How the Epstein Files Reveal the Final Failure of QAnon
This story is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
The most enduring conspiracy theories often contain kernels of truth, though it is debatable whether any popularly theorized conspiracy has later been proven as real by unassailable facts. But if one popular conspiracy theory seems to have been promoted from “theory” to fact, it would appear to be QAnon. What started as a far-right prophecy scam using codes and ciphers on 4chan to “reveal” the horrors of a pedophile cabal ruling the world has taken on a distinct tinge of truth thanks to millions of newly-released files involving fixer and child abuser Jeffrey Epstein.
It’s easy to look at Epstein’s communications with billionaires and royals, famous directors and scions of old money, and see the dealings of a cabal. In those countless emails, we seem to have a notorious sex offender and lover of “young women” exchanging messages with some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people. Some of them appear innocuous, and some of them are deeply weird and extremely disturbing.
Like QAnon’s accusations, at least some of these messages are written in what many researchers have theorized is a code for truly unspeakable things, such as powerful people trafficking their own children, or hunting and eating human beings. And just like with QAnon, it’s fallen to “citizen researchers” to dig through the “drops” from the Department of Justice, as unpaid truth crusaders churn through millions of messages full of noise to find the bits of signal that “they” were hiding from us.
Naturally, the Epstein revelations have resulted in some QAnon believers claiming that the Epstein releases validate their years of hard work and research into the “pedo elite” running the west. It’s also resulted in a number of stories, podcasts, and social media threads essentially saying that QAnon was right this whole time. Essentially, we all thought these Q people were crazy, but there really was a pedophile cabal running things, and the Q believers knew the whole time.
Except QAnon has not been “proven true,” and it was not right. This is not because of anything to do with Epstein, but because that’s not really what QAnon was about. The idea of a dark cabal running world events and doing horrible things in the shadows is only part of QAnon — and it’s the least original part, at that.
A secret government or society of insiders using the masses for their Satanic purposes has been a rich source of lore for countless cranks and conspiracists generations before Q emerged on 4chan. Its 20th century form began with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the aftermath of the First World War, was later adapted by bestselling tomes of Cold War paranoia like None Dare Call it Conspiracy and Secrets of the Federal Reserve, and would form the core of the lurid post-9/11 globalist fantasies of “Reptoid Elite” theorist David Icke and Infowars’ Alex Jones. The name of this group shifts, but its members are always a hopelessly complicated tangle of bankers, think tanks, political figures, universities, cultural luminaries, and wealthy families. Unsurprisingly, this is almost the same exact motley crew found in the Epstein emails.
Yes, this one happens to be real. But there has always been an upper tier of society walled off from the rest of us through money, influence, and power. It’s a group that is impenetrable and exists in a world of wealth and privilege that most of us only see in movies and tabloids. And many of its charter members have been credibly accused of unspeakably awful things over the last two thousand years. And for that long, they have gotten away with it.
Where QAnon was different, and where it failed spectacularly, was in promising that justice would finally be delivered to these untouchable insiders. It offered believers not nihilistic scapegoating, but a utopia that was just a few executions away. The basis of Q, and why it was so compelling to so many people, was that the monsters were finally going to be brought down by Donald Trump, a figure of outsider wealth beholden to nobody except those who elected him. Only someone with no connection to the powerbrokers and their ancient bloodlines could deliver justice. It would be done swiftly, correctly, and publicly. And nothing would ever be the same.
It’s not hard to understand why this bloody fantasy caught on with people struggling to understand why Trump wasn’t fulfilling the promises of his first presidential campaign. He ran on bringing down the deep state, giving power back to the people, and locking up Hillary Clinton and her goons. Why wasn’t it happening? QAnon gave you an answer: that it was, but it was happening in secret. Q was revealing that secret, and making its believers part of the world it was creating.
Past foundational works of conspiracism were all about what the “insiders” or “superstate of the elite” were doing to you. World domination was inevitable, total enslavement could not be stopped, and freedom was doomed. All one could do was research, prepare, and buy as much food and ammo as your credit card could take.
In contrast, Q believers were shown that victory was possible, if you prayed hard enough and spread the gospel of Q. The anonymous poster encouraged followers to be part of the operation by making memes, doing their own research, and waking up the people they loved. It made the humble “anon” the worst nightmare of the elite machine. While much of the media saw Q as an apocalyptic cult obsessed with violence and race, Q saw itself as the savior of humanity. To quote the title of one popular Q video, it was “the plan to save the world.”
QAnon was a play-by-play of the good guys finally winning, starting with the very first Q drop on Oct. 28, 2017, promising that Hillary Clinton would be arrested in a few days trying to leave the U.S., and that the president would deploy federal forces to put down riots ginned up by her allies.
By decoding the Q drops on 4chan and later 8chan, Q believers were positioned to know before anyone when the long-promised “storm” was coming, and with it, justice.
Q promised arrests and military tribunals for the worst evildoers in dozens of posts, the first of which would “shock the world.” As one Q catchphrase put it, “the hunters would become the hunted.” Another promised “power would be returned to the people,” and that “crimes against children” would be swiftly and brutally punished. Long-held secrets would be revealed, ancient cabals would fall, and those who had terrorized patriots for generations would be hauled away to Guantánamo Bay — or worse. It would all happen “soon” or in “two weeks” or in a “big week” ahead. And nothing could stop it.
Even with the antisemitism and conspiracism inherent to QAnon, some of these are admirable goals. It’s not wrong to want truth and justice, and for people who harm others to be stopped. This is what made QAnon so appealing to older people and religious believers. It wasn’t just anarchic meme-making, it was utopian.
But it was all a hoax. None of it happened, and the people Q promised would be taken down by Trump are still out there, presumably getting away with it. Hillary Clinton was never arrested. There were no mass arrests. It failed on every level.
Trump was supposed to destroy the elite traffickers and release all of the government’s files on their members. Instead, Trump has called the entire Epstein debacle a hoax created by Democrats, and held up the release of the Epstein files to the point where it took immense pressure from Congress for the DOJ to release what they had. Even then, they didn’t, as filings that involved Trump’s alleged assault on a 13 year old girl were only made public after NPR reported that dozens of pages had been withheld. This does not seem like the behavior of someone tirelessly working to bring down Epstein’s cabal of evildoers.
There was supposed to be a great purge of the worst people in society. There were supposed to be shocking arrests and a truth that would “put 99% of Americans in the hospital.” Not a single prominent American has faced legal accountability due to the Epstein fallout other than Epstein. And Epstein didn’t feel the rope of a military tribunal, instead taking his own life without ever facing his accusers.
QAnon wasn’t right. It was spectacularly wrong, stringing its believers along for years with promises of revenge and justice that all turned to dust. The enemy of the deep state turned out to be its most high-profile protector. And the people desperate for accountability are still vulnerable to conspiracy theories that prey on their very natural desires.
QAnon was supposed to be the plan to save the world. But the world is exactly the same as it’s always been.
