Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realists travel back with us in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: During this classic episode, taking place during time of great
Speaker 1: unrest is now just called the COVID pandemic, we asked ourselves,
Speaker 1: what if the stories and narratives you hear in mainstream
Speaker 1: media aren't the entire truth.
Speaker 2: What if there's.
Speaker 1: Something else going on? This is the story of q Anon.
Speaker 2: Who is q who are q Yeah? And what if
Speaker 2: there's something else going on? A secret war between a
Speaker 2: shadowy cabal and a small group of brave, outnumbered good
Speaker 2: guys fighting back against their insidious plans for world domination.
Speaker 2: That's what QAnon folks seem to think. Let's roll the tape.
Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3: Hello, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 3: my name is Nola.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
Speaker 1: our super producer Paul Mission Controlled decad Most importantly, you
Speaker 1: are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know. This is the first episode we are
Speaker 1: recording in what the calendars call twenty twenty. So if
Speaker 1: you're listening to this, congratulations you've made it at least
Speaker 1: to January of that month.
Speaker 3: Good for you.
Speaker 2: Wait a go, you did a thing.
Speaker 3: We all did it. We're all here.
Speaker 2: We are here in some shape or form. I'm already
Speaker 2: enjoying the heck out out of twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well mainly I don't know, just personal choice. I
Speaker 2: decided I wasn't gonna drink it all in January. It's
Speaker 2: the thing people do, the dry January, Dryuary. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: I've gotten so much done in six days, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: I redecorated my whole house, been working on music again.
Speaker 2: I've been just you know, be more present with my kid.
Speaker 2: Not that I'm some kind of crazy alcoholic, but it's
Speaker 2: easy to forget about the things that actually make you
Speaker 2: happy when maybe work is a little stressful. You yes,
Speaker 2: you'd rather just like have a couple of drinks with
Speaker 2: friends instead. I've been like doing, you know, playing board
Speaker 2: games and stuff, and it's great. Now friends come over
Speaker 2: to my house and we play NERD games together.
Speaker 3: That's amazing, Noel, And I'm so proud of you for
Speaker 3: not letting the current news cycle cause you to go
Speaker 3: back to the drink.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you're talking about. I've also chosen
Speaker 2: to give up watching television, giving up with the news.
Speaker 2: Please enlighten me.
Speaker 3: Oh, nothing, just something to do with this country that
Speaker 3: we've talked about on this show numerous times that is
Speaker 3: surrounded on all sides by people that may want to
Speaker 3: invade for various reasons. And you know there's just almost
Speaker 3: a hot war between our country and that country occurs
Speaker 3: invade us, Matt, No, no, anyway, Ben, how you doing good?
Speaker 3: You good with a whole Iran situation.
Speaker 1: Well, the reason is to congratulations to everyone for making
Speaker 1: it to January of twenty twenty. It's because we are
Speaker 1: very much in a what it feels like it, day
Speaker 1: by day, week by week estimate of the future, which
Speaker 1: may change precipitously. Of course, it's often said, at least
Speaker 1: by me, that the world is ending for someone somewhere
Speaker 1: every day. But you know, Australia is burning down the
Speaker 1: ocean acidification that you warned me about years ago. Matt's
Speaker 1: that's definitely in play. I have also, I have also
Speaker 1: not gone completely dry, but I've been drinking a lot less,
Speaker 1: just because I feel like I need to be aware
Speaker 1: and alert at all times. Relaxation feels very twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I swear to god, the news cycle is
Speaker 2: starting to feel like that movie Children of Men, you know,
Speaker 2: like it's very much like a near future dystopia thing
Speaker 2: that we're starting to fall into a little bit. I'm
Speaker 2: not being super hyper about that. It really if you
Speaker 2: just take a minute, listen to the radio, watch TV.
Speaker 2: Everything's on fire. It's crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, let me tell you this and then we'll
Speaker 3: I agree, let me tell you this just here. I'll
Speaker 3: share this in the room. And this is the first
Speaker 3: time I'm talking about this. Uh, and I'm speaking to you.
Speaker 3: Person who called ben Nole Paul. We got a really
Speaker 3: really wonderful series of calls on our hotline over like
Speaker 3: right after the New year. Occurred from a gentleman who
Speaker 3: told of how he he knew he had to quit
Speaker 3: heroin and the only way he was going to do
Speaker 3: it was to get a trusted friend and lock himself
Speaker 3: in a place for you know, weeks on end. And
Speaker 3: while he was doing that, he found our podcast and
Speaker 3: he said, because the time goes by so excruciatingly slowly
Speaker 3: during those times. Getting to have our pod cast gave
Speaker 3: him a place to it gave him a group of
Speaker 3: people essentially with whom to commune without having any kind
Speaker 3: of fear of falling back, right, And he said he's
Speaker 3: and he ended up getting through the entire show, and
Speaker 3: he just thanked us on the phone for for just
Speaker 3: existing and for talking.
Speaker 1: Congratulations, man, We're glad you're here, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Man, isn't that amazing? It's incredible. He actually had
Speaker 2: reached out on Instagram or something, he said he did. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but this is an update. That's that's that's new. Well,
Speaker 2: we'll really really wonderful.
Speaker 3: We'll share it together just so everyone knows who was
Speaker 3: listening to this first time we've actually hung out all
Speaker 3: together in a while. But just want to put that
Speaker 3: out there. The world, as scary as it seems, as
Speaker 3: bad as the news seems, as crazy as the stuff
Speaker 3: we're about to talk about, is in the end, we
Speaker 3: have each other no, right.
Speaker 2: Right, And that's why I wasn't joking when I said
Speaker 2: my twenty is off to a really nice start. I'm
Speaker 2: feeling pretty positive about things overall, despite the news cycle
Speaker 2: and how you know, eminently weird things are getting. I mean,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, all we have our friends,
Speaker 2: our loved ones, our families, and the little things that
Speaker 2: we have to occupy our minds with to keep from
Speaker 2: going completely insane.
Speaker 1: So this is the first episode we're recording in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: hopefully not the last. But you know, you know how
Speaker 1: the nature of life is. It's like Ella Musk recently said,
Speaker 1: it's a video game where the graphics are amazing, the
Speaker 1: tutorials are too long. The problem with life is that
Speaker 1: we're all working live right, no one really in charge.
Speaker 1: There's not really a plan or is there, Because today
Speaker 1: we are diving into one of the strangest, most controversial
Speaker 1: conspiracy stories of the aughts, which I mean the recent aughts,
Speaker 1: the twenty tens and so on. This is something that
Speaker 1: many of our fellow listeners have written to us about
Speaker 1: or communicated intro in to us via some platform or another.
Speaker 1: As as always, we want to explore these ideas with
Speaker 1: with with an emphasis on critical thinking and an emphasis
Speaker 1: on the facts versus rumors, et cetera, et cetera. If
Speaker 1: this is your first rodeo, you'll see what we mean
Speaker 1: very quickly. And again, hopefully it's not your last rodeo.
Speaker 1: You've heard the name before. You may have even accidentally
Speaker 1: or purposely found yourself embroiled in a conversation about this thing.
Speaker 1: But what exactly is q A noon, why has it
Speaker 1: become a focal point for a certain genre of conspiracy literature,
Speaker 1: and most importantly, what sort of claims do q A
Speaker 1: non supporters make? If you are someone like like many
Speaker 1: of us listening, who enjoys a bit of googling while
Speaker 1: you're while you're listening to the podcast, take note that
Speaker 1: q ANN is spelled capital Q capital ann. Anyhow, here
Speaker 1: are the facts.
Speaker 3: So to begin this story, we have to jump back
Speaker 3: to twenty seventeen, October twenty eighth of that year, and
Speaker 3: we have to go to a place called four chan,
Speaker 3: a message board, and within that there is a channel
Speaker 3: called poll pol politics. And on that date, October twenty eighth,
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen, there is a person, a user ostensibly anonymous,
Speaker 3: that had the name q Clearance Patriot. And this user
Speaker 3: started popping up on that slash pol that message board
Speaker 3: and hoo buddy, oh yeah, we're not even going to
Speaker 3: get to the message yet. Let's just let's explain some
Speaker 3: of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's take a step back.
Speaker 3: So four Chan, Okay, you've heard about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the armpit of the internet more more
Speaker 2: or less. Well, okay, okay, it was once like not
Speaker 2: as bad as it has become, but it is certainly
Speaker 2: gained a reputation for becoming a place where people can
Speaker 2: anonymously spout pretty much whatever.
Speaker 1: They want, as they say in Star Wars, a hive
Speaker 1: of scum and villainy. That's what it's been accused of
Speaker 1: being in mainstream media.
Speaker 3: It's I would just sput out there and we're going
Speaker 3: to talk about this. It is one of the places
Speaker 3: that the Internet provides where you can literally say whatever
Speaker 3: you want anonymously, right right.
Speaker 1: One of my old colleagues called it one of the
Speaker 1: best arguments against free speech in the modern era. Four
Speaker 1: Chan is, as you said, an anonymous English language website
Speaker 1: or image board. It was created in two thousand and
Speaker 1: three by a guy named Christopher Poole going under the
Speaker 1: name mootot. You can hear a pretty great summation of
Speaker 1: the origin and evolution of four chan on our pure
Speaker 1: podcast Tech Stuff by Jonathan Strickland. So you won't get
Speaker 1: two into the weeds here. Four Chan was originally, as
Speaker 1: of two thousand and three, supposed to be a digital
Speaker 1: space wherein anonymous posters could talk about anime and post
Speaker 1: images related to anime. But it expanded and ad mission
Speaker 1: creep as many things do, and today it's home to
Speaker 1: message boards on any number of topics video games, music, politics, sports,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, including some patently disturbing content. The
Speaker 1: thing about four chan is, unlike a lot of similar
Speaker 1: message boards, you cannot really register. You post anonymously. Threads
Speaker 1: with recent replies get bumped to the top of the board,
Speaker 1: and then old threads they get less and less attention
Speaker 1: or automatically deleted as new ones appear. It's also huge.
Speaker 2: It's a big quick question for you guys as being
Speaker 2: a bit of a four Chan nube. I mean, I
Speaker 2: know a decent amount about it, but I've never really
Speaker 2: interacted with it. Is what makes it different from say Reddit,
Speaker 2: Like is it just less moderated or is it a
Speaker 2: little more of a free for all?
Speaker 1: Are there are moderators on four Chan? But Reddit requires
Speaker 1: if you want to post on Reddit, you have to
Speaker 1: have a registered name there.
Speaker 2: You go, so it's the anonymity that really sets it apart, right,
Speaker 2: got it? So back to its size, It's true, it's
Speaker 2: it's massive. Each month the site receives twenty two to
Speaker 2: twenty seven million unique visitors, and every day users generate
Speaker 2: around eight hundred thousand new posts. And much like Reddit,
Speaker 2: you have groups with abbreviations like forward slash pol forward
Speaker 2: slash which is the politically incorrect group, and that was starting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would just have to say I incorrectly called
Speaker 3: it politics because in my brain I just am in
Speaker 3: Reddit world. So apologies, but it's still beans the same. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I know, I just know. Don't don't hurt us?
Speaker 2: Okay, continue, but again, don't I don't think that. I
Speaker 2: think that's a good point, Matt, because I do feel
Speaker 2: like Reddit versus Fortune four Chan is inherently a little
Speaker 2: more fringy then Reddit. It seems to me, just as
Speaker 2: an outsider, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: The fringe doth exist everywhere.
Speaker 2: That's very true. It seems like it's a little more
Speaker 2: nurtured by the fact that you're able to post anonymously.
Speaker 2: For sure. It was essentially a reboot of four chan's
Speaker 2: news board new Slash new which had been deleted in
Speaker 2: January twenty eleven because of flagrant racism.
Speaker 1: Of a specific type as well, which was a white
Speaker 1: supremacist type, far far right wing kind of racism. So
Speaker 1: let's put that info to the side just for now.
Speaker 1: All you need to remember is Pole exists as troubled history.
Speaker 1: It's been repeatedly cited as a hub for racism, sexism,
Speaker 1: neo Nazi ideology, and so on.
Speaker 3: You mean politically incorrect stuff, guys, right, And let's also
Speaker 3: remember that you or Q a non as we explore
Speaker 3: the evolution here, also became known as the Storm or
Speaker 3: the Great Awakening.
Speaker 1: And the reason why is, oddly enough, it is clearly
Speaker 1: traceable to a single incident in involving what many people
Speaker 1: thought to be an offhand, sort of throwaway remark by
Speaker 1: the current president of the United States.
Speaker 3: So let's just go back. October twenty eighth is when
Speaker 3: Q clearance patriot shows up. Correct. October twenty eighth, twenty seventeen,
Speaker 3: now twenty three days prior to that. On October fifth,
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen, President Trump he made some comments while he
Speaker 3: was hanging out in front of a bunch of reporters. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're taking a publicity photo with a ton of high
Speaker 3: level military officials. They had a special gathering. They were
Speaker 3: taking this photo and they're all standing around. Several people,
Speaker 3: well you know, it's mostly photographers, but several are running
Speaker 3: video and there's video of this you can watch right now.
Speaker 3: This is a quote from President Trump. Do you guys
Speaker 3: know what this represents? Maybe it's the calm before the storm?
Speaker 1: What what storm, mister President on Iran? Or isis? Or
Speaker 1: what what's the storm?
Speaker 3: We've got the worlds As a continuing the quote, we've
Speaker 3: got the world's great military people in this room. I
Speaker 3: will tell you that we're gonna have a great meeting.
Speaker 3: Thank you all for coming.
Speaker 1: What storm, mister president.
Speaker 3: You'll find out now just think about that.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 3: That's all it was. But it was in it's a
Speaker 3: little longer than that. We're paraphrasing here, but that is.
Speaker 3: Those are the exact quotes. This maybe is the calm
Speaker 3: before the storm. And oh you'll find out when he's
Speaker 3: asked what it is. It was a very vague statement.
Speaker 3: And here's the deal that we need to kind of
Speaker 3: note here. So in the context in October early October
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen. They were all a lot of rumors floating around.
Speaker 3: There were people talking in Washington, DC quite extensively about
Speaker 3: whether or not the Iran nuclear Deal, which was negotiated
Speaker 3: by President Trump's predecessor, President Obama, was on the table
Speaker 3: as possibly being changed or altered or pulled out of
Speaker 3: or there was there were rumors that something was going
Speaker 3: to change there with regards to Iran.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, yeah, that perhaps the administration at the time
Speaker 1: would decertify or pull out of the nuclear deal.
Speaker 3: Yes, And he's in a room full of the top
Speaker 3: military officials who would be concerned about that and or
Speaker 3: you know, have something to say.
Speaker 1: But also to be fair, something like you'll find out is,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not a declaration of policy at all.
Speaker 2: He's kind of fond of making those little wink wink,
Speaker 2: nudge nudge kind of statements and a feeling like there's
Speaker 2: you know, something big or at play than is on
Speaker 2: the surface.
Speaker 3: It's a you know what it is, it's a statement
Speaker 3: that makes you come back after the commercial break. That's right,
Speaker 3: Does that make sense? Like it totally speaks to his his.
Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, he's definitely you know, from his experience working
Speaker 2: in television. He's got, he knows how to he knows
Speaker 2: how to have a cliffhanger.
Speaker 1: It's also a bit of a it's it's also a
Speaker 1: bit of a way to end a conversation. You know,
Speaker 1: we have to I have to go. Yes, I have
Speaker 1: a pretty busy schedule, just to be absolutely fair. And
Speaker 1: this this gained uh, some some weight, some gravity online
Speaker 1: in like a more serious version of cofefe, you know.
Speaker 1: So it does represent a theme that we see pretty often,
Speaker 1: which is it made people uncertain. To the point you
Speaker 1: guys are making, there was a cliffhanger, but there wasn't
Speaker 1: really a follow up at least on the president's end
Speaker 1: at that point.
Speaker 2: That's right, and the connection we're about to draw as
Speaker 2: well could be entirely coincidental. Doesn't want to put that
Speaker 2: out there right now.
Speaker 1: So in this case, that quotation, that single that single
Speaker 1: dialogue seems to have not just bread speculation, but inspired
Speaker 1: what is nowadays referred to an internet shorthand as q
Speaker 1: or q andon. So what exactly is QAnon saying.
Speaker 3: Here, mister president? What is q on saying?
Speaker 1: You'll find out.
Speaker 3: After a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. So once the quote is
Speaker 1: out there, Q Clearance Patriot, the nickname, by the way,
Speaker 1: is a reference to Q level security clearance, which is
Speaker 1: a real thing in the Department of Energy. It's the
Speaker 1: equivalent of top secret way. Q Clearance Patriot begins posting,
Speaker 1: and we have the text of the first post made
Speaker 1: by the entity claiming to be Q Clearance Patriot. We
Speaker 1: can read it to you. We want to note that
Speaker 1: it may feel a little bit obtuse. N G in
Speaker 1: the following message stands for National Guard and HRC stands
Speaker 1: for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Speaker 2: HRC extradition already in motion effective yesterday with several countries
Speaker 2: in case of cross border run passport approved to be
Speaker 2: flagged effective ten thirty at twelve oh one am. Expect
Speaker 2: massive riots organized in defiance and others fleeing the US
Speaker 2: to occur. US MS will conduct the operation while MNG
Speaker 2: activated proof check, locate an NG member and ask if
Speaker 2: activated for duty ten thirty across most major cities. I
Speaker 2: don't think we explained MS.
Speaker 1: Yeah, US Marines. So the idea here is that Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton is going to be extra guided and that somewhere yeah,
Speaker 1: and then multiple countries are girding up their security to
Speaker 1: prevent this person from getting successfully to another country or
Speaker 1: a non extradition treaty country, that the passport will be
Speaker 1: flagged rendered invalid. That's what that means. That there will
Speaker 1: be massive riots that are heavily implied to be planned,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of AstroTurf riots, so not the actual
Speaker 1: people rising up, and that others, which would people would
Speaker 1: later say were other democratic and democratic politicians leaders so on,
Speaker 1: that they would be fleeing the US, and that marines
Speaker 1: would conduct this mass arrest or this culling starrywhen Clinton,
Speaker 1: and that the National Guard will be activated to be
Speaker 1: kind of like the backup the reserves.
Speaker 2: So what's the implication here? The implication is that a
Speaker 2: lot of high level democrats are about to be rounded
Speaker 2: up and arrest and arrested and potentially indicted.
Speaker 1: For what, well, for the many crimes though for the many,
Speaker 1: many crimes. That's that's the implication. But this is just
Speaker 1: the first post. This is the first of what would
Speaker 1: later be called breadcrumbs. And the thing is that Q
Speaker 1: would claim access to secret information and followed up with
Speaker 1: another post a few a few hours later, just hours later, and.
Speaker 3: Because he's again he's this is on he's warning about
Speaker 3: ten twenty he's posting on ten twenty.
Speaker 1: Eight rights right, which we'll see as a pattern.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: And so Q in his next post writes a little
Speaker 1: bit more coherently, but the language is replete with what
Speaker 1: appear to be coded phrases. So Q is saying that
Speaker 1: Clinton has already been detained by authorities and that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump was aware of this, knew that criminal rogue elements,
Speaker 1: including Clinton, had to be arrested. And then he also
Speaker 1: references several other people popular in conspiracy theories, such as
Speaker 1: the billionaire philanthropist George Soros. You know, regardless of what
Speaker 1: you feel about the specifics of the allegations about against
Speaker 1: George Soros, we would all agree billionaire philanthropists are potentially
Speaker 1: supervillains just in general, we have the capacity to be so.
Speaker 3: So, do you want to read an example of one
Speaker 3: of these posts? Yeah? No, one, I mean, just to
Speaker 3: give us a little more.
Speaker 1: And then we can This one's a little juicier too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So this is again made on the twenty eighth
Speaker 3: of October twenty seventeen. Here it goes, you ready, mockingbird
Speaker 3: HRC detained not arrested yet? Where is Huma follow Huma
Speaker 3: and that, of course is Huma Abadeen that we've talked
Speaker 3: about before in this show, with the emails in particular
Speaker 3: and as well as with reference to her former husband.
Speaker 3: I want to say, here we go, let's continue. This
Speaker 3: has nothing to do with Russia yet. Why does Potis
Speaker 3: surround himself with generals? What is military intelligence? What is
Speaker 3: military intelligence? Guys? Okay, let's continue. Why go around the
Speaker 3: three letter agencies?
Speaker 2: This reads like a very strange poem.
Speaker 3: Yes, what Supreme Court case allows for the use of
Speaker 3: m I versus Congressional assembled and approved agencies? Who has
Speaker 3: the ultimate authority over our branches of military without approval
Speaker 3: conditions unless ninety plus in wartime conditions? What is the
Speaker 3: military code? Where is AW being held? Why AW?
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 3: Anthony Wiener? No? Is that Andrew.
Speaker 1: The problem?
Speaker 3: But who knows?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Potis will not go on TV to address nation? Potis
Speaker 3: must isolate himself to prevent negative optics. Potis knew removing
Speaker 3: critical rogue elements as a first step. Was this central
Speaker 3: to free and pass legislation? Who has access to everything classified?
Speaker 3: Do you believe HRC Soros, Obama et cetera have more
Speaker 3: power than Trump fantasy. Whoever controls the Office of the
Speaker 3: Presidency controls this great land. They never believed for a
Speaker 3: moment they Democrats and Republicans would lose control. This is
Speaker 3: not RVD battle. Why did Soros donate all his money recently?
Speaker 3: Why would he place all his funds in a rc
Speaker 3: RC anyone rent control? Now I'm just kidding. I don't
Speaker 3: know what RC is. Mockingbird ten thirty seventeen, God bless
Speaker 3: fellow patriots.
Speaker 2: Is that a Hunger Games references? That's the mocking Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: so what's mockingbird? This is?
Speaker 1: This is first off, this is a pure sugar rush,
Speaker 1: right for some pupil on fourtchan, this is candy now.
Speaker 1: I also, I was reading this when this came out,
Speaker 1: and I got so into it. I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't care if it's real, because we'll get to it.
Speaker 3: There's a problem.
Speaker 1: There's a problem with identity. You know, it's like this,
Speaker 1: even if it's just mimetic. You know, people who have
Speaker 1: enough knowledge of the reference points here can begin to
Speaker 1: dive down the rabbit hole. So for people who already
Speaker 1: deep into the world of conspiracy, especially those trending toward
Speaker 1: the far right, fringe stuff. It's called they they were
Speaker 1: elated and probably no small part terrified Operation Mockingbird. You're askmout, Well,
Speaker 1: it's a reference to a real life CIA program to
Speaker 1: blackmail journalists and control propaganda narrators, and that that thing
Speaker 1: actually happened. And it is true that the laws preventing
Speaker 1: the legal dissemination of US propaganda in the domestic sphere
Speaker 1: have been rescinded.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's free reign, baby, what a time.
Speaker 1: And this this also references, like you said, Matt, it
Speaker 1: references the idea that Huma Aberdeen, the former Clinton staffer,
Speaker 1: was secretly working for the Muslim Brotherhood, which has the
Speaker 1: nicest way it says, it has not been proven true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and well, just referencing Huma is kind of one
Speaker 3: of those triggers at that time, at least in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 3: and a little prior to that, a trigger word that's
Speaker 3: like and again it's just this, like you said, this
Speaker 3: is candy, Ben, where all of these little things, these
Speaker 3: little references just can send you down a rabbit hole.
Speaker 3: A single one of them could. And this is basically
Speaker 3: arming you with a handful of skittles. You're so right
Speaker 3: about that reference. But okay, and here's the deal with
Speaker 3: a post like this, It's not just a single post.
Speaker 3: It exists within, you know, this ecosystem of everybody else
Speaker 3: being able to ask a question like and again you're
Speaker 3: kind of answering all of these questions because this is
Speaker 3: all questions, almost almost ninety percent questions that are being
Speaker 3: raised here in this post.
Speaker 2: Right, but like leading questions kind of too.
Speaker 3: Right, Well yeah, but it's also it's just it's it's
Speaker 3: fairly odd but intriguing. Right, But what happened was this
Speaker 3: started a movement.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, so Q the poster right is different from
Speaker 1: the group to a nod yes, which is the supporters
Speaker 1: of this idea later grew into what would be known
Speaker 1: as the Storm or the Great Awakening. And this this
Speaker 1: grew from fertile soil. Remember this follows on the heels
Speaker 1: of things like Pizzagate, wherein where various folks were arguing,
Speaker 1: based on some emails, that there was a secret cabal
Speaker 1: of child abusers, a child abuse ring that was connected
Speaker 1: to Hillary Clinton, that was operating out of a basement
Speaker 1: in a pizza chain. Problem being the actual pizza restaurant
Speaker 1: does not have a basement.
Speaker 2: But just the same. A believer of that particular conspiracy theory,
Speaker 2: a guy by the name of Edgar Madison Welch went
Speaker 2: into this pizza place, very popular political pizza hangout, and
Speaker 2: supposed child sex dungeon. He went in there and shot
Speaker 2: the place up. He didn't like kill anybody, but he
Speaker 2: shut the lock off of a I believe it was
Speaker 2: a door that was meant to lead down into the
Speaker 2: secret basement, but there was no evidence of this ever uncovered.
Speaker 1: Yeah, went to a closet actually, yeah, where he damaged
Speaker 1: the computer.
Speaker 3: It is interesting how we don't have to get into
Speaker 3: it too deeply, but Pizzagate, the way it evolved, we
Speaker 3: were looking at it very closely as it was evolving,
Speaker 3: and for it to focus on that one pizza restaurant
Speaker 3: that we're not aiming here. By the way, we know
Speaker 3: the name of it, we're not naming it here just
Speaker 3: in case, just for whatever reason, people feel that you
Speaker 3: how you may feel. But it was odd that these
Speaker 3: emails that were all you know, leaked from it was
Speaker 3: from the Hillary Clinton email breach and leak that came out.
Speaker 3: Most of the people on those chains were Democrats, not
Speaker 3: all of them, but most of them or high level
Speaker 3: officials or assistance too high level officials, and the stuff
Speaker 3: that was construed or misconstrued or you know, taken from
Speaker 3: those emails. There was some odd stuff in there, and
Speaker 3: I would be the first to say there was definitely
Speaker 3: some odd stuff in there. But you can see it's
Speaker 3: such a good example of how you get a little
Speaker 3: bit of information or maybe a tiny peek into a
Speaker 3: window or a flashlight's view in the darkness, and that's
Speaker 3: all you see, and then you're assuming what is on
Speaker 3: the other side that you can't see. That's we're kind
Speaker 3: of going down that path already with just what QAnon
Speaker 3: has said or with what q Clearance Patriot is.
Speaker 1: And we all already see the emphasis on creating connective tissue, yes,
Speaker 1: on discerning and following and then ultimately predicting a pattern
Speaker 1: an order of operations. But before we get to that,
Speaker 1: you know, this is nested like Matroskdal's here. But before
Speaker 1: we get to that, there's a problem of identity. Remember
Speaker 1: how earlier we noted the strong anonymity on four Chan.
Speaker 1: Q was aware of this and so attempted to provide
Speaker 1: proof of his or her or their claims. They posted
Speaker 1: images you can see online that some redditors, especially on
Speaker 1: the our Conspiracy subreddit, believed confirmed Q was physically present
Speaker 1: on Air Force one and thus was receiving this information
Speaker 1: from none other than the current commander in chief, and
Speaker 1: some followers started to argue about the true identity of Q.
Speaker 1: You would see all kinds of all kinds of allegations.
Speaker 1: Probably the most out there were that first Donald Trump
Speaker 1: or Trump Junior were themselves Q, or that JFK Jr.
Speaker 1: Faked his death to get away from the Deep State
Speaker 1: and is himself.
Speaker 3: Q to tell the truth about the Deep State.
Speaker 1: But now that we've set up all this background and
Speaker 1: told you how the story began, what the origin point was,
Speaker 1: and you can see a little bit about the explosive growth,
Speaker 1: we have to ask ourselves what is q anon saying?
Speaker 1: What are the claims? We'll tell you after a word
Speaker 1: from our sponsor, and we're back, maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: of a movie voice. In a world controlled by cannibals,
Speaker 1: Satan worshipers, elite child abusers, only one man has the
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm falling off. Only one person. There's
Speaker 1: an oubie Wan who is the only hope in this story,
Speaker 1: and it's it is President Trump in this In this narrative,
Speaker 1: the fact that Trump was formerly a Democrat and then
Speaker 1: later a Republican is seen as proof that he belongs
Speaker 1: to neither party, who are of course, both painted as
Speaker 1: puppets on the hands of global elite. And Trump is
Speaker 1: fighting an internal war, according again to QAnon, and has
Speaker 1: to be protected by the military because the Secret Service,
Speaker 1: the FBI, the CIA, the rest of the alphabet soup
Speaker 1: has all been compromised.
Speaker 3: And yeah, compromised, and largely it's difficult to move those powers,
Speaker 3: like the individuals that have power in those institutions, right right,
Speaker 3: even though you've seen him cycle through several sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and you've seen the narrative change too, But
Speaker 1: he's saying, yes, that the alphabet souperintelligence agencies, they're all
Speaker 1: Cerosian for lack of a better word. And then going
Speaker 1: back to this question which you asked, No about the format,
Speaker 1: because q's postings often do take that cryptic question format,
Speaker 1: and so people who follow this Q and honors following
Speaker 1: this will say that each question is some sort of
Speaker 1: hint or a clue or a riddle containing some hidden
Speaker 1: truth about the real nature of global governance, and that
Speaker 1: astute minds can divine the meaning behind these postings.
Speaker 3: For me, it's almost like a puzzle game that if
Speaker 3: you can answer one of the questions, then you can
Speaker 3: and then you answer the next one, and then you
Speaker 3: realize how those are connected, and then it just goes
Speaker 3: down like.
Speaker 2: One. Yeah right, but like there's no rhyme or reason
Speaker 2: to it. I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'm being
Speaker 2: abduced here. Actually that's the word you use, Ben, I
Speaker 2: think quite astutely when you're talking about the way some
Speaker 2: of these posts read. And I think I said some
Speaker 2: of them came off as leading questions. Some of them do, like,
Speaker 2: for example, who has ultimate authority over our branches of military?
Speaker 2: Who approves conditions unless ninety plus in wartime conditions? I mean,
Speaker 2: that's sort of trying to push you to think a thing.
Speaker 2: And some of them are super open ended. So if
Speaker 2: there's a puzzle here, where's the solution? It seems like
Speaker 2: a lot of projection going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's they're they're called breadcrumbs because
Speaker 1: there's ought to be these tidbits of information, right, and
Speaker 1: they're forming a trail that picture. You know, one of
Speaker 1: my favorite sunny in Philadelphia moments when Charlie Day is
Speaker 1: obsessed with the discovery of Pepe Lopez, remember, and he's
Speaker 1: standing there and he's like chain smoking and pointing to
Speaker 1: his conspiracy board. I think you're absolutely right here in that.
Speaker 1: It reminds me a little bit of people who claim
Speaker 1: to have interpreted Nostradamis. You know, there's a bit of
Speaker 1: tea leaf reading that comes into this.
Speaker 2: You know, there was.
Speaker 1: Without without verification or more explicit statements by Q itself.
Speaker 1: Even assuming that we could prove Q s Q. You
Speaker 1: can make those initials mean anything you want. Sure, RC
Speaker 1: could be rent control. It could also be la right,
Speaker 1: it could also be control. It could be robocow, you know,
Speaker 1: or yeah, could be straight up. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I went over the cop for the cow. I'm very
Speaker 1: well aware of the yaz well, but you see what
Speaker 1: I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I see exactly what you're saying. And this kind of writing,
Speaker 3: and what it does is it allows the interpreter, so
Speaker 3: an end user, somebody who reads it who is loud
Speaker 3: and influential enough to then say this is what that means,
Speaker 3: and then that person almost gets more power or is
Speaker 3: able to translate it in a way that then a
Speaker 3: massive amount of people believes it has been translated.
Speaker 1: Yes, And there's another aspect here which I think if
Speaker 1: we're thinking critically, we have to be even more skeptical
Speaker 1: about at this point. There's another aspect wherein some some
Speaker 1: people who purport to believe in the QAnon stuff will
Speaker 1: say that they're not just they're not just correctly interpreting
Speaker 1: the statements they find on four Chan related forums, they're
Speaker 1: also interpreting the actions of the president, the physical individual,
Speaker 1: and his own actions that would seem innocuous to mainstream media.
Speaker 1: There's this one, for instance, there's this one moment in
Speaker 1: a meeting where he is sitting next to the vice
Speaker 1: president and I believe he takes a bottle of Fiji water,
Speaker 1: drinks it, and then puts it on the floor.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So there.
Speaker 1: Were people arguing that this was not just someone handling
Speaker 1: a water bottle, that this was a nonverbal signal that
Speaker 1: he was planning to take down a child abuse ring
Speaker 1: in guess where the Bahamas good close. They're both on
Speaker 1: the planet Fiji.
Speaker 3: Oh okay.
Speaker 1: And when we get to that level of subjectivity, it's
Speaker 1: tough to prove anything, you know, and that's the devilish
Speaker 1: part about that, because barring a statement from the actual
Speaker 1: president saying yeah, that's why I did it, or no,
Speaker 1: oh I just put the water there, you know, there's
Speaker 1: there's no proof. And then also even if people could
Speaker 1: just choose to say the guy is line or he's dissembling.
Speaker 2: I had said a thing before the first break of
Speaker 2: the idea of Trump's offhanded statements about the storm the
Speaker 2: coming storm, that that could well have been a complete
Speaker 2: coincidence as related to this movement. But I think it's
Speaker 2: the other way around. Actually, I think this movement hopped
Speaker 2: on that innocuous ish statement and then created this notion
Speaker 2: of the coming reckoning or whatever. I believe. We talked
Speaker 2: about these high level officials that were corralled and rounded
Speaker 2: up secretly, and supposedly they've all been fitted with ankle
Speaker 2: monitors because they're already under indictment secretly. But we have
Speaker 2: what we can't let anyone know that it's we got
Speaker 2: to look like it's business as usual, Like no, who's
Speaker 2: going to stand for that? I don't you know what
Speaker 2: I mean? Like the whole We will get more into it,
Speaker 2: but it's a very flow mixing the whole narrative behind this.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of pieces that would have to fall
Speaker 2: into place just so perfectly that just don't make sense
Speaker 2: in a logistical way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not as unreasonable as a flat earth movement,
Speaker 1: for example, for an extreme example. But it's difficult to
Speaker 1: discern how all of this could be true at once,
Speaker 1: and that's one of the structural problems here for being objective.
Speaker 1: But according to QAnon, the US government has been controlled
Speaker 1: for decades and decades, maybe more than a century, by
Speaker 1: a very close knit group of powerful deep state actors,
Speaker 1: and they are only part of a larger picture. The world,
Speaker 1: according to q is controlled by a global ring of cannibalistic,
Speaker 1: demon worshiping child abusers, a group that is responsible for
Speaker 1: everything from the assassination of JFK to the rise of
Speaker 1: terrorist groups like ISIS, to the escalation the continual frequency
Speaker 1: of domestic mass shootings. And furthermore, they argue that every
Speaker 1: single president elected since JFK. Pay attention to that one
Speaker 1: Democrat or Republican has been a puppet for this cabal,
Speaker 1: with one notable.
Speaker 2: Exception, Donald J. Trump.
Speaker 1: Yes, give the man a cigar. Yeah, we're not supposed
Speaker 1: to smoke cigars. Are you just I never got it.
Speaker 1: It always felt too Freudian for me. It's like will
Speaker 1: Will Smith, Welcome to Miami.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Miami.
Speaker 3: You guys smoke cigars? Wrong?
Speaker 2: I guess you're right. No, we shouldn't teach us the ways.
Speaker 2: I mainly just break mine open and put other things
Speaker 2: into them. What just kidding, not kidding, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't care anymore. What I do care about is
Speaker 2: that this is all pretty intensely bonkers but also fascinating because,
Speaker 2: like you said, Ben, there's so much tea leaf reading
Speaker 2: that goes into this. And the way these narratives have
Speaker 2: been generated by users, not by Q him or herself,
Speaker 2: that was just kind of the red meat, you know,
Speaker 2: for the masses to then just go ape over, you know,
Speaker 2: and just like swarm over the stuff and create what
Speaker 2: do what the Internet does best, which is generate bonkers
Speaker 2: conspiracy theories or memes or just you know, baseless claims,
Speaker 2: which is what most of this, if not all of this,
Speaker 2: absolutely seems to be.
Speaker 1: Well that's the problem too, So to continue with this,
Speaker 1: The idea is that the president President Trump has been
Speaker 1: working behind the scenes to expose the deep seat in
Speaker 1: a carefully orchestrated fashion, and all will soon be revealed. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: he will send the guilty parties to the quasi black
Speaker 1: site known as Guantanamo Bay. And if you ask the
Speaker 1: true believers, proof of this is all around you. If
Speaker 1: you have the true believers, then the idea is not
Speaker 1: whether or not there's proof, but it's why you, a
Speaker 1: non believer, insist on having your head in the sand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why you can't see it?
Speaker 1: Right, Because of course we've got some examples like the
Speaker 1: Muller Report. Right, it turns out Robert Muller and Donald
Speaker 1: Trump are secretly close colleagues. They're behind the scenes allies,
Speaker 1: and that the Muller Report, while ostensibly investigating Russian interference
Speaker 1: in the twenty sixteen US election, in what it was
Speaker 1: in reality was an investigation into this deep state, and
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump had to performatively cozy up to the
Speaker 1: Russian state because that gave Muller the ability to investigate
Speaker 1: the real problem, which was the deep state in the
Speaker 1: US abroad, which is responsible for everything from Pizzagate to
Speaker 1: the twenty seventeen mass shoot in Vegas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, then you bring in the even more recent
Speaker 3: stuff with the old Ukraine call with some quidded pro
Speaker 3: quo and the whistleblowers who came forward and made everyone
Speaker 3: aware of that, to the impeachment proceedings that have been
Speaker 3: going on and went on to really to the supporters
Speaker 3: of q and on. These are just ways for the
Speaker 3: deep state essentially to fight back against the power that
Speaker 3: Trump has it just to stimy a little bit his
Speaker 3: efforts to reveal all of the truths eventually that he's
Speaker 3: going to reveal.
Speaker 1: Right, and this is where we get to the idea
Speaker 1: of revelation, right, the problem with proof. So first, many
Speaker 1: claims made by QAnon had an expiration date. This is
Speaker 1: something that this is something that leads to the downfall
Speaker 1: of a lot of apocalyptic belief systems right where you know,
Speaker 1: we see it tail as old as time. There's a
Speaker 1: charismatic cult leader. And I'm not saying this is what
Speaker 1: q is and I'm not saying it's a cult. But
Speaker 1: in the case of cults, there's a charismatic leader who says,
Speaker 1: due to some divine revelation or another, I know that
Speaker 1: the world will end on November third, sixteen forty five.
Speaker 2: Get to a cave.
Speaker 1: We will be like the sons and daughters of Adam
Speaker 1: and Eve strike down the unworthy, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And then sure enough, the next day comes and the
Speaker 1: world keeps spinning on its Mary Mary Sinister way. So
Speaker 1: what happens here is that many of the claims made
Speaker 1: by QAnon later it turned out to be demonstrably false.
Speaker 1: John Podesta was not indicted on November third of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: Huma Abideen was not indicted on November sixth, twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: That we're aware of, that, we're aware.
Speaker 1: Of unless they're wearing those secret ankle bracelets.
Speaker 3: And then what if they actually were wearing ankle bracelets. Guys,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna feel so silly, because I genuinely feel like
Speaker 3: it's silly. I feel like it it's not possible, but
Speaker 3: I've been surprised before.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest and this, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to say too much personal stuff, but this reminds
Speaker 1: me of something. There is a religious aspect to this,
Speaker 1: a fervance to it, and this reminds me of you know,
Speaker 1: hearing about, like to say, which religions, but hearing about
Speaker 1: specific religions with very specific requirements for behavior. Not just
Speaker 1: the like don't be a dick stuff that most religions do,
Speaker 1: but like very specific religions. And I always used to wonder.
Speaker 1: I used to think, you know, what if that's the
Speaker 1: one that's true. What if you die and it turns
Speaker 1: out that it's just this one specific thing, like it's
Speaker 1: a myth raism the whole time, that's what it was.
Speaker 1: And I always thought, you know, if I get to
Speaker 1: the afterlife, I feel like I'm gonna be one of
Speaker 1: those people, as little Larry David about him, like, all right, fine,
Speaker 1: you got me. But just to be fair, your pr stinks.
Speaker 1: And those are weirdly specific rules, so weird in fact,
Speaker 1: that I don't think I'd be comfortable hanging out with
Speaker 1: the rest of your gang on the other side of
Speaker 1: the gate. Yeah, there you go, Because I like polyesters.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, you're mixing, you're mixing all that.
Speaker 3: So it's pretty leviticoush we're talking about, which is a
Speaker 3: great read. I would recommend it, oh yeah to anyone
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 1: But you see, you see what I'm saying like this,
Speaker 1: The problem here is if you're applying critical thinking of
Speaker 1: the problem here is in the specificity of the claims, right,
Speaker 1: because they can be disproven, and this is something that
Speaker 1: QAnon notices and responds to.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: QAnon has said that these false predictions are necessary because
Speaker 1: disinformation is necessary. So maybe they're saying, we know that
Speaker 1: the bad guys, the deep state is also reading this,
Speaker 1: so we need to get them off the trail the
Speaker 1: same way, for instance, that in state craft, if you
Speaker 1: have a compromised source, like a compromised spy source, a
Speaker 1: compromise communication channel, or a compromised computer network, you never
Speaker 1: shut it down. Ideally, you go to a redundancy channel, right,
Speaker 1: you go to a backup channel, and you keep that
Speaker 1: other stuff running, and then you just fill it with crap.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, and it's incredible before sorry, I just loved
Speaker 3: the idea.
Speaker 2: And then you just fill it with crap. That's true.
Speaker 1: That's seriously what you do.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Uh So, now we know that this the specificity in
Speaker 1: terms of the calendar claims. It ended up shooting this
Speaker 1: concept in the foot for a lot of people, and
Speaker 1: previous believers became somewhat dissillusion. But we also know that
Speaker 1: due to the vague nature of those postings and the
Speaker 1: sort of zen cone one liner of questions. People who
Speaker 1: were proponents of this began saying, well, we can explain
Speaker 1: some of the things that appear to be incorrect by
Speaker 1: our interpretation, our understanding, our realization of what they're actually
Speaker 1: saying in these statements, and now it leads us to
Speaker 1: an ugly truth. It may sound like we're it may
Speaker 1: sound like we are for some folks being harsh on
Speaker 1: the concept of QAnon, But the fact is that the
Speaker 1: stuff that has been presented as proof, and has indeed
Speaker 1: been presented as the strongest indication of proof or sand
Speaker 1: to the story, has just hasn't held up to scrutiny
Speaker 1: at this point. Now, if it's wrong, if it turns
Speaker 1: out that there are people who are wearing ankle monitor
Speaker 1: bracelets and our or anklets or whatever and are just
Speaker 1: playing a role in public life until the the I
Speaker 1: don't know, the pendulum swings or the hammer falls, and
Speaker 1: they all go to guantanamo. If that is true, then
Speaker 1: it has been it is being pulled off immaculately. Well, yep,
Speaker 1: it would be one of the most successful examples of
Speaker 1: cooperation in the recent history of our species.
Speaker 3: You're welcome, right, right, But doing all this behind the scenes, guys,
Speaker 3: But you're finally gonna let everyone know it was you.
Speaker 3: Huh that it was not me?
Speaker 1: Oh right, classic move.
Speaker 3: But I want to talk about how the reason why
Speaker 3: it feels unbelievable to a lot of people, and I
Speaker 3: would say somewhat to myself, is because it's trying, or
Speaker 3: it's attempting or it has been made to be an
Speaker 3: uber conspiracy, like the reason behind everything. Right, all of
Speaker 3: the things that are bad that are happening that we're
Speaker 3: noticing out there are all a part of.
Speaker 2: This one thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's yeah. Did it just is it like that
Speaker 1: poem where you know, the reach must exceed the grasp else,
Speaker 1: what's a heaven for?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: It maybe went too big because if we look at
Speaker 1: the structure of the argument, it did attempt to and
Speaker 1: does attempt to incorporate more and more things because it
Speaker 1: is crowdsourced. You know, there are there are people who
Speaker 1: are getting their own hobby horse in the Q and
Speaker 1: on conversation, right, and then they're they're pushing that and
Speaker 1: that may actually contradict things that other people are saying,
Speaker 1: although they are supposed to be on the same team.
Speaker 1: And you know, former supporters have reacted to this by
Speaker 1: saying Q itself is compromised, and also fairly persuasive arguments
Speaker 1: that Twitter bots or other bots out of Russia got
Speaker 1: a hold of the information and mainstreamed it to Twitter,
Speaker 1: and the president himself does seem to be at times
Speaker 1: tacitly supporting aspects of the theory is retweeted accounts or
Speaker 1: statements or statements from accounts that are heavily linked to Q.
Speaker 3: Well, and you know, there of course, here we just
Speaker 3: have to talk about a lot of a lot of
Speaker 3: people pointing out that at rallies, at political events in
Speaker 3: the background, you will see quite often Q and On
Speaker 3: posters or things that are written that appear to be
Speaker 3: in support of the Q and on theory that is
Speaker 3: just And then it appears that from an optic standpoint,
Speaker 3: President Trump hasn't worked to get that out of his
Speaker 3: you know, political events. But again, how would one actually
Speaker 3: do that. There are a lot of things, Yeah, there's
Speaker 3: a lot in there, and I'm just I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: I want to keep going here really quickly because as
Speaker 3: someone and I'm going to speak openly here as someone
Speaker 3: who has dismissed this, at least to a certain extent,
Speaker 3: I have to acknowledge that the problems, the major problems
Speaker 3: that are outlined by q Annon, whoever this person is is,
Speaker 3: or whoever you know, whether or not they're compromised or whatever,
Speaker 3: the major problems that are outlined there, I know for
Speaker 3: a fact are real.
Speaker 2: Give me an example.
Speaker 3: Anyone running in this country for a Democratic or a
Speaker 3: Republican in part of the two party system, running for president,
Speaker 3: let's say, or high level position or the Senate. They
Speaker 3: work on either side of that aisle with the same
Speaker 3: many times the exact same money powers that help them
Speaker 3: get there.
Speaker 2: Sure we also know that giant corporations contribute equal amounts
Speaker 2: to both parties. They're hedging their bets depending on who wins,
Speaker 2: you know, they want to be on the right side
Speaker 2: of whoever is in power.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to something here. There's something
Speaker 1: else that I think the mainstream media is missing in
Speaker 1: the story of QAnon, and it is this. They're so busy,
Speaker 1: you know, harping on the things they're easily dismissible, easily disprovable,
Speaker 1: but they're not hitting the primary question, which is why
Speaker 1: I think you're gay at here, Matt. It's this. There
Speaker 1: is no question that the world of politics operates in
Speaker 1: two distinct spheres. First, what you the public, are sold,
Speaker 1: and second, what happens behind the curtain. We talked about
Speaker 1: this on the show before. It's pretty obvious there tends
Speaker 1: to be more to the story than the official narrative states,
Speaker 1: especially in high stake situations like state level politics. Do
Speaker 1: you think diplomats of countries who hate each other are
Speaker 1: not getting together on phone calls and going like, hey man,
Speaker 1: you know the other guy was kind of unreasonable, but
Speaker 1: let's see what we can work on with this together. Yes,
Speaker 1: And then do you think they're not going to public
Speaker 1: statements and going like, you know, death to disco or whatever,
Speaker 1: and then calling the people who run the disco and saying,
Speaker 1: hey man, you know it's kind of rough here, like
Speaker 1: could you give me a little let's see what we
Speaker 1: can work out. You know, there's negotiation there. And the
Speaker 1: problem here is that they're also ignoring the fact that
Speaker 1: something like a deep state does exist. It's just not
Speaker 1: as monolithic as some theories would have us believe. Is
Speaker 1: there a group of just one small group of people
Speaker 1: that runs the world. Probably not. Are there dozens of
Speaker 1: groups of very powerful people and institutions who feel like
Speaker 1: they should run the world. Absolutely corporations right, private equity institutions,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, very insulated ruling families of
Speaker 1: one nation or another. These are the things that operate
Speaker 1: like the deep states that are talked about here. A
Speaker 1: deep state is there's a banality.
Speaker 2: To evil, right, So follow the money, right, follow.
Speaker 1: The money, or follow unelected civil servants who have tremendous
Speaker 1: power and have their hands on the levers of government
Speaker 1: and may have their own political agendas. Now I'm not
Speaker 1: saying they're all out automatically evil. I'm saying that if
Speaker 1: you listen to this, you can't elect them, and it's
Speaker 1: very difficult for them to get fired. In any case.
Speaker 2: The notion of evil in the situation is kind of
Speaker 2: a misnomer. I think it's maybe it's greed or it's
Speaker 2: just kind of control, but it's not necessarily inherently evil
Speaker 2: by its very nature. It's not trying to rape and
Speaker 2: pillage and.
Speaker 3: Have to throw in there. A lot of this theory
Speaker 3: has to do with child sex abuse and other abuse
Speaker 3: that's in there and other young adults. And we have
Speaker 3: found recently no, no, no, last year. Don't that that
Speaker 3: stuff is very much real, and powerful people.
Speaker 2: Very specific like aberrant, you know, click of powerful people
Speaker 2: that believe they deserve whatever it is that they want
Speaker 2: and they're creepy fetishes or whatever that they feel like
Speaker 2: they are.
Speaker 3: Owed are the ones that we've identified. But we've identified.
Speaker 2: But I don't think that. I think the notion that
Speaker 2: all powerful people are inherently like pedophilic sex fiends.
Speaker 3: Is absolutely not sure. Yeah, no, absolutely that is not true.
Speaker 3: That is one hundred percent not true. But like this
Speaker 3: show does, and as we explore every time, sometimes it
Speaker 3: is true.
Speaker 1: The UK, the Franklin scandal, the Epstein scandal, Belgium, it's
Speaker 1: just four Yeah, so this is true, but it's also
Speaker 1: it's it is you know, it works really well as
Speaker 1: red meat to motivate people because it's something that it's
Speaker 1: something that no decent human being would somehow justify, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Anybody who supported that is a
Speaker 1: bad person and also one other thing. So so the
Speaker 1: truth is disturbing, right, this didn't come from nothing. There
Speaker 1: are people that you will never meet, that you will
Speaker 1: never elect, who control more aspects of your life and
Speaker 1: the globe than any one person or one institution should However,
Speaker 1: without solid proof, we also can't blame critics who say
Speaker 1: that q itself was just an Internet troll stringing people
Speaker 1: along for the lulls. You remember lulls, Matt.
Speaker 3: I remember the lulls. I got so many lulls, oh man,
Speaker 3: and I did most everything for them.
Speaker 1: So there we are. This is the story of QAnon
Speaker 1: so far, just a high level look, and you can
Speaker 1: read more about it in depth, including specific claims which,
Speaker 1: as we said, lead in all sorts of directions. The
Speaker 1: idea that Angele Merkel is the daughter of Adolf Hitler,
Speaker 1: that Kim Jong un was put in place by the
Speaker 1: CIA to start a war if it was needed, that.
Speaker 3: His genetics didn't even factor into.
Speaker 1: It, right, right, And you can see, you can see
Speaker 1: all these things. This is a crossover event. This is
Speaker 1: also even linking to the Titanic, to the old idea
Speaker 1: that JP Morgan sunk it so he can form the
Speaker 1: Fed Reserve.
Speaker 3: Guys, it sounds a little bit like somebody took our show,
Speaker 3: blasted it out into all these various things, and then
Speaker 3: just connected them all back together a little bit, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: Paul was c all along.
Speaker 2: Oh, we were talking at the top of the show
Speaker 2: about famous ces. Uh, and I didn't know this. This
Speaker 2: is this is the thing that you you you hit
Speaker 2: me to. The Q is a clearance level? Does that
Speaker 2: mean it's like the number of clearances as Q is
Speaker 2: chronologically in the alphabet. Are there that many? Or is
Speaker 2: it just like there's like a clearance, C clearance and
Speaker 2: then Q clearance?
Speaker 3: Is it just sounds dope, there's an L clearance.
Speaker 1: Q clearance is just the Doees equivalent of what we
Speaker 1: would call top secret God of their places.
Speaker 2: But just to be clear, we don't know who Q is,
Speaker 2: if it's one person, if it's some kind of weird
Speaker 2: copy pasta thing like I mean and we have and
Speaker 2: you know, just to the veracity of these claims in
Speaker 2: these posts, to me, it sounds mostly like gobbledegook. Is
Speaker 2: the way that it's formatted indicative of some kind of
Speaker 2: you know, real brief? Is that the way a brief
Speaker 2: like this would be disseminated. Do we have any reason
Speaker 2: to believe that there's any veracity to these claims that
Speaker 2: people are just going so gaga over?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 1: The interesting thing about that is there are plenty of
Speaker 1: people who do believe that they have cracked the case,
Speaker 1: and they believe it based on what they see as
Speaker 1: their psychological their ability to divine or decipher the psychology
Speaker 1: behind the statements. But to be completely honest, no one,
Speaker 1: none of the true believers, unanimously agree on the identity.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting too when you see reporting about this,
Speaker 2: these folks are referred to as followers, which really does
Speaker 2: give it like almost this cult like status, which makes
Speaker 2: sense because it's based on what essentially amounts to some
Speaker 2: sort of weird mystical political scriptures. I said at the
Speaker 2: top of the show. It reminds it sounds like a
Speaker 2: weird poem because the way it's written is almost like
Speaker 2: a riddle or like some kind of strange incantation. Almost.
Speaker 2: It does have this very odd religious quality to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a doomsday aspect, I think. And at this
Speaker 1: point we have to mention that this is ongoing. You
Speaker 1: can visit any number of sites now and you can
Speaker 1: hear the current debate because despite the fact that numerous
Speaker 1: predictions have proven to be untrue, the people do continue
Speaker 1: to support this belief, and people do continue to argue
Speaker 1: that the things that may appear to be missteps in
Speaker 1: policy are purposeful and happening for some reason that will
Speaker 1: be revealed at a later date, which has been predicted
Speaker 1: numerous times, has never been the correct date, but apparently
Speaker 1: may come to pass.
Speaker 2: Yes, how predictions go. And then it's always like that,
Speaker 2: I will say in terms of like, how is this
Speaker 2: going to continue to linger? I think largely it may
Speaker 2: because of the fact that the president keeps retweeting some
Speaker 2: of these sources. You know, folks with screen names like
Speaker 2: jan bought three five four two two, the kinds of
Speaker 2: screen names that are typically associated with these, you know,
Speaker 2: Russian bots that are disseminating all this misinformation. And we've
Speaker 2: talked about this off air. Whether the president I'm sorry
Speaker 2: it was debport zero three seven five five zero seven six,
Speaker 2: Whether or not the president is purposely trying to disseminate
Speaker 2: this to criticize his rivals at any cost, whether or
Speaker 2: not that cost is pushing dangerous, potentially dangerous misinformation out
Speaker 2: to his what seventy million followers, or whether he just
Speaker 2: thinks it's cute, funny. He does that often, and he'll
Speaker 2: think something's just kind of a funny joke, or you know,
Speaker 2: puts egg on the face of one of his political rivals.
Speaker 2: I don't know which one it is, but the fact
Speaker 2: is that over the holiday weekend he retweeted QAnon sources
Speaker 2: something like twenty five times, and then kept retweeting responses
Speaker 2: to his retweets from other qan on accounts.
Speaker 1: That's that's the thing, though, to a twitter like, once
Speaker 1: you get once you get hooked in, I'm slapping my
Speaker 1: arm with two fingers, and the impression of like addicts.
Speaker 1: Once you get hooked into the tweets and the retweets,
Speaker 1: you just start retweeting. It's so easy. It's a slippery,
Speaker 1: slippery slope.
Speaker 2: Be careful. Do you guys think he still does his
Speaker 2: own tweets? Yes, like just he's got a device. He
Speaker 2: refused He's not supposed to, but I believe he refused.
Speaker 3: To give it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Recently, recently the President notified notified Congress via social
Speaker 1: media that he that his tweets and declarations on social
Speaker 1: media did count as official policy declarations or informing Congress.
Speaker 1: You can read that. I don't think that tweet will
Speaker 1: be deleted by the time this comes out. But don't
Speaker 1: let the conversation and here, folks, we want to hear
Speaker 1: from you. What's your opinion. Is there a q Andon
Speaker 1: prediction that did come true? And if so, what we'd
Speaker 1: like to hear about it. We'd like to hear about
Speaker 1: it from you. You can find us and your fellow
Speaker 1: listeners on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter. Where are some
Speaker 1: derivation of conspiracy stuff where conspiracy stuff show. We highly
Speaker 1: recommend our Facebook page. Here's where it gets crazy. And
Speaker 1: you know the memes alone, Oh.
Speaker 3: It's going to be rife with them after this episode.
Speaker 3: I can only imagine. You can head over to Amazon
Speaker 3: search q and on and find the dozens of titles
Speaker 3: that are based on this this topic. If you wish
Speaker 3: to read more or just you know, consult your your
Speaker 3: local slash pol slash which stands for politically incorrect. And
Speaker 3: I know that now and I've learned my lesson and
Speaker 3: it's okay. We are going to be fine. If you
Speaker 3: don't want to do that stuff, you can find me
Speaker 3: on Call of Duty Mobile where I'm st d W
Speaker 3: I t K.
Speaker 2: Wait there's a Call of Duty Mobile?
Speaker 3: Yes there is, And I would love to play around
Speaker 3: a team deathmatch or domination with you totally into it,
Speaker 3: loving it, and I'm I'm pretty good at it, So watch.
Speaker 2: Out anyone else there. There's a Mario Kart mobile now
Speaker 2: it's pretty damn good.
Speaker 3: And there's also.
Speaker 2: Tony Hawk's skate Jam Yeah, which is like sort of
Speaker 2: like a mobile version of pro skater Man. These mobile,
Speaker 2: these little devices just keep getting stronger and stronger.
Speaker 3: Well, I believe Call of Duty may be sponsoring this
Speaker 3: show soon. That'd be cool, So watch out boys. From
Speaker 3: what I hear, what's your weapon of choice? Are you
Speaker 3: a groundsman? Are you a snipeman? Snipes snipester? Clearly, I
Speaker 3: am not a gamer. I prefer a healthy assault rifle
Speaker 3: with a nice scope on it. Got it that's accurate
Speaker 3: and reliable.
Speaker 1: And if you don't Call of Duty you can call
Speaker 1: us directly.
Speaker 2: We have a phone number as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, the number is one eight three three STDW.
Speaker 2: It's your duty call.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did it. If you don't want to do
Speaker 3: any of that stuff and you want to reach out
Speaker 3: to us with anything, any common, any idea that you've
Speaker 3: got for another episode, you can write to us, send
Speaker 3: us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 2: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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