I do not know much about the American phenomenon of QAnon, some sort of secret pro-Trump society working to aid him in draining the swamp, but this article had a good summary, saving me research work that I side-tracked into having a stiff drink.
https://www.amren.com/features/2020/08/whos-afraid-of-qanon/
“What is QAnon? This question is harder to answer than you might think. There are several books about QAnon, including QAnon and The Great Awakening by Michael Knight, QAnon: An Invitation to The Great Awakening by “WWG1WGA,” and Revolution Q by “Neon Revolt.” After reading these and other books and websites, I’d identify three main points.
o “Q,” an anonymous, highly placed government official, knows that President Trump is planning a series of dramatic events that will expose crimes and even treason implicating many Democrats and government bureaucrats. Q communicates what’s coming by posting on various forums, including 4chan and 8kun (formerly 8chan). He says there’s a fierce battle over this at the highest levels of the government.
o President Trump himself communicates with followers of the movement through code phrases, gestures, and imagery. He and his family also occasionally retweet accounts linked to QAnon.
o “The Storm,” the righteous day of justice that President Trump is bringing, is opposed by a cabal of financial and media elites who want to keep people from learning the truth. Thus, people must do their own research and not trust what the mainstream media tell them.
The initial post that spawned “Q” could have been made by anyone. Further “drops” by “Q” or people in the movement could also be made by anyone. There is no way to verify any of their claims, except through vague references to key phrases that will supposedly be uttered in the days following the posts. For example, before President’s rally in Tulsa, Eric Trump posted an American-flag QAnon meme with the #WWG1WGA (this is supposed to stand for “Where We Go One, We Go All”) at the bottom to Instagram. Does this mean anything, or was Eric Trump simply passing along an image he liked? QAnon is so popular it has spawned its own “watchdog” groups. NPR’s Michael Martin interviewed Travis View, the co-host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast. Mr. Martin prepped the audience by calling QAnon “a group of people who adhere to some far-right conspiracies and believe a number of absurd things.” Mr. View obliged by saying that according to QAnon, “The world is controlled by a Satanic cabal of pedophiles that they believe control everything like the media, politics and entertainment.” He adds that QAnon also thinks President Trump knows all about this and will “defeat this global cabal once and for all and free all of us.” “QAnon Anonymous” host Travis View added that it is a “domestic extremist movement” and said President Trump had “tweeted or retweeted QAnon accounts over 160 times.” However, he also admitted “no one in the current administration has ever done anything to endorse QAnon.”
Nevertheless, it seems that at least some of President Trump’s advisors know about the movement and are playing to it. President Trump has directly retweeted memes from accounts linked to QAnon. Republican congressional candidate Angela Stanton-King tweeted, “THE STORM IS HERE.” Tess Owen, Vice’s reporter on the “far right” beat, wrote, “Welp, the GOP Now Has 15 QAnon-Linked Candidates on the November Ballot.” NBC news says, “There is no evidence to these claims” about a “cabal of criminals run by politicians like Hillary Clinton and the Hollywood elite.” However, after Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged “suicide” and news that powerful figures such as former President Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew were part of Epstein’s strange network, it’s hardly absurd to claim there could be sick stuff going on among the political and cultural elite. Jimmy Saville was a well-known British media personality, knighted, and honored by many institutions including the Vatican and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. After his death, it emerged that he had sexually abused children; some suggested hundreds of them. Most honors were rescinded posthumously. A jury recently convicted Harvey Weinstein, once the most powerful producer in Hollywood, of sexual crimes. Several actresses including Allison Mack were alleged to be part of a bizarre sexual cult called NXIVM, and she pleaded guilty to racketeering. During the 2016 election, Wikileaks released email tying John Podesta’s brother to “artist” Marina Abramovic and her bizarre, occult performance piece “Spirit Cooking.” If a crazy man approached you in the street raving about these plots, you’d run, but these things happened. Non-whites sexually abused thousands of young women in Rotherham, England. Police and local government officials did nothing because they didn’t want to be called racists. This is a sick world, and evildoers often get away with evil. It’s not absurd to think powerful men and women are no better than middling Labour politicians who looked the other way instead of stopping rape and sex slavery.
Is there a “Deep State” opposing President Trump? In 2019, the New York Times ran an editorial called “The ‘Deep State’ Exists to Battle People Like Trump.” In 2018, an anonymous official wrote, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” Recent evidence suggests that the FBI bullied General Michael Flynn, President Trump’s former national security advisor, and made him confess he had lied to agents after they threatened his son. The Department of Justice recently concluded that the interview of General Flynn was not “conducted with a legitimate investigative basis.” This doesn’t mean there’s a Satanic cabal running the government. It does mean some bureaucrats opposed or even sabotaged President Trump’s agenda. They investigated his subordinates or leaked information to the press. If we substitute “the permanent bureaucracy” for the more ominous sounding term “Deep State,” this “conspiracy theory” becomes plausible. Incidentally, General Flynn recently posted a video that uses QAnon slogans. What is truly implausible about QAnon is the idea that President Trump knows about everything and will destroy this vast conspiracy. The proof for such assertions lies in gestures, vague statements, or even the background of where he is speaking. For example, in QAnon and the Great Awakening, the author says that President Trump’s phrases “this is the calm before the storm” and “tippy top,” his supposed circular motions with his hands, and occasional pointing towards supposed Q supporters are proof that he is on to it. “Q offers hundreds of data points that demonstrate Q is indeed linked to the Trump Administration,” the book says.
If it sounds too good to be true, be sure that it is. My guess is that Trump knows nothing much about this crew, or at maximum, only a nodding awareness, and that if he was going to drain the swamp, he would have done so by now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, but the cold hard reality is that most people just allow evil to flourish, putting comfort over heroism, or even just opposing evil.