Sure I’ve wondered whether the idiocy part of Donald Trump would save us from his worst authoritarian impulses, but my greater concern was always centered on a society that could elect such a man in the first place and what might spawn from such ideological sewage? Post QAnon’s emergence, one wonders if the Trump base, aka IQanone, might save us from their more terroristic inclinations? After all, this is not your grandfather’s Weather Underground [‘putting on false Ayres’ joke detained by the FBI]. Face it, the fabled ‘Q’ of QAnon is to Bin Laden as the ‘underwear bomber’ is to Muslim terrorism. The mystery MAGA prophet has gotten nothing right to date, from Hillary Clinton’s “imminent arrest” to “the Coronavirus is a hoax,” so he’s a perfect addition to the team. Republicans have made a lifetime of being wrong; it’s second nature to them, so why would their Nostradumbass be any different? Follow your blissful ignorance? The FBI has already classified QAnon as a domestic terrorist group, but if they follow suit with ANTIFA, it’s just politics. Half the country is against fascism and the rest can’t spell fascism. But just how homegrown extremism is this bunch going to get? And who gets elected to the backdrop of these populist delusions? Kidding, Trump stays in power until he dies because the only thing standing between him and some jail bars is AG Barr.

Whereas Fox News represents “information damaging to the public discourse,” the next round of republicana will make Steve Bannon look like Lady Byng. QAnon is the house that Ales and Murdock built, which could even birther a Trump Network replete with conspiracy-driven programming, the likes of which we’ve never seen. Even if it doesn’t end up Trump, someone is going to fill this niche. Think about all the extra change in MAGA’s pockets after halting all their ‘Build the Wall’ and NRA donations? It’s a cult of anti-personality that represents nearly half of our citizens, a group still willing to join the Grifts Okay Party …as long someone keeps dangling their fabled cut. How mad will they all be when they realize they’ve been had? Kidding, the sun’s hydrogen supply will run out long before then.

Fox learned, long ago, it could spin and win any and all issues. The next step is to motivate their army onward toward glory.

“In the face of inconvenient facts, it has the ambiguity and adaptability to sustain a movement of this kind over time. For QAnon, every contradiction can be explained away; no form of argument can prevail against it.”

—The Atlantic

Who knew Fox News was just the gateway thug? But I’d still like to know how smart folks get sucked into this QAnonsense? This is a rabbit hole within a rabbit hole. You need an advanced course in false assumptions before you’re even eligible to take this cognitive distortion class. It’s an offshoot of 100% USDA prime choice Foxal Matter, and if all the fools down in Qville start blowing on their byzu bilzl brasstic big tubas and drumming their Zoom-pazum, Boom-pazum, plutses, no one else is going to hear that shit.

[‘Horton Defunds the WHO’ joke removed by the Suess Foundation.]

Here’s my friend Pokey, a known QAnon sympathizer:

“I’ve recently read many online criticisms of ‘QAnon conspiracy lies.’ Anti-Trump critics will never understand the QAnon phenomenon until they first come to terms with the most outrageous conspiracy theory ever, the ‘Trump-Russia collusion’ conspiracy theory. QAnon can only be understood in the context of the proven ‘Trump-Russia’ lies of which so many ‘Not-My-President’ Resistors refuse to face. People’s denial of what actually occurred to spawn the Trump-Russia Collusion narrative deludes their assessment of all other stories surrounding President Trump. Until people acknowledge these lies at the heart of this popular conspiracy theory, their analysis and critique of QAnon will remain hypocritical, hollow, and irrelevant.”

Flash forward a week later and the republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee confirms what we all knew: Trump’s peeps had direct contacts with Russian spies and fed them info and, through Wikileaks via Roger Stone, his campaign coordinated the dumping of the Podesta emails to counter the Access Hollywood debacle, aka collusion. In Trump’s defense—as a clearly comprised president, both mentally and Moscowically—he might not have had a choice. So in this case, let’s all give him the benedict of the doubt.

Last week my blogvesary also released his ‘insights on conspiracy theories over the years.’ Having screwed every scandal from Whitewater to Blackwater, do enlighten us, oh Great Pokey, QAnon advocate extraordinaire…

[Winslow here: I couldn’t find Pokey’s original FB post. Did you have the sense to take that one down?]

Regardless, he set the baseline at the faked moon landing, something we can all agree is “crazy,” but then he adds how there are some tantalizing tidbits to support this view, revealing his own tendency to fall for this crapola. He then offers a list of conspiracy theories in an effort to get us all to become more critical thinkers. For the first few examples he jumped back to ancient history or the equivalent of John Adams liked hookers and J. Edgar Hoover wore women’s clothing. He then conveniently skips the last twenty years, the same time period we’ve been debating political scandals, only to finish off the list with some of his latest conspiracy duds, like Spygate. This is at the heart of my zenwrongness theory, or a hyper-focusing on the latest tantalizing nonsense from Q, Sean, Rush, and Breitbart at the expense of reality.

We can’t simply skip the last couple of decades of important scandals! Why did the wildly popular Sanjya lose American Idol back in 2007? And, was Paula Abdul’s nip-slip really a wardrobe malfunction? These questions demand answers!

Today my friend’s ideology is sadly completely aligned with Q. Fox and their sick friends have always played a variation of this same game: we refuse to pay attention to anything until someone answers our latest round of fictional questions, aka a distraction.

Zano: Trump is destroying our institutions and we may never recover.

Pokey: Before we can honestly look at your allegations, Zano, we must subpoena sasquatch on Benghazi and ask him, what did Bigfoot know and when did he know it?

Asking such an elusive creature an imaginary question is, by its very nature, going to distract us from the important stuff, which is the point. I’ve been covering the right’s bullshit scandals for decades and none of them have ever drifted anywhere near what the rest of us would call relevant. My most recent scandal review, here; this article covers how each Hannity-championed scandal ended similarly, with the equivalent of Nelson from the Simpsons saying ha-ha! Each Republican-led witch hunt died in front of some bipartisan congressional committee, or some judge, usually republican. The Durham Report will be no different. I used to think the right was due to be right about something, but I have abandoned that theory in favor of: no one is supposed to be smart enough to be wrong all the time …until now.

No offense to my friend, but if you buy one iota of what QAnon is selling …well, reread the main image.