* These folks have zero chance of winning, but here’s a Tribune editorial…

QAnon is a sprawling internet conspiracy theory as ugly as it is unfathomable. It weaves together anti-government fever dreams into an absurd narrative that portrays President Donald Trump as waging a secret battle against Satan-worshiping pedophiles who run a global child sex-trafficking ring. Allegedly Hillary Clinton, Tom Hanks and the Dalai Lama may somehow be in on it. (They’re not.)

The QAnon theory centers in part on the discredited notion that there is a “deep state” anti-Trump cabal within the U.S. government. QAnon has links to an earlier loony tale known as “Pizzagate,” which claimed a Washington, D.C., pizzeria was the headquarters of a sex trafficking ring involving Clinton. Pizzagate compelled a North Carolina man to fire a rifle inside the restaurant in a misguided attempt to free imprisoned children, so there is danger connected to these hoaxes.

Ideally, Illinois voters could spend their lifetimes never hearing about this except that QAnon talk is spreading this election season, and two Chicago-area Republicans seeking U.S. House seats have promoted the movement on social media and declined to denounce it. Philanise White of Chicago, running against Rep. Bobby Rush in the 1st Congressional District, and Theresa Raborn of Midlothian, running against Rep. Robin Kelly in the 2nd Congressional District, both have promoted QAnon by tweeting a recognized QAnon slogan as a hashtag.

Not included in the editorial was a demand that the state GOP address this issue.

* A quick explainer…

“QAnon” is a baseless internet conspiracy theory whose followers believe that a cabal of Satan-worshipping Democrats, Hollywood celebrities and billionaires runs the world while engaging in pedophilia, human trafficking and the harvesting of a supposedly life-extending chemical from the blood of abused children. QAnon followers believe that Donald Trump is waging a secret battle against this cabal and its “deep state” collaborators to expose the malefactors and send them all to Guantánamo Bay.

* A longer explanation from Wired…

The core of the QAnon theory is that Donald Trump is waging a war against a Satanic, child-molesting cabal of top Democrats. QAnon dovetails with the more secular “deep state” narrative, which claims that holdovers from the Obama administration are secretly conspiring to destroy Trump’s presidency from within. Deep-state theories—whether or not the term “deep state” is used—animate the false claim that Democrats and public health experts are in cahoots to exaggerate or outright lie about the Covid-19 threat in order to tank the economy and ensure Biden’s victory. Recently Trump has been tinkering with this narrative as a post-election incendiary device: If he loses, he’s almost certain to blame the deep state for his administration’s failures.

QAnon has spun off the “Save the Children” movement, too, which purports to be opposed to child sex trafficking. In some cases, QAnon believers have been organizing Save the Children rallies and Facebook groups as a way to launder the more extreme elements of the conspiracy theory into mainstream circles. In other cases, such rallies and groups aren’t knowingly tied to QAnon but still draw narrative threads and other information from the QAnon mythology. Either way, Save the Children has made the work of professional child welfare advocates much more difficult.

Beliefs in QAnon and the deep state are unified by one basic factor: their reliance on deep memetic frames. As Ryan Milner and I have explained, these are sense-making orientations to the world. Everyone, regardless of their politics, has a set of deep memetic frames. We feel these frames in our bones. They shape what we know, what we see, and what we’re willing to accept as evidence. In the context of conspiracy theories, deep memetic frames establish the identity of the bad “them,” as opposed to the valiant “us,” and prescribe what can or should be done in response. QAnon and deep-state theories don’t magically transform nonbelievers into believers; they’re not viral in that sense. People are drawn to these theories, instead, because the narratives line up with their deep memetic frames. QAnon and the deep state feel familiar for those already inclined to believe.

Those believers are steeped in a particular kind of distrust: of the mainstream news media, of the scientific establishment, of any other institution claiming specialized expertise. This is where they plot against us. Such distrust has a long history within right-wing evangelical circles, where QAnon and deep-state beliefs have been spreading quickly. But wariness of institutions isn’t restricted to the MAGA orbit. People with a wide range of political views can be deeply mistrustful of the press, science, and “liberal elites,” and at least open to QAnon’s assertions of a shadowy, string-pulling cabal. (Anti-vaxxers are especially susceptible.)

* BuzzFeed News is now calling QAnon a “collective delusion”…

QAnon is not something to joke about. The mere concept — a global Satan-worshipping cabal led by prominent Democrats, under the eye of Hillary Clinton, who are kidnapping, abusing, and eating children and drinking their blood in order to live forever — is cartoonish on its face. But it’s not to be underestimated, and it can’t be treated simply as an online phenomenon. The real-world effects of QAnon have already been made clear: In 2018, a Q believer engaged in an armed standoff at the Hoover Dam. Recently, they’ve worked to hijack legitimate attempts to fight child sex trafficking.

Not everyone who subscribes to parts of the QAnon mass delusion believes in all of it. Some people could be sharing the material in ignorance of its true depth. Others could be using it to carry out identity signaling — disenfranchised people seizing on a bizarre narrative to show that they are “Patriots,” regardless of the content of the messages. And with such a mess of entry points, someone could very well pass along parts of the QAnon narrative without realizing what the whole entails — just look at the recent false rumors that Wayfair was involved in sex trafficking. […]

But delusion does illustrate the reality better than conspiracy theory does. We are discussing a mass of people who subscribe to a shared set of values and debunked ideas, which inform their beliefs and actions. The impact of QAnon is an example of “the real-world consequences of our broken information ecosystem,” the New York Times recently wrote. The proliferation of this delusion is in part a media literacy problem — which has become a reality problem.

* More info…

* FBI document warns conspiracy theories are a new domestic terrorism threat: The document specifically mentions QAnon, a shadowy network that believes in a deep state conspiracy against President Trump, and Pizzagate, the theory that a pedophile ring including Clinton associates was being run out of the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant (which didn’t actually have a basement). “The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document states. It also goes on to say the FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle.

* The conspiracy theory-based movement poses a different type of terrorist threat: But unlike jihadists and white supremacists, many followers of QAnon aren’t ideologues or interested in violence. As game designer Adrian Hon argues, much of their participation resembles play in an alternate reality game, with a large cast of characters and clues to decipher with your friends. A common type of QAnon believer is a 60-something white, church-going woman who’s retired, or a full-time mom whose kids are grown. In QAnon Facebook group chats, many participants come across as lonely, not fanatical. But the movement is so large that a small percentage of violent adherents would present a national security problem.

* QAnon Is Like a Game—a Most Dangerous Game - The conspiracy theory has the best attributes of a multiplatform game, except that it can cause harm in the real world: QAnon poses a mystery that feels so big it can only be solved by crowdsourcing. It’s thrilling to be involved with other people in something bigger than yourself. Plus, it turns one’s armchair-warrior Googling into a heroic quest for truth. “They’re all saying, ‘I’ve done my research,’” Hon told me of Q followers. “They’re looking for signals in the noise.” There’s also the thrill of creativity, of adding to a canon. QAnon followers “don’t just passively receive Q drops. They create new videos and texts,” notes Marc-André Argentino, a public scholar at Concordia University who researches QAnon. Q’s followers behave like religious devotees who pore over their faith’s central texts, crafting interpretations that become part of the official creed.

* The Dark Virality of a Hollywood Blood-Harvesting Conspiracy - A centuries-old anti-Semitic myth is spreading freely on far-right corners of social media—suggesting a new digital Dark Age has arrived.

* QAnon believers think there’s a vast cabal snatching up children in kidnappings, but almost every child reported missing turns out to be a runaway

* QAnon Followers Are Hijacking the #SaveTheChildren Movement: Sometimes, QAnon followers spin factual information in a way that serves their aims. Last week, an Associated Press article about a $35 million Trump administration grant to organizations that house trafficking survivors became one of the most-shared stories on Facebook, after QAnon groups picked it up and cited it as evidence that President Trump’s secret crusade against elite pedophiles was underway.

* Mothers for QAnon: “I do think that there is something about the intense focus on harm being done to children and the graphic nature of the images and videos associated with Q” — including photos of children with black eyes or badly bruised bodies — “that is catered toward evoking shock and empathy, and it’s possible that these are chiming with a lot of women in particular,” said Blyth Crawford, a research fellow at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization in London.

* Facebook Tried to Limit QAnon. It Failed.

* The men behind QAnon - Experts and researchers said the key to “Q” is hiding in plain sight.

* Under Tom Emmer, NRCC embraces QAnon-affiliated candidates - While publicly disavowing the QAnon conspiracy, Emmer and the National Republican Congressional Committee are still backing candidates that have publicly promoted the fringe theories.