The Trump-as-dictator nightmare got a big kick-along at the weekend as the might of the US military rolled through Washington. It was stars and stripes patriotism amped to the max in honour of the 79th birthday of the commander-in-chief. Oh, and it was also the 250th anniversary of the US army. Such coincidences are soaked in meaning for some.
Donald Trump is no Vladimir Putin or Kim Jong Un. The weekend’s spectacle is a reminder that he is uniquely a product of America and uniquely a product of the internet age.
The online conspiracy theorists went nuts watching their hero salute the parade of tanks and troops. The most powerful conspiracy movement of them all, QAnon, had predicted years ago that Trump, the messianic saviour of America, would harness the power of the US military and would destroy the deep state resistance. Chock full of religious, end-of-days symbolism, the movement depicted Trump as a muscled-up, all-knowing Jesus figure — what would happen if you crossed evangelical Christianity with Wrestlemania.
A world of their own
No-one has lionised Trump more than his online admirers. They have created a world where he is all-powerful, possesses ultimate wisdom and is never wrong. The intriguing question for anyone trying to untangle his psyche is this: how much of this make-believe world does he believe?
The QAnon movement emerged from the murky depths of the internet in 2017, soon after Trump was elected in his first term. The conspiracy theory had it that Trump would rid the world of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who had taken control of government and other sectors of society. “Q” was an anonymous high-powered official thought to be in the White House, who posted cryptic messages to followers.
QAnon was built around the coming of “The Storm”, also known as “The Great Awakening” a form of judgment day when there would be mass arrests of the liberal elites and a purge of the deep state. As aptly described by Mother Jones, this would lead to a new golden age of conservative government that embraced the nuclear family and the return of classic, white, Christian family values.
LA LA land
QAnon collapsed after Trump lost office in 2020. But loyalists shifted to other platforms. On the far-right Bumble video platform, one claims that Trump’s decision to send in the national guard to Los Angeles to quell demonstrations is evidence of a Q prophecy coming true. Los Angeles would be the first, to be followed by demonstrations in other US cities.
The former QAnon follower also posted video of Trump’s address last Friday to US soldiers at Fort Bragg. He said Trump had used the number 17 several times in his address, important because Q is the 17th letter of the alphabet. Along with Trump’s military parade this was all proof that The Storm was on the way.
Back in the real world — or Trump’s version of it — he threatened last week to arrest California Governor Gavin Newsom. The threat seemed bizarre but also echoes the QAnon prophecy that the Liberal elites would be arrested at the coming of The Storm. Trump’s vow to “liberate” Los Angeles – a blue city – is also straight out of the QAnon playbook. It’s impossible to know if Trump means what he says or whether he’s playing to his conspiracy base. Either way it shows he’s a wilfully destructive player.
Hidden depths
Late last year, a National Public Radio report surmised that QAnon had never really gone away and that in their years out of office (2020-24) Trump and some of his most powerful allies had continued to court the online extremist community. NPR interviewed Katherine Keneally, an expert in threat analysis and prevention for the nonprofit Institute for Strategic Dialogue, who said the movement hadn’t gone away “by any means”; it had essentially “moved and splintered into various networks”.
While QAnon began on the extreme fringes, by the end of Trump’s first term it had moved more towards the mainstream. By 2020, 41% of Republicans who had heard something about it said QAnon was somewhat or very good for the country. Bit by bit its extremism infected the Republican Party, pushing it to embrace fanciful conspiracy theories. Atlanta Republican Marjorie Taylor Green became the first QAnon follower elected to Congress.
Kash is king
Since returning to power, Trump has made three extraordinary QAnon-related decisions. The first was to rebadge the January 6, 2021, insurrection as a “day of love” and pardon the insurrectionists, many of whom were prominent QAnon followers. The second was to return retired general Michael Flynn, a fanatical QAnon believer, to the fold. The third was to appoint one-time QAnon adherent, Kash Patel, to the key position of FBI director.
Patel has the distinction of having written a book, Government Gangsters, in which he named 60 “deep state” Congress members and officials. In congressional hearings it emerged that via his social media posts Patel had frequently lauded QAnon believers and embraced their messaging. Rolling Stone reported that Patel had signed copies of his pro-Trump children’s book, The Plot Against The King 2,000 Mules, with the QAnon slogan “WWG1WGA” (“where we go one, we go all”).
An analysis by Wired this year revealed Patel had appeared on at least 53 episodes of 13 podcasts that overtly promoted QAnon and/or shared QAnon-related conspiracy theories. Hel had also recruited QAnon influencers to join Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social.
Soldier of fortune
To call QAnon a conspiracy theory is not the whole story. It is a fully constructed world of make-believe, in which the flabby near-octogenarian Trump is transformed into a hardened fighter, often clad in military fatigues.
It is shocking enough that Trump has gone along with the world according to QAnon and promoted its adherents to positions of power. But if he actually believes what QAnon says about him then he is truly nuts. It would be good to know the truth as Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese prepares to meet him in Canada this week, perhaps to pledge further billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to the US.
HLMencken predicted this in the 1920s.
We should have taken notice.
Too late now, all the warnings were wasted. Frustration and immense sadness.
that’s an interesting reflection – Morrison accommodated Australian QAnon leaders at Kirribilli, Jenny’s best friends, and went holidaying with them in Hawaii while Australia burned. He has subsequently, after being ignored in Australia, gone on to posts in America – dangerous stuff and equally delusional and away with the fairies – and the King was forced to award the reprobate an Honour fcol
I no longer believe that Mr Albanese is capable of defending the best interests of the present and future generations of Australians. His meeting with the possibly QAnon President will be a defining one. In fear and trepidation, I await the outcome.
Albo’s reaction to The Apricot Arsehole will either make or break us..This is his one and only chance.He must take that huge step from manager to leader….Looking forward to a miracle.
I’m far from optimistic, Harry.
Likewise. Albanese & Marles will suck up to the ginger ninja.
G’day John good to see your epiphany now, he showed his true coloured during his first term but camouflaged them but then this term he puts our Qman Marles in top spot and get rid of Husic etc. Completely revealing his sell out of Australia.
David Hardaker seems to be doing a look over here job as if the DEMOCRATS would be any different, where is their opposition to anything happening under Trumpelthinskins.
Who did we sign the AUKUS deal with, it wasn’t the GOP.
Trump is the state just with another mask he is from the oligarch class and his big beautiful bill is all for them and to make the MAGA red cap mob pay the price and the National will be used against whoever opposes him and sell out Albo is going over there to supplicate ihimself in front of Trump.
RIP Australia’s independence and sovereignty.
none of the current political parites are capable of doing the right thing by this country
Not that shocking looking at the Lonny Bin the US has spiralled into over the past 20 or so years.
Make that 30+ years. look at New Gingrich’s political gyrations in the early to mid 90s.
From Gingrich to Abbott to Dutton… so the cancer of opposition to all things at all costs metastasised into the Australian polity.
Yes the USA clown show goes on, some of us wait for a world leader to say sorry your nuts and we are done with your circus for now. Will it be ours? I wonder what Keating would say in a meet and greet with Mr Trump?
Keating and Trump would be worth watching!!!! Keating would have insisted he get his arse over here. Albanese will demonstrate his complete lack of understanding of insanity
It is worth (re) reading Sinclair Lewis 1936 novel “it Can’t Happen Here” describing the election of a fascist US president. It is happening!
We truly are living in bizarro world
Jesus, this is so out there and bizarre. Have to really question how on earth people come by this whacky nonsense.
Surely a modern versions of ‘the Emperor has no clothes’. Who will call him out.
I’ve long admired H. L. Mencken, I’d like Sigrid Summers to elaborate on her post! Even after a century, Mr Mencken’s opinions remain interesting.
Here you go Frank:
As democracy is perfected,the office of President represents,more and more closely,the inner soul of the people.
On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
It could be argued they have done it at least three times.Mencken has plenty more too..
Government is a broker in pillage,and every election is a sort of advance auction in stolen goods.
Sound familiar?
It is genuinely pleasing to see the dissent growing in America. The weekend anti ‘King’ protests reflect the deep level of loathing for the ‘flabby near-octogenarian Trump’. I cannot get that image out of my head. Best description I have read for quite a while.
Make that ‘flatulently flabby’, Judy, just to add a little spice to the image.
The anti King, the Emperor with no clothes – a perfect analogy of the deceived followers who imagine clothes are on the Emperor. It’s the voice of the child who breaks the spell. Who will end up being that voice? At least the 11 million participating in the No King rallies across the States, the European and Canadian leaders have understood the deception- most Australians do and hopefully Albanese will respond knowing he’s dealing with a person with a severe mental illness and delusions of grandeur – and has no clothes
My absolute hope is that we NEVEr see the orange one WITHOUT his clothes … yuk!
As to whether Daffy Donald Dump is a fascist or not, there is a simple saying to clarify the issue, ‘If something looks like a dog, wags its tail like a dog, barks like a dog and sheds like a dog, then it is not to unreasonable to assume that it is a dog’. Looking back on history, the first thing the Nazi and the Fascist dictators did, when they destroyed liberal democracy in Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Apartheid era South Africa, and Israel today, under Benjamin the Butcher Boy, and Gilead, under Daffy Donald Dump, is to destroy and gut an independent judicery, stacking it with their like-minded stooges.
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is becoming frighteningly accurate. In fact, the reactions by Daffy Donald Dump and his fellow minions of political thugs and gangsters, including Vlad the Impaler, to assorted events happening on the planet now, show the panic and aggression that all great empires go through as they enter an inevitable decline, plummeting, in flames as the Western Roman Empire did if we take into account that the Eastern Byzantine wing, lasted for 1000 years but died with a whimper. The Gilead Empire, modelled on the Roman Republic, is no exception. That footnote to history, in the longer term, and with a more sophisticated view of past history, will view him as a sawdust Caesar. Daffy Donald Dump may well be the American Romulus Augustus, and if she won the Presidential Election, Kamala Harris might have been the American Constantine XI Dragases Palaiologos. In fact, if we take a deterministic look into the future, it may end up being the Asian century, with the two superpowers, India and China, competing for world influence as both Gilead and the USSR once did. One point worth mentioning is an organization that is laughingly called. “National Endowment for Democracy”, has either ignored or cosied up to repressive totalitarian US client states from Franco’s Spain, right up to the Thai military regime, still in power, and the current rightwing Central and South American dictatorships and military regimes. GILEAD NEEDS TO SEE THE EMERGENCE OF A STRONGLY PRO-WORKING CLASS MASS DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST PARTY NOW!!!!!!
The these increasingly insane and loony reactions by Daffy Donald Dump and his fellow minions of political thugs and gangsters show the panic and aggression that all great empires go through as they enter an inevitable decline, plummeting, in flames as the Western Roman Empire did if we take into account that the Eastern Byzantine wing, lasted for 1000 years but died with a whimper. The American Empire, modelled on the Roman Republic, is no exception. In the longer term, that footnote to history and with a more sophisticated view of history will view him as a sawdust Caesar. Daffy Donald Dump may well be the American Romulus Augustus, and if she won the Presidential Election, Kamala Harris possibly might have been the American Constantine XI Dragases Palaiologos. If we take a deterministic look into the future, it may end up being the Asian century, with the two superpowers, India and China, competing for world influence as both the USA and the USSR once did. One point worth mentioning is an organization that is laughingly called. “National Endowment for Democracy”, has either ignored or cosied up to repressive totalitarian US client states from Franco’s Spain, right up to the Thai military regime, still in power, and the current rightwing Central and South American dictatorships and military regimes. THE USA NEEDS TO SEE THE EMERGENCE OF A STRONGLY PRO-WORKING CLASS MASS DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST PARTY NOW!!!!!!! ONE FINAL POINT. I WANT MY LOONEY TUNES COMING FROM WARNER BROS, NOT FROM THE OVAL OFFICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I predicted that even though the bastard had been convicted of all 34 charges, the consensus seemed that Daffy Donald Dump would avoid a custodial sentence, and this has now happened. IN FACT, THE BASTARD HAS AVOIDED ANY PENALTIES AT ALL FOR BREAKING THE LAW!!!!!!! Yet if a homeless and/or disabled worker, employed or unemployed, especially if African American, or Hispanic, had been convicted of only one lesser offence, then he/she would be incarcerated and the key is thrown away. Despite Daffy Donald Dump’s conviction, this latest action confirms that the American judicial system is still showing its bias and favouritism towards the rich and powerful.
Not happy with the majority of corporate profits extracted from Australia and Australians going to the 1%ers in the USA tax free. They come up with a scheme to extract more of the Government tax receipt.
Some of these wealthy leechers have more than $100 000 000 000 in the bank and want more. It must be a mental illness that drives these people.
I can’t think of any other explanation.
Well, this is one political publication that I’m waiting for…..
https://www.theage.com.au/national/federal-election-tell-all-has-canberra-quaking-20250615-p5m7kk.html
How far removed is Q anon from the new apostolic reformation, as they seem to share a number of “beliefs”, as well as adherents who have or have had connections to the Republican Party and Trump? Think Marjorie Taylor greene, Mike Flynn, speaker Mike Johnson and the guy that’s been around since the days Nixon – Roger Stone. Could Stone be Q?
Great point about the NAR.
Comments continue to belittle Albanese. Give him a break! He saved us from having our own trump! Tell us how good dutton would do with trump – in OUR interests -while you denigrate albo.