Paul Gosar plans to go on a popular QAnon talk show

Weeks after Republican Congressman Paul Gosar gave a speech to a gathering of white nationalists, he is scheduled to appear on Patriots’ Soapbox, a leading QAnon talk show. 

“He has taken a stand against the conservative establishment to support #AmericaFirst and he never wavered,” Radix Verum, host of a show called Digging Deeper on Patriots’ Soapbox, said on the social media site Gab, promoting Gosar’s upcoming appearance. “Let’s show him our support. Let him know you have his back!”

Patriots’ Soapbox is a fringe outlet that broadcasts online 24 hours a day, and that has proliferated QAnon stories for years. It is so tied to the QAnon movement that some speculated its founder, Coleman Rogers — the man behind Pamphlet Anon — could be behind some of the Q posts. 

Currently, the site is pushing an unfounded conspiracy theory that a man with a “source in the White House” had knowledge of a plan to track and identify “patriots” using a pandemic as the cover. The associated story contains little to no evidence other than an alleged audio confession and pictures of notes from the individual with alleged knowledge of the conspiracy. The Arizona Mirror could find no credible information or reports to back up any of the claims. 

The conspiracy has been around since late 2019 and is similar in theme to a much older and widely debunked conspiracy theory that the government will round up people and place them into FEMA camps. That false idea has gained traction again in the wake of COVID-19. 

The site also has been promoting Freedom of Information Act requests it has sent to the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice asking for information about informants they inserted into groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys on Jan. 6, falsely claiming that the violence at the insurrection was committed by antifa and Black Lives Matter, not Trump supporters.The FBI has said there is no evidence to support those claims.

Gosar’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story. 

In its simplest form, QAnon is a conspiracy theory that alleges that a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles are running a global sex-trafficking ring, control world governments and are trying to bring down Donald Trump — who is single-handedly dismantling the cabal. 

However, the community has seen division since the election of President Joe Biden and his inauguration, severing into new tribes and forming new conspiracies as they contend with prophecies that did not come to fruition. 

Patriots’ Soapbox has served as a platform for up-and-coming GOP politicians like Lauren Boebert, who appeared on the show when running for congress. Gosar’s appearance would mark the first time a sitting member of Congress has appeared on the show. 

The site has had its Twitter and YouTube channels suspended during a crackdown on QAnon content in October, though streaming platform Roku allows its customers to stream Patriot Soapbox. 

Currently, Patriots’ Soapbox utilizes the website DLive for the majority of their streaming. DLive is a video game streaming service that has become a haven for white supremacists and the alt-right. The service allows users to use cryptocurrencies for donations and has been utilized by extremists to do “IRL streams” or “in real life” streams of themselves at protests or other events.  

Arizona white supremacist Anthime “Tim” Gionet, better known as “Baked Alaska,” used the service to stream himself entering the US Capitol on Jan. 6. White nationalist Nick Fuentes also used DLive on Jan. 6 to stream the Capitol insurrection, and both men were summarily banned from the platform. 

In promoting the show on Patriots’ Soapbox, Verum used the hashtag “#AmericaFirst” and included a cartoon frog in the lower right corner. The frog is a Groyper, a symbol used by white nationalists and far-right activists who often troll conservatives who they feel are not extreme enough. Groypers are also considered loosely organized and members of many different groups, but are almost all followers of Fuentes.  

Fuentes is the leader of the America First Political Action Committee and organizer of the America First Political Action Conference at which Gosar spoke. At the same conference, Fuentes called the Jan. 6 riots “awesome” and demanded elected leaders like Gosar enact protections for the country’s “white demographic core.”

One of the main goals of groypers is to push conservatives in a white nationalist direction and one of their strategies is by presenting their views in a mainstream appearance or within mainstream organizations. 

Much like Patriot Soapbox, Fuentes has called for his followers to support Gosar from the Republican establishment for supporting “America First.” 

Gosar has courted QAnon beliefs in the past, when he attended the “Trumpstock” event in Golden Valley, Arizona, which had QAnon speakers and music performers.

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Arizona Mirror can be found here ***