The problem with QAnon is that it just doesn’t go far enough. Sure, it has a international ring of cannibal, pedophile, satanists who are secretly controlling the world through a ring of pizza parlors. But does it have magical planes full of black-uniformed figures that jet around the country to deliver “thugs” on demand? Does it have unknown people hidden in “dark shadows” who control Joe Biden’s incredibly mainstream agenda? Well … it does now, because Donald Trump isn’t just embracing QAnon, he’s taking over as its author.
In a Monday interview with Fox’s Laura Ingraham—last seen here bragging about how “good” Texas COVID-19 response had been—Trump issued a whole series of statements that make the lizard men at the Earth’s core seem like small potatoes. In that interview, Trump indicated that Democratic nominee Joe Biden was actually just a front for someone else. And when Ingraham asked who was “pulling Biden’s strings,” Trump had an answer. "People that you've never heard of,” said Trump. “People that are in the dark shadows.”
Trump’s “dark shadows” claim came on the heels of another claim about the mystery plan that supposedly delivered Rand Paul-battering “mob” to the RNC. Following his claims of being attacked on leaving the RNC—claims that video inconveniently proved to be a lie—everyone’s least-favorite neighbor declared that he, “Just got attacked by an angry mob of over 100, one block away from the White House.” Paul then went on to say, “I think we’re going to find out that these people are hired and from out of town. … They flew here on a plane. They’ve all got fresh new clothes, and they were paid to be here. It’s a crime to do that, and it needs to be traced. The FBI needs to investigate.”
Note that Rand Paul’s proof of conspiracy is that there were Black people with new clothes. And his idea of a crime was that someone might have travelled to D.C. to protest. And, of course, his claims that people were paid to protest echo thousands of anti-Semitic lies from Republican politicians over the years claiming that Holocaust survivor George Soros was paying for protesters at marches of all sorts.
In his interview, Trump followed up on the mob-delivering plane. "I'll tell you sometime,” said Trump, “but it's under investigation right now. But they came from a certain city and this person was coming to the Republican National Convention. And there were like seven people in the plane like this person and then a lot of people were in the plane to do big damage." So, the mob got about … 93 people smaller. But since video shows that Paul was never assaulted or threatened in the first place, and was only confronted by a crowd chanting “say her name,” the real size of the threatening mob was zero.
The truth is that real buses full of Proud Boy white supremacists have been coming into cities for the express purpose of bringing violence for years. The truth is that real militia groups have been bringing hundreds of people to disrupt peaceful protests and threaten not just cities, but small towns. The truth is that multiple-murderer Kyle Rittenhouse travelled across state lines to be part of a boogaloo militia group with connections to Nazis that openly calls for civil war.
In the same interview with Ingraham, Trump defended Rittenhouse, saying that he was justified in killing two people and wounding a third because protesters “violently attacked him.” Which is simply a lie.
The reason that Republicans keep inventing shadow conspiracies about what Democrats are supposedly doing in the dark, is because what they’re doing, right out in the open, is hideous. They are being openly racist. Openly violent. And openly dismissive of the law. No shadows required.
