in 2018 became disillusioned when she “started finding misinformation in QAnon posts.”

“I was allowed to believe things that weren’t true and I would ask questions about them and talk about them. And that is absolutely what I regret. Because if it weren’t for the Facebook posts and comments that I liked in 2018, I wouldn’t be standing here today and you couldn’t point a finger and accuse me of anything wrong,” Greene said. 

Greene went on to affirm the existence of school shootings and the 9/11 terror attacks. She also said “cancel culture is a real thing” and blamed mainstream media for being “just as guilty as QAnon of presenting truth and lies.”

On Wednesday, McCarthy said that Greene denounced her past statements in a closed-door meeting with Republicans.

McCarthy went on to flub the pronunciation of QAnon, calling it “Q-on,” which he has done in the past, but said “I don’t even know what it is.”

In a past interview, however, McCarthy has explicitly denounced QAnon.

“Let me be very clear: There is no place for QAnon in the Republican Party. I do not support it,” he told Fox News in August.

McCarthy was also one of the 371 House members in October 2020 who voted for a bipartisan resolution “condemning QAnon and rejecting the conspiracy theories it promotes.”

While some Republicans have taken a further step and denounced Greene’s role in the party — Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday that “loony lies and conspiracy theories are cancer” for the GOP — many have been silent on Greene. 

What role did QAnon play in the US Capitol riot and Trump’s presidency?

Many people who stormed the U.S. Capitol were QAnon supporters, with QAnon apparel and flags abound in D.C.

One prominent rioter, Jake Angeli, who appeared on the Senate dais wearing a fur hat with buffalo horns and wielding a spear, was known in Arizona QAnon circles and nicknamed the “QAnon Shaman.” Angeli was charged with knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.

Ashli Babbitt and Rosanne Boyland, two women who died during the riot, also lent support to QAnon.

Since the riot and President Joe Biden’s inauguration, research groups that track QAnon have documented some break away from the theory with supporters feeling disillusioned by Trump’s loss. Some remain defiant, however.

“There is no doubt that some QAnon adherents have drifted away from the movement after the inauguration of President Biden. This drift, along with the mainstream social media platforms banning QAnon accounts, has made a substantial difference in the volume of QAnon material easily accessible online,” Daniel Jones, president of Advance Democracy, told USA TODAY in January.

QAnon after the election:Followers still pushing conspiracies, lies about the election and former president Trump on Facebook and Twitter

“Nonetheless, we’re still finding QAnon adherents on the mainstream social media platforms,” he said. “And these QAnon accounts continue to promote violence and election-related conspiracy theories that call into question the legitimacy of Biden’s presidency.”

During his presidency, Trump regularly amplified the theory on his Twitter account while refusing to condemn it when asked.

“I know nothing about it,” Trump told NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie in October, pivoting to violence among groups on the left. After Guthrie asked Trump to disavow QAnon, he said he believes its followers are “very much against pedophilia,”

In August, Trump said he didn’t know much about it “other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate.” He also told reporters during the same White House briefing that, “These are people that don’t like seeing what’s going on in places like Portland, Chicago and New York and other cities and states. … I’ve heard these are people that love our country.”

According to Media Matters for America, Trump retweeted accounts that promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory hundreds of times.

In the 2020 election, there were 27 congressional candidates around the U.S. who made the ballot despite having endorsed or supported the theory, according to the group.

Two won, Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo, the group said.

Carusone predicted in July that there would be QAnon-supporting members of Congress and said the underlying beliefs were here to stay in U.S. politics.

“The core critique that Q is dabbling into gets at something that a lot of people believe and feel, especially right now: That there is this elite that has impunity, that gets away with anything that it wants,” Carusone said.

Is QAnon dangerous?

Even before the Capitol riot, QAnon believers had committed real-world acts of violence and spread hate online.

For many, these theories become obsessive and can take over a person’s life, View said. “We often see QAnon followers alienate family members because they believe they have been granted a key to the universe,” he said.

Many continue to adhere to the belief system, however, because they see themselves as evangelizing Q’s message, Carusone said.

“The danger is essentially that there have been multiple instances where QAnon followers have taken their beliefs offline in violent or dangerous ways,” View said in July.

A Yahoo News report from August 2019 says that the FBI identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic extremist threat, and it specifically mentions QAnon.

In June 2018, Matthew Wright, motivated by his belief in QAnon, blocked the bridge near the Hoover Dam with a homemade armored vehicle. He later pleaded guilty to making a terrorist threat and has been sentenced to nearly eight years in prison.

Anthony Comello, accused of killing Frank Cali, the alleged boss of the Gambino crime family, was influenced by right-wing hate speech and conspiracy theories, his lawyer said. He appeared in court with the letter “Q” written on his hand.

The Pizzagate conspiracy theory, a sort of precursor to the QAnon theory, culminated in a man driving from North Carolina to Washington, D.C., where he started firing an assault-style rifle at Comet Ping Pong pizzeria. No one was killed, but the event brought the fringe theory – in this case that there was a child sex trafficking ring operating in the basement of the pizzeria – into the national spotlight. 

View said the Pizzagate theory was based on a distorted attempt at decoding emails from John Podesta published by Wikileaks, and it plays on many similar themes of QAnon.

“There’s this whole ‘the ends justify the means’ idea,” Carusone said of QAnon followers. “You have to be willing to rise up to save these children.”

Contributing: Christal Hayes, Matthew Brown , Ledyard King and Jessica Guynn

Follow USA TODAY’s Ryan Miller on Twitter @RyanW_Miller

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article published in July.

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