QAnon believers have now convinced themselves Gavin Newsom’s landslide recall win is actually good
QAnon believers set up a dynamic in which no Newsom victory would ever be accepted: In the weeks leading up the election, Telegram channels and forums popular on the far right pushed the belief that only a Larry Elder win was legitimate. All other options were deemed “rigged” or “fraud,” as QAnon adherents almost unilaterally think that California has a Republican majority. In reality, there are 10 million registered Democrats in the state and 5.3 million Republicans. Biden received 63.48% of the vote in California in the 2020 election.
For the uninitiated: QAnon believers, who call themselves “anons,” think a secret military operation is “in control” and will soon purge the nation of their political enemies and restore Donald Trump to power. The conspiracy theory began in 2017, and until late 2020, someone using the name “Q” posted regularly on message boards. Anons continue to furiously decode these “drops,” certain they contain information about the secret military operation they believe may march into the White House and arrest Joe Biden at any time.
If the recall vote was close — Wednesday morning’s numbers put “no on recall” at 63.9% — there may have been some wiggle room to keep arguing that their preferred candidate, Republican Larry Elder, could still pull out a victory. But not long after polls closed at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Newsom was declared the winner by the Associated Press and Elder conceded shortly after. With the contest decided, QAnon believers quickly coalesced around the narrative that Newsom had to win in order for their “plan” to go into action.
“Is there any reason to think that the team of cyber experts on the Space Force haven’t tracked this election just like they did with the 2020 one?” one user posted on a popular QAnon forum. “That it’s a case of allowing the crime to be committed in order to hold the perpetrators accountable seems likely to me.”
“I’m sure Space Force has all the details of the Cali fraud that they KNEW was coming,” another added. “Newsom is trapped. GITMO awaits.”
Many in this conspiracy world believe that Trump created the United States Space Force in order to use satellites and vaguely defined “cyber” technology to intercept fraudulent election results. Even if this was true, voting machines (and paper ballots, of course) have no such technology that would allow this to occur. In addition, this logic has not borne out for the 2020 election which, nearly a year later, has not been challenged in any real way despite constant assurances from the Q crowd that it will be decertified.
So-called proof of fraud in the California recall has been scant, even for credulous conspiracy theorists. There have been a handful of allegations that Republican voters were turned away at polling places, but those all appear to trace back to one KTLA article citing a single 88-year-old woman who was allowed to vote with a provisional ballot. This weak fraud narrative is also being halfheartedly pushed by mainstream conservative voices like Candace Owens, who tweeted she’s received “about 20 emails” alleging voter fraud (She provided neither the emails nor any evidence they had legitimate claims, and by Wednesday morning had moved on to tweeting about vaccines again).
Lacking any real “proof” for their wild claims, QAnon believers tried to tell each other that Newsom looked “nervous,” “shaking” and “on the verge of tears” in his press conference Tuesday night. This, they said, was proof he knew he got away with “stealing” the recall election. For what it’s worth, Newsom sounds like he normally does in this short appearance before reporters:
Not everyone in the Q world is convinced Newsom’s victory will lead to the eventual overthrow of Democratic politicians around the nation, however.
“Perhaps he is part of the plan to bring the unlawful state government down,” one poster speculated hopefully.
“Still waiting for the results of even 1 forensic audit,” shot down the next commenter.
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