A Trail of ‘Bread Crumbs,’ Leading Conspiracy Theorists Into the Wilderness (16mag-firstwords) (16mag-firstwords) (16mag-firstwords)

"Patience. Wait for the Sign[s] Changing Guards? prochoice vs. nochoice who wins? denying the vote new nom Midterms Jan 2019 Bolton bolts Checkmate in Qatar Dust Storms throughout Wonderland? Time Patience Will NYT " Q

As the many numerologists who purport to discover secrets by counting the periods in the Book of Exodus, this QAnon is a common malady among the quasi-educated. The insider, "afraid' to reveal their identity and all the attendant encripts and....... It's Dungeons and Dragons for guys not into costumes. if these bakers want something really wacked, type in 'Christ Light Learning'. And wheeee.....Keep em' busy for 6 months.

The allure of conspiracy theory communities is, in part, the belief that this exclusive club consists of the only people who know "the truth." There is power, smugness, and arrogance in that but also a sense of belonging. WE know; you don't is a powerful draw, especially for those who experience themselves as powerless and/or marginalized.

"A related tendency can be found in corners of the anti-Trump resistance, where Twitter gurus highlight whatever nuggets of the day’s news are favorable to their camp... The president is forever on the verge of impeachment; the biggest bombshells are always just about to drop; the full perfidy of the Trump-Russia iceberg is always just below the waterline, visible only to those faithfully connecting the dots." This is the best description of the recent New York Times editorial policy I have yet seen. I am not a Trump supporter in any way, shape or form, but it has been truly amazing to see the NYT devolve to the point of being an openly partisan 'news' organization.

This kind of "writing" wont work anymore, the cat is out of the bag thanks to Q! And yes, the Storm is upon us. Thanks President Trump for gladly taking all the slings and arrow they continue to throw at you. Despite all the "resistance", your POTUS has the admiration of patriots around the world. While it is known is no angel, DJT is A Man of Honor and the right person to be leading the free world, A Man of Our Time. What makes him unique is that no-one else out there would be able to do the job he is doing for the World. When all is said and done, history will remember him like no other American president. Godspeed Mr Trump, God willing, you will shape a new and safer world for all of us. Gone will be all the ills inflicted upon the World by The Last Jihadist.

These “bakers” and their ilk are ruining this country with their aggressive ignorance. They are immune to reason and beyond help. Time to start drawing up plans to geographically divide the USA into two countries: one for reasonable, rational, educated, progressive people and one for religious, pro-gun, anti-abortion conspiracy theorists.

Or we could put people in positions of power so they can fabricate crimes to start investigations into people whom they don't agree with. Or put them into the IRS so they can audit, harass and deny service to people with different political views. Or obstruct justice into an investigation into mishandling of classified information. Or have reporters subpoenaed as co-conspirators in violation of the espionage act, so they can be surveilled and wire tapped. But none of these things are conspiracy theories. They are conspiracy facts, that we once had a government that was out of control.

Maybe your criticism would have more weight if you didn't make up your own theories. The report is simple. Q dumps links. People have fun researching new information (which is true) and draw many conclusions. People then collaborate on new information and try to figure out what makes sense about the stories and documents they've read. No one knows who Q is. We do know Q is great at finding documents and news sources to match your headlines. Have some fun and play along. BTW why did NYT go from reporting to coverup on human trafficking? https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/world/africa/un-report-shows-an-incre... https://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/23/human-trafficking-in-the-un... Now https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/us/backpage-sex-trafficking.html

Fascinating how many followers of Q have posted comments on this article when they almost never post comments on actual news stories in the NYT. Since there is no actual hard evidence for any of Q's theories, they rush headlong from what could be a thoughtful skepticism about the mainstream media to a credulous acceptance of unsupported explanations. Why not counter the MSM with actual information from progressive news sites such as Common Dreams and Truthout rather than vague wishful thinking?

False Equivalence The bothersome part of this article is the shoehorning into to it of conspiracies by those opposed to Trump. This is the problem of false equivalence. To the extent that there is a left in the US, they just aren't that interested in current day grand political conspiracies whether that's because they don't have an echo chamber that delights in conspiracies as the relatively mainstream right does or because there's no need of a grand conspiracy to explain the weirdness of those who support your views.

There are two distinct aspect of this story I would like to comment on, the first being the integrity of the article. As an ever increasing majority of the American population has learned, the mainstream media cannot be trusted to tell the truth. They are engaged in a systematic conspiracy to overthrow our duly elected president which has produced fanatical hatred towards Donald Trump. Weak-minded and lazy Americans who suffer from unchecked naivity are now trapped in a state of unpatriotic psychosis. The effects of the mainstream media power to cause mental disorders in its audience is truly frightening. Because they are engaged in acts of psychological warfare against the American people, I must disregard anything they claim. Secondly, Q has already demonstrated several times that he, she or they are most definitely working along side U.S. military intelligence and the president. You can deny this all you want but eventually you will know it to be true. The storm is upon us, we stand together. Those who have committed treason are going down!

The inevitable conclusion is when it has suckered some suckers into committing acts against others to unlock new crumbs or bits or whatever they want to call it. Ugh. Get ready for America: The Video Game. Coming unfortunately soon.

This last line is ALL I needed to know: Mattathias Schwartz is a contributing writer for the magazine and a former staff writer at The New Yorker... His last feature for the magazine was about the former C.I.A. director John Brennan.

The “q” is simply a mass paranoia event promoted by Trumps base as it becomes clear Trump is unfit to be President. I believe it’s a way to justify Trumps actions through deceitful, misleading “crumbs” of information that offer no credibility whatsoever. Here, see for yourself, these “Anons” as the followers of the movement like to call themselves have gone completely off the deep-end: https://qmap.pub That is the domain “headquarters” if that’s what you want to call it. Lol

Well, that would be great except that Judicial Watch FOIA requests obtained emails on July 2, 2018 showing that Hillary Clinton is "Alice" and Saudi Arabia is "Wonderland" from the Q posts. Q first posted about "Alice & Wonderland" on November 4, 2017. How did Q know? https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/JW-v-State-Hill...

Almost everyone who writes about this particular group of conspiracy theorists misses, I think, what's really going on here. A large number of the "Q" believers are older people, and not very internet savvy. They're the same people who share things on Facebook because they believe that Bill Gates is going to donate two dollars for every "like and share" to contribute to some poor kid's cancer treatment. The "type amen and share" crowd. They aren't stupid, but they are strangers in a strange land. The leap from Facebook to 4chan, 8chan, or even reddit, is a huge leap. Especially for your 60 year old mother. They aren't stupid, but they are sheltered, and that makes them gullible. That's part 1 of the problem. The second part of the problem is that the people who are really keeping the Q story alive are very internet savvy. They know how to make videos, make them sound convincing (to your mom,) and post them on Youtube. They know how to choose from trump's limited vocabulary and pick words that are extremely likely to be spoken or tweeted by the man, and use them in "drops," to make "Q" seem like an insider, or psychic. More importantly, they know how to make T shirts and sell them, and how to set up Patreon accounts for their videos and websites that "decode" those "Q drops"--which they themselves probably 'dropped' in the first place. It probably started out as a prank, but it turned out to be lucrative, and so long as there's money in it, Q will keep dropping.

Most people in the world would agree something odd is afoot. How they explain that oddness to themselves defines our current ethos: division, apathy, anger. The Q phenomenon exists in that vast empty space created by our media and our politicians. Their inability to provide answers produces a Q. People are looking for populist heroes to fill in the void our politicians have left.

Way to avoid mentioning some of the very clear and "interesting" coincidences between Q's posts and the President's social media activity. It's almost as if you purposely avoided it, or, more likely, you didn't do nearly as much homework as you claim to have.

Q is probably some progressive liberal having fun with some extreme conservatives to point out their naivety. There is absolutely no reason to believe this person is anywhere near the inner circles of govt. other than his claim that he is....and they are buying it based on that.

I doubt that Q would gain any traction if, to use an English cricket expression, the Obama administration, FBI, the Democratic party, the Republican party, and the media, played with a 'straight bat'. For example, one look at the almost evil and certainly corrupt face of Peter Strzok's gives credence to the idea that something is very wrong in the FBI. Yet, the fact that reliable and mature newspapers refuse to examine the corruption within our government - unless, of course, it points to a Trump misdeed - causes Americans to look elsewhere for information.

You do realize that you can prove whether or not is Q is real simply by asking the president directly don't you? Meanwhile, everything Q has told us has been verified by other sources. If you can't understand he's trying to tell us, then you haven't done enough research. Perhaps you could write an objective piece on the drops rather than simply calling it "absurd wrongness" about "absurd theories". What theories? Where has he been wrong? Where has he been right? I shouldn't have to tell a newspaper how to do their job... and yet here we are.

Seems strange that the NYT would require my facebook account to leave a simple comment. I guess they need to keep track of all of us "loonies" who would suggest that you just read through the information yourself, and make up your own mind. https://qmap.pub/ Take it or leave it. I really don't care. But there it is, for anyone who might decide that they'd like to see for themselves what's what, without someone else telling them what's what.

The World is changing, right before our eyes. Those who present the news must stand for Truth and Justice. True Journalism must resurrect from the ashes of control and Propaganda. Thank you NYT's for getting the word out there! We are all watching!

tic, tock.....

Such time and energy devoted to an obscure message board group? If it's that important I'll go check it out. Thanks.

Thank you so much for this ' fair and balanced' article. There are wacks on both sides and they will believe ANYTHING! I would be happy to go back to good old Walter Cronkite. Yup, he leaned a bit left but he reported FACTS.

I think you've covered every conspiracy theory in the book in this article about "Q". So this person who claims to have inside access and is in direct communication with Trump has been posting on these dark web sites since last October? Isn't it illegal to claim to be a police officer or military when you're not? Stolen valor? The easiest way to expose this anonymous person from creating a zombie army of Alex Jones acolytes is to ask Trump about this cult leader known as Q! Based on what you've covered here, it would be negligent not to get to the bottom of this.

Remember Trump posting "Treason" last week. Then Lindsey Graham and Judge Kavanaugh conduct a tutorial on the Military Code of Justice and military tribunals. Is the "Dossier" an act of (what Ds call an existential threat) Russia to smear Trump during an election? Did any non-Russians aid and abet the Russians? You don't need Q to get this.

So much for unbiased reporting... Keep pushing your deep state agenda, everyone gets found out in the end. Attacks will come from all directions. Don’t you guys have some anonymous Op-Eds to publish...as per your bosses?

I see my other post was deleted.... "The political establishment has brought about the destruction of our factories and our jobs as they flee to Mexico, China, and other countries all around the world. It's a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money in the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities." ~ DJT

Sounds like the author of this article spends an awful amount of their time following "Q". You would think if "Q" was fake, why would this person waste so much of their time.... But much like the rest of the extreme biases the NYT publishes, I wonder how many people take this author seriously? Or is this author jealous that Q had more readers than the NYT? Hahaha

This is what we call PANIC.

The Kremlin controls Q.

Notice how this author (Schwartz) does not do any detailed analysis of the information drops that are in the Q posts. He just resorts to over-generalizations and dismissive labelling. Another "hit piece" from the compromised NYTimes.

Have you bothered to do any of the exhaustive research that the bakers have done? Have you spent months looking into the dark places that have been uncovered by the thousands and thousands of anons due to Q's clues? Because we have. We do so every day. Perhaps you should look into it a little deeper before you label us conspiracy theorists. I, for one, am a conspiracy realist. Don't assume you know everything just because timeliness and expectations get altered due to new information or unexpected delays.

Rather than taking the Time’s ascertion that there is “nothing to see here” verbatim, I suggest you check out the Q drops for yourself. Some very interesting dots have been connected through these “drops,” that have served to explain some of the rather odd sea changes so many have noticed in the United States for several decades and longer. Since the mainstream press and much of the Internet won’t support these ideas (due to censorship), perhaps 8 Chan is one of few places the information can be safely released. What is interesting is the lengths the mainstream media has gone to to discredit this “leaker.” If Q is indeed something to brush off, why expend all of this energy making sure he is relegated to the outpost of conspiracy theory? Certainly these tidbits are not coming from an uninformed teenager in his mother’s basement. Readers ponder the role of North Korea in U.S. politics, the scourge of the media and tech companies in modern life, the process of obtaining a FISA warrant, and the players that make up our current political field. You can ponder the divisiveness of American citizens, question the sincerity of the Clinton foundation, wonder about heroes turned foes. At the end of the day, you can walk away, smug in your assessment that the only truth is the truth you know. But I don’t think that is the case for everyone who wanders there. There is something grossly wrong in our world. And some of us are trying to understand what that something is. Qmap.pub

Those who believe in Q are equal to the number of those who believe in Sasquatch, or that earth has been visited by space aliens.

I continue to find it amusing how the MSM knocks themselves out trying to discredit Q. If it's all conspiracy theory, then why don't you just ignore it, instead of wasting all this money and time to debunk it. There's LOTS of conspiracy theories, and I've never seen the MSM make such a concerted effort to marginalize any one of them they way you're going after Q... If you don't think it's real, then why all the fuss? What are you afraid of?

Pursuing a conspiracy theory is more fun than reality. People like to believe they have information the general public doesn't. Unfortunately, these pursuits can lead to problems--even violence. Think of the man who brought a gun to the pizza parlor where conspiracy mongers claimed there was a child trafficking ring. Now, Trump is telling his followers not to believe the mainstream media--and they're falling prey to the worst liars.

A theory is only debatable until it is proven a fact, after-which debate is just ignorant banter.

The author's tagline about their latest book being about John Brennen tells you everything you need to know about the bias in this article. One thing the Q researchers continue to publish is facts. Which lead to more questions, then more answers. I can't say the same about the Russian collusion theory, or any of the self-referential theories the MSM circulates. They refuse to publish independent facts and verifiable sources. Though, I will give the author credit when writing about the very thinly stretched connections. And the sometimes ludicrous theories. But the same could be said from much mainstream reporting. Believe Q or not, but Americans are doing the investigative leg work that journalists no longer do.

Why let the NYT, that posts anonymous conspiracy op-eds, do your thinking for you. Check it out, and make up your own mind. Too many coincidences for it to be nothing. Maybe it’s just someone with some insider info. But, the latest Strzok texts seem to debunk a lot of MSM and feed into the validity of Qanon. If nothing more, it’s entertaining.

"unverified allegations from anonymous sources" An interesting phrase, sounds familiar ... Like this one you posted in your publication a few days ago ... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/business/media/new-york-times-trump-a... Can't have it both ways, can you. Will you publish, this comment, doubt it! Not Q or follower, just a citizen. All the best ... of luck

Consider this. If the "Q phenomenon" were indeed a hoax, LARP or scam, and given how many 'followers' have lined up behind it, don't you think the government would have stepped in and shut it down by now? Don't you thinks SOMEONE in power would make a public comment ... even just ONE ... about the whole 'Q thing' being fake? The gov't isn't stepping in to suppress the Q movement. Why? Nobody with any sort of 'power' is making public comments about Q. Why? Only the mainstream media (MSM) is commenting about Q, and it's ALL negative. Why? A reasonable person, with basic intelligence and an open mind would ask these questions, and wonder about the answers. Just saying. ;)

These folks deny reasoning. They will just claim you and anyone or anything that contradicts their belief are part of the their "Deep State". You cant reason with the irrational. At best truth will reduce their recruitment to oddball, the addled and cellar dwelling misfits.

Those with too much time on their hands seem to have started dating the easily amused.

As I read this there are 9/11 "truthers" on the street below. As someone who worked at the WTC then, the truthers infuriate me. In my fantasy, I haul off and punch one of these people as I pass. Violence is not an answer and it is just as ineffective as argument in waking these people up. How can you change minds that can't see the logical fallacies in their arguments and are in the grip of "ignorance and powerlessness?" I wish the author had made some stab at answering this.

Among our political leadership, there is much secrecy and little commitment to evidence and rational debate. The proliferation of conspiracy theories is an expectable result. Further, the voting public--having been often manipulated and pummeled by propaganda--itself does not evidence much in the way of critical thinking skills. Are voters becoming more aware that they are being manipulated by politicians and spokespersons from both major parties? When Madison Avenue marketing strategies so thoroughly dominate political campaigns, is it really surprising that the public has become highly suspicious of all politicians or that conspiracy theories abound? So many of the demagogue's favored techniques--gross oversimplification, fear mongering, scapegoating, emotional appeals, accusations that opponents are disloyal or weak, attacks on the news media, obstructive refusals of all compromise--are employed by representatives of both major parties. (In my assessment, far more by the Trumpublicans than by the Democrats.) Is it really any surprise that the low level of current political discourse breeds suspicion and further dulls the electorate's critical faculties, or that suspicion generates ready audiences for even the wildest of conspiracy theories? Far to many U.S. leaders attempt to sell voters political products which do not meet their needs. Is it any wonder that voters are no longer in a buying mood?

I gather it pays handsomely to overthink simple stuff. It is entertaining to watch those who criticize the President conjure their own conspiracies with each disjointed tweet or media announcement of new developments in the Mueller probe. Now they have one more source, to which to turn where they can find new craziness about which to chatter and feed their paranoia. For those who have paid attention to Qanon, the future proves the past. The information dropped there is now coming to the fore, and the adherents are receiving their rewards. Now that you have kindly tuned in, your great unwashed masses (our elite) can find so much more about which to be afraid, be very afraid.

In times of trouble and uncertainty, when fear drives thought and the darkness seems unending, those who need to find hope will do so and seize upon that which most meets their visions of the past, the present and the future.