‘Stop the cabal’: What is the conspiracy movement QAnon?

Once a fringe phenomenon, the movement known as QAnon has made its way from the “dark web” into the mainstream. As well as “deep state” conspiracy theories, the movement has variously espoused anti-vaccine rhetoric, the idea that 5G is state-sponsored surveillance and the belief that wearing a mask in a public space won’t save you from infection with COVID-19 because “you can’t catch a virus that doesn’t exist”.

QAnon is one of the factors behind a swelling movement of people refusing to wear masks around Australia, particularly in defiance of public health regulations in Victoria. Some of its adherents were among groups behind an “anti-lockdown” rally outside Victoria’s Parliament House in May, with another protest planned to go ahead on September 5.

As the movement has morphed from espousing a singular conspiracy about supposed paedophile activity to including a grab bag of conspiracy theories, the demographic of its followers has evolved too. People actively supporting, or those just influenced by, QAnon ideas come from a wide range of religious and ethnic backgrounds and cross-generational, income group and gender lines.

They might harbour a nebulous mistrust of government or be seeking an overarching plan that helps make sense of their concerns about the world. They might be attracted to one or two of ideas associated with QAnon without being aware of others or they might not know that QAnon exists at all – its ideas can be presented obliquely.

In the United States, the FBI has labelled QAnon “a potential domestic terror threat”, while US President Donald Trump has described its followers as people who merely “love their country”.

So what exactly is QAnon? How did it gain traction and why? And where is it headed?

Where did QAnon start?

QAnon’s origins centre on a “user”, or participant, of the controversial forum websites 4chan, 8chan and 8kun. In its earliest iterations, 4chan hosted anonymous user (“anon”) discussions of fairly innocuous topics such as anime and other internet subcultures. But the site grew steadily politicised, dominated by political and activist groups such as the alt-right, the hacking group “Anonymous” and, eventually, QAnon.

A user named “Q Clearance Patriot”, nicknamed Q, amassed a following on the site, claiming to be a high-ranking government insider exposing a secret international bureaucracy plotting iniquitous schemes against the Trump administration and its supporters.

Some followers of QAnon believe that Q is who they say they are, others believe the user to be a group of people or that Q’s identity has been made up of a range of different internet personas over time.

After 4chan blocked discussion of contentious conspiracy theories, Q’s readership – along with other fans of 4chan’s former “anything goes” approach – found a new site to facilitate their discussions: 8chan. This was the site on which the man responsible for the Christchurch massacre in 2019 wrote of the upcoming attack. Once Q began posting on 8chan, Q’s theories could be found duplicating across other sites. One such site, the more mainstream Reddit, was quick to ban discussion of QAnon. But speculation surrounding Q’s identity and the credibility of Q’s intel was beginning to spread – the horse had bolted.

How did it go mainstream?

Q’s posts on 4chan came to follow a clandestine format known as “drops”, or “Q drops”, which would appear in coded segments. Some drops would be preceded by a teaser, which might include coded references to any number of people deemed to be members of the deep state. For example, “BC” for former US president Bill Clinton.

Soon these posts would become referenced on other online forums. As Q kept posting, followers made the transition from being anonymous “anons” to posting under their real names on mainstream social media platforms.

Efforts from these platforms to thwart the spread of misinformation from QAnon supporters have so far resulted in Facebook and Twitter limiting more than 250,000 user accounts. YouTube has said that it, too, is taking steps to remove QAnon content and to promote credible news, particularly regarding public health during the COVID-19 pandemic, to the top of its suggested lists.

But millions of people interested in QAnon are still believed to be active, particularly as locked down populations spend more time online than ever.

One NBC News report found thousands of QAnon Facebook groups with millions of members. A recent analysis by social media research firm Storyful found that membership among the 10 largest QAnon Facebook groups rose 600 per cent between March and July, to about 40,000 users.

What do followers of QAnon believe?

The core of QAnon lore is that the world is owned and operated by a “deep state” comprising a range of Democratic politicians and Hollywood elite. Early on, conspiracy theorists claimed the deep state included everyone from the Obamas and the Clintons, to talk show hosts Oprah Winfrey and Ellen Degeneres. In Australia, groups now claim the “deep state’s” membership has extended to local politicians.

Often referred to as “the cabal”, the mythological deep state is said – by QAnon followers – to be operating a global child sex-trafficking ring while controlling all corners of government as well as the mainstream media. The story goes that Trump was enlisted by senior military officials to run for the US presidency in 2016 to combat the deep state and has been entrusted to wage a war on them and ensure that each of its leaders sees justice.

Q’s earlier posts purported to show how that “war” might take shape, and even gave it a name: The Storm. The phrase originates from a line delivered by Trump in October 2017, when he appeared for a photo alongside senior military staff and said, “You guys know what this represents? Maybe it’s the calm before the storm.”

When asked by one reporter what he was referring to, Trump repeated: “Could be the calm before the storm.” The President evaded further follow-up questions from other reporters in the room.

According to Q and their followers, Trump’s words that day would form one of many coded messages related to his war on “the cabal”.

Existing conspiracy theories and concerns have been folded into QAnon communities around the world, in part, because the movement has been able to thread the needle of its core tenets through the local circumstances of any given country.

“It’s melded in with the anti-5G, anti-vax and even some anti-China stuff,” says Dr Kaz Ross, a lecturer in humanities at the University of Tasmania. “They’ve all become glued together by this ‘Q’ framework: that there’s a plan, that Donald Trump is following a plan, and that there is hope because, in the end, it’s all determined in the plan.”

What does the movement look like in Australia?

QAnon’s followers in Australia don’t align with any single political figure or ideology. Other people may not even align with QAnon but might be influenced by it, knowingly or not. Social media posts are not necessarily labelled “QAnon” but contain signature hashtags such as #thegreatawakening.

Unlike QAnon mythology in the US, Australia’s national leader, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, is believed by some adherents to be a member of the deep state rather than Australia’s saviour from it – as are most, if not all, politicians across all levels of government.

After Melbourne’s stage four lockdown restrictions came into effect, QAnon followers in Australia flooded social media platforms with conspiracy theories, claiming variously that Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews had been arrested, that the pandemic was planned (a “Plandemic”) and that Victoria was not in lockdown to contain the virus but because armed forces were secretly battling for control of the state’s tunnels, which QAnon-ers believe are an underground network used by the deep state to transport victims of child sex trafficking.

QAnon has emerged not only as a platform to further existing anti-vaccine rhetoric but also as an entry point for those who might only have one foot in. Followers of the anti-vaccine movement, for example, as with followers of other QAnon-adjacent conspiracies – such as those who believe that 5G is being used as a state surveillance tool – have found a home in QAnon, which also offers a distinctive end goal.

It’s that end goal – the “fall of the cabal” or the defeat of the deep state – that is thought to differentiate QAnon from any conspiracy that precedes it.

“Say, if you look at something like the ‘September 11 was a false flag’ conspiracy or the ‘Port Arthur was a false flag so John Howard could control guns in Australia’ conspiracy,” Ross says, “they don’t really have an end date.

“Whereas this Q stuff offers a very satisfying, comforting framework. ‘The plan’ has been put into place. Don’t worry that you don’t know everything. There are evil forces but they’re being dealt with. Don’t worry.”

On social media, some celebrities including chef Pete Evans and mixed martial artist Vik Grujic have each expressed support for ideas associated with QAnon. (Evans, a supporter of the anti-lockdown movement, posted a statement on September 4 saying that “key influencers” would now “not be supporting the 5th”, claiming the Victorian government would use a September 5 protest to justify extending Melbourne’s stage-four lockdown.)

But it is the movement’s “admins” (administrators) and “mods” (moderators) – those able to offer, deny or block access to QAnon Facebook groups as well as moderate what’s discussed within them – who have assumed leadership roles in their respective groups. Among these is the Conscious Truth Network, a Facebook group moderated by James Bartolo, a former Australian soldier, whose photo appears in the group banner beside the words “How do we stop the cabal? Simple / Stop acquiescing!” (On September 4, Bartolo livestreamed his own arrest as police with a search warrant broke down the door of his home following a stand-off over allowing them entry. He was arrested over allegedly inciting the illegal protest planned for September 5 and later charged with incitement, possession of prohibited weapons (police seized five samurai swords) and two counts of resisting police, and was bailed to appear at Sunshine Magistrates’ Court on May 5, 2021.)

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In August, groups aligned with QAnon organised a digital protest that led hundreds of QAnon followers in Australia to flood the social media accounts of mainstream media outlets – networks Seven, Nine, and Ten and the Daily Mail – with scheduled comments reading “#defundthemedia”. Nine, which owns this masthead, disabled user comments.

On the same night, they also flooded the social media accounts of Scott Morrison and Daniel Andrews with calls for both to be sacked.

Efforts from a group called the Millions Rise for Australia resulted in a separate spam attack on The Age’s Facebook page.

According to data collected by Marc-André Argentino, a researcher who studies QAnon at Concordia University in Canada, Australia’s QAnon following is among the world’s largest. Argentino’s assertion is echoed in a recent report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which found Australia ranked fourth for discussion of QAnon on Twitter, behind the US, the UK and Canada.

“Since mid-March, we have seen an enormous explosion in conspiracy-related activity,” says Elise Thomas, a researcher of extremist dialogue and conspiracy extremism at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

While Facebook and other social media platforms have made efforts to manage its spread, Thomas warns that it could prove a “double-edged sword”.

“When they crack down and these people move to code words, thinly veiled code words, you will lose some of the membership, and some won’t find it again,” she says. “But those who find it again are the people who are more committed.

“You end up with an increasingly small but more radicalised group.”

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What impact has QAnon had in the real world in the US?

In the US, a 24-year-old QAnon follower, Anthony Comello, was charged with the murder of Francesco (Franky Boy) Cali, a New York mafia boss. In court documents filed in July 2019, it was revealed that Camello’s lawyer, Robert C. Gottlieb, believed Camello was so deeply deluded and obsessed with QAnon he thought he could perform a citizen’s arrest on Cali and hand him over to the military.

On April 29 this year, another QAnon devotee, 37-year-old Jessica Prim, was arrested with more than a dozen illegal knives after live streaming a trip from Illinois to New York to “take out” Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Despite Trump being the movement’s only exception to a generally anti-government line, some grass-roots Republican politicians have identified QAnon as an electoral force.

In August, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a sworn supporter of the movement from the southern state of Georgia, won a Republican primary, all but clearing her path to Congress in November. Greene’s win is the first to demonstrate the political pull pro-QAnon candidates have among Republican voters in the US.

In late August, following a report in The New York Times that linked the Texas Republican Party’s new slogan – We Are the Storm – to QAnon, the party posted a statement to its website denying the connection, citing the catchphrase’s origins as Psalm 29 of the Bible.

So far, Trump has retweeted the posts of QAnon followers more than 200 times while declining to answer questions about it until late August, when, at a White House news conference, he described followers of QAnon as “people who love our country”.

Some Republicans rushed to condemn the President’s comments, others remain horrified in private, the The New York Times reported. “We once had Republican leaders that would work to keep extremists from the levers of power. Now they embrace them and their crazy and dangerous ideas,” said Rudy Oeftering from Texas.

“The lunatics,” he told the Times, “are truly running the asylum.”

What’s next?

In Australia, QAnon’s presence online continues to grow as exponents work around Facebook’s crackdown on content associated with the movement by avoiding identifiable keywords and catchphrases.

Plans for digital protests continue almost weekly and the largest physical rally to date likely to involve some QAnon supporters set for September 5 in Melbourne. QAnon protesters say they plan to “overthrow the Andrews government” under the guise of a supposed “freedom day”. Arrests have been made in connection with inciting and co-ordinating the anti-lockdown protest in breach of the Chief Health Officer’s directions.

In the US, the phenomenon continues to swell as “Q” continues to post, albeit on a new platform, and Q’s followers plan to influence the presidential election in November.

“We need memes that are funny and mocking of the Democrat candidates, but also that are informative and revealing about their policies that are WRONG for the United States of America and the American people,” wrote a poster in a thread titled “Meme War 2020” on 8kun in November 2019.

“We also need memes that are PRO-TRUMP, that explain how his policies are RIGHT for the United States of America and the American people, and that can debunk the smears and attacks that are no doubt going to come at POTUS [President of the United States] … again, and again.”

More than a dozen Republican candidates who have expressed support for QAnon are running for Congress in 2020, although many are expected to lose.

In Australia, federal politicians are yet to mention QAnon, and a federal government response could be a way off, too, as “anything they do makes it worse”, says Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Thomas.

“People have a tendency to think [of this] as an information literacy problem,” she says. “This idea that, if you get people better information, that will fix the problem. That’s really not the case.

“It spiked during this period; literacy was not getting worse, social isolation is worse, mental health is worse,” she says. “The solution, in some ways, is very unsatisfying – but it’s about solving social problems which are the root cause. A silver bullet won’t make it go away until things improve for people.”

– with Simone Fox Koob, Ashleigh McMillan