There is a contingent of anti-Trump activists who believe that QAnon was a psyop created by the Russian regime to divide Americans, though I am firmly of the belief that this conspiracy theory conglomerate was result of typical 4Chan shitposters who managed to hit the jackpot with their trollery. That's not to say the foreign bad actors didn't amplify the conspiracy theory with bots and trolls, but they didn't create the narratives pushed by Q and Q acolytes.
Russia had a changing role in the QAnon lore, but on the whole, the QCumbers ended up casting Putin as a good guy- a friend of Trump, a man maligned by Hillary Clinton, an anti-LGBTQ fanatic fighting against a satanic New World Order or Deep State. Putin was one of the 'white hats' fighting alongside Donald Trump against the sinister Globalists.
Now, with Putin engaging in an unprovoked invasion against a smaller, supposedly weaker nation, the American nutters felt compelled to continue their championing of this aspirational imperialist. The conspiracy theory, workshopped by QAnoners and anti-vaxxers, holds that Putin is invading Ukraine in order to destroy bioweapon laboratories creating pathogens for the sinister Dr Fauci. Now, the Russian Ministry of Defense is pushing these claims that the invasion force is destroying these bioweapons.
The circle is now complete, and the Russian propaganda machine is pushing American propaganda- the fact that it is American anti-American propaganda is just an indication of how insane things have gotten.
QCumbers! That's funny & perfect really.
ReplyDeleteI've read that Putin came to this plan after being angered that the Ukrainians tossed Poroshenko in 2014, it is important to note that Poroshenko's campaign was run by Paul Manafort, who then went on to offer his campaign management skills to tRump free of charge. Such an interesting connection, no? Especially when the one change the tRump campaign made to the GOP party platform was removing the text saying the party supported Ukraine's efforts to be an independent state. That was quite curious at the time but now makes perfect sense.
ReplyDeleteBolton said this week that tRump planned to pull the US out of NATO in his second term, and no doubt Putin knew this and was planning to take Ukraine then. We all know that Russia did all they could to ensure tRump won, but turnout on our side overwhelmed that effort. Putin has been running an information war against the US at least since he lost his proxy in Ukraine in 2014.