WWG1WGA
We saw this Trump sign some farmer had put up somewhere in the western half of Illinois, which isn't really that shocking a thing. Illinois is a bright blue state, but there's a gradual red shift to things as you move farther and farther away from Chicago and Cook County. The number of Trump signs would only increase over the course of this trip, so that once we got into rural portions of Nebraska or Colorado or Kansas, they were all over the place.
I'll talk more about that great mass of Trump signs later as I move through this trip, but I want to go ahead and point out something about this one. See that license-plate-looking set of letters and numbers there at the bottom after Trump's name? The "WWG1WGA" bit? That's a Q-anon thing. It stands for "Where we go one, we go all," which is a phrase the Q Continuum uses to prove they're not really good at slogans. I guess they've been so busy trying to decide which of their six dozen nutcase conspiracy theories is the nuttiest that they haven't had time to come up with something that works as an actual acronym.
I've mentioned these dopes before (see here for an explanation). While I absolutely despise every aspect of the Trump Administration and all the anti-intellectual nonsense brain goop that brought it to power, the bit about the modern world I hate most of all is its embrace of nutty conspiracy theories. Nothing makes me lose respect for a person faster than learning that they've bought into some nutty conspiracy theory, and that loss of respect is usually catastrophic and permanent. And the Q-anon thing is worse than your average conspiracy theory, because it was invented with such malevolent intentions. A bunch of 4chan basement loser kids started it as a lark, and once it picked up enough steam, the Russian hackers ran with it and spread it all over Facebook and Twiiter in a purposeful attempt at destabilizing our society by riling up the gullible. So now, a bunch of suburban moms and middle-aged bald guys in sunglasses and baseball caps have accepted it into their hearts to sit next to the words of Jesus Christ. There is, of course, absolutely no connection between anything Q-related and any version of reality, but that's not something that stops most people these days.
The biggest thing right now seems to be the obsession the Q folks have with sex trafficking and child pornography. The whole thing started with an insane theory that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of the basement of a New York City pizza shop, of course, and the Q have gone on to suggest that pretty much every one of the "Hollywood Elite" meet up with Democratic politicians so they can drink childrens' blood. And that's just ... well, there's not really a word strong enough to capture that level of dumb. The fixation as a whole is disturbing, though, for a few reasons. One is that the people who preach Q-anon conspiracy theories are the types who like to project, and if child sex is the thing most on their minds, there's probably a reason for that. Another is that historically, people have used the concept of sex crimes as a way to isolate different groups and exaggerate them as alien and inhuman. It's why so many Black men wound up lynched for rape in the old days, and why the perception of Black sexuality is still disturbing to the dominant white culture. Q-anon types can single out the other and say this group or that group wants to defile our children, and there's just no rational way to walk that back to the point where Q-folks can even accept other people as human.
Sadly, the Q thing has become a lot more pervasive than a lot of people realize, especially among middle-age or older white folks (which is funny, in a way, because it started with internet kids). I have -- er, had -- a number of Q folks among my Facebook cohort. There were a few among my high school friends. I de-friended one of my biological sisters because she flirted with the edges of it. My crazy aunt and uncle in Florida (my Mom's sister and her husband) have embraced it and combined it with Apocalyptic Christian fundamentalism to build some sort of super-conspiracy theory. I wouldn't be surprised to hear the younger of my two brothers has bought it, and I could see one of my son's getting into it, though he thankfully hasn't said anything about it.
I might get bit, but I grow more confident every day that Donald Trump isn't going to hold his current job much longer, and that's a good thing. But this Q-anon deal that helped put him where he is? That's not going away any time soon, and it's just going to get worse. But you can't stop a conspiracy theory. Trying only makes others believe you're in on the conspiracy. So we'll just have to wait to see if this thing burns out.
Editor's Note: If you're a Q who has stumbled on this post and feel tempted to try to defend your belief system or bring me into the fold, save it. I like to keep this page at least PG-13, so let me say you can just f**k all the way off.
WWG1WGA
We saw this Trump sign some farmer had put up somewhere in the western half of Illinois, which isn't really that shocking a thing. Illinois is a bright blue state, but there's a gradual red shift to things as you move farther and farther away from Chicago and Cook County. The number of Trump signs would only increase over the course of this trip, so that once we got into rural portions of Nebraska or Colorado or Kansas, they were all over the place.
I'll talk more about that great mass of Trump signs later as I move through this trip, but I want to go ahead and point out something about this one. See that license-plate-looking set of letters and numbers there at the bottom after Trump's name? The "WWG1WGA" bit? That's a Q-anon thing. It stands for "Where we go one, we go all," which is a phrase the Q Continuum uses to prove they're not really good at slogans. I guess they've been so busy trying to decide which of their six dozen nutcase conspiracy theories is the nuttiest that they haven't had time to come up with something that works as an actual acronym.
I've mentioned these dopes before (see here for an explanation). While I absolutely despise every aspect of the Trump Administration and all the anti-intellectual nonsense brain goop that brought it to power, the bit about the modern world I hate most of all is its embrace of nutty conspiracy theories. Nothing makes me lose respect for a person faster than learning that they've bought into some nutty conspiracy theory, and that loss of respect is usually catastrophic and permanent. And the Q-anon thing is worse than your average conspiracy theory, because it was invented with such malevolent intentions. A bunch of 4chan basement loser kids started it as a lark, and once it picked up enough steam, the Russian hackers ran with it and spread it all over Facebook and Twiiter in a purposeful attempt at destabilizing our society by riling up the gullible. So now, a bunch of suburban moms and middle-aged bald guys in sunglasses and baseball caps have accepted it into their hearts to sit next to the words of Jesus Christ. There is, of course, absolutely no connection between anything Q-related and any version of reality, but that's not something that stops most people these days.
The biggest thing right now seems to be the obsession the Q folks have with sex trafficking and child pornography. The whole thing started with an insane theory that Hillary Clinton was running a child sex ring out of the basement of a New York City pizza shop, of course, and the Q have gone on to suggest that pretty much every one of the "Hollywood Elite" meet up with Democratic politicians so they can drink childrens' blood. And that's just ... well, there's not really a word strong enough to capture that level of dumb. The fixation as a whole is disturbing, though, for a few reasons. One is that the people who preach Q-anon conspiracy theories are the types who like to project, and if child sex is the thing most on their minds, there's probably a reason for that. Another is that historically, people have used the concept of sex crimes as a way to isolate different groups and exaggerate them as alien and inhuman. It's why so many Black men wound up lynched for rape in the old days, and why the perception of Black sexuality is still disturbing to the dominant white culture. Q-anon types can single out the other and say this group or that group wants to defile our children, and there's just no rational way to walk that back to the point where Q-folks can even accept other people as human.
Sadly, the Q thing has become a lot more pervasive than a lot of people realize, especially among middle-age or older white folks (which is funny, in a way, because it started with internet kids). I have -- er, had -- a number of Q folks among my Facebook cohort. There were a few among my high school friends. I de-friended one of my biological sisters because she flirted with the edges of it. My crazy aunt and uncle in Florida (my Mom's sister and her husband) have embraced it and combined it with Apocalyptic Christian fundamentalism to build some sort of super-conspiracy theory. I wouldn't be surprised to hear the younger of my two brothers has bought it, and I could see one of my son's getting into it, though he thankfully hasn't said anything about it.
I might get bit, but I grow more confident every day that Donald Trump isn't going to hold his current job much longer, and that's a good thing. But this Q-anon deal that helped put him where he is? That's not going away any time soon, and it's just going to get worse. But you can't stop a conspiracy theory. Trying only makes others believe you're in on the conspiracy. So we'll just have to wait to see if this thing burns out.
Editor's Note: If you're a Q who has stumbled on this post and feel tempted to try to defend your belief system or bring me into the fold, save it. I like to keep this page at least PG-13, so let me say you can just f**k all the way off.