Where Goes Q, Goes the GOP

“Trust the Plan” they say, you know, when it looks to be insane bullshit. It’s not! Trust it!

The GOP has embraced a far-far right-wing conspiracy theory, or it has infected the Republican party enough that it has to embrace it or be swallowed. That theory, really a worldview and way of life, is called: Qanon.

What the hell is ‘Qanon?

Qanon is a bizarre, through-the-looking-glass movement, the new Tea Party, but crazier, stupider, and much, much more dangerous. The whole thing was started by an anonymous poster claiming to be a 'top level intelligence officer’ in the Trump administration. They posted on Reddit under the name ‘Q’ and started outlining their ‘insider knowledge’. After the initial drop, they would should back up and post what the increasing followers would call 'breadcrumbs' (and what one study claimed to be random keyboard hits) which true believers (now calling themselves Qanon, or just 'Q') would then 'interpret' as they saw fit. And boy did they see fit.

Essentially, the world is run by a cabal of Satan worshiping, pedophile cannibals, (this includes Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Tom Hanks. TOM HANKS!!!), and many many more, mostly Democratic politicians and Hollywood celebrities, anyone to the left of Satan. This ungodly cabal will, any day, be rounded up by Trump, who has been secretly working behind the scenes (with Robert Mueller, Yes, this is part of it!!) and then Trump will lead the nation back to the truth, the light, the church and Christ.

Trump. He's going to do all this.

Any day now.

We're all waiting.

Okay, I make fun, but.... there are several true believers running for seats in congress right now, and a couple that will probably make it in. What will they do, all the true 'Q' believers? What did the Millerites do when they waited all spring of 1843 for Jesus to show up to smite the non-believers, and he never arrived? They doubled down, and waited until spring 1844, really, really sure Jesus would show up this time. When Jesus still didn't show up (I assume they sent him an invitation) they tripled down, changed the name of the group to the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and continued on thinking they were smarter and better than anyone else.

Because they knew 'the truth'. Just like the Q-anon believers do, as the Trumpers do.

They will double down. And I'm afraid they will do so violently. They've been violent before, killing police, shooting up a DC pizza parlor to free the abused children in the basement (no kids, no basement). The FBI considers them a domestic terrorist threat, and they like to show up at rallies with far-right anti-government extremists and Nazis. They are looking for a fight.

“Where We Go One, We Go All" is their motto.

 And when the Chosen One is in danger, (like losing an election) they will be there, ready for that fight.

Trump is Going Nowhere.

Trump smirks and then pouts his way though the grievance fest that is his ‘press conference’. BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS

Trump is going nowhere.

I don’t mean he’s going to win the election, I mean he’s going nowhere, not him, and not the party he embodies. This is what many people (including Joe Biden, I believe) are missing, The GOP is Trump, Trump is the GOP. You can cut off the head, but the body will just go doing what it was doing before. And Trump himself, bar going to jail, will still be around, still be telling it what to do, think, say, and taking his network of grievance and hate and just installing it elsewhere, maybe in a new subscription TV channel that he can spew nonsense on 24/7, without any ‘enemies of the people’ to question him.

Trump is going nowhere. The GOP has not been so much transformed as it has come of age, reached the goal it (and others) set for itself back in 1964 with the defeat of Goldwater. It absorbed the John Birchers, it invited in the religious far right, it purged itself of anyone and everyone to their left (if there was such a place), embraced the crazy and conspiracy, and folded its supposed ‘big tent’. Gone is/was any talk of ‘compassionate conservatism’, hell, most of them never really knew what Bush was talking about… sounded weak, sounded left.

Trump is not the aberration, Trump is destiny, he is the messiah, riding his donkey into the White House, arriving to lead his people into the promised land of power. He is the ‘Chosen One’, the One they have been waiting for since Goldwater. He is the one who will no longer smile, no longer couch his words with niceties, or hide his meaning behind ‘dog whistles’. Trump is the human ‘fuck this shit’. They delight in his crudeness, his racism, his bigotry, because he’s finally saying what many of them have been thinking or whispering to each other for decades.

Trump is going nowhere. If he’s voted out, (and is dragged from the White House by his ankles, his hands clawing at the carpet), he becomes the Messiah-in-Exile, Napoleon at Elba, waiting for his chance at power again. Be serious with yourself; do you really think his minions won’t be working some angle to get him back in power? They’ve already proved, over and over, that they will lie, they will seek out enemies of America for help, they will go to any length to give him more, and more, power. And if not Trump himself, there are many Trump children and hangers-on to assume power while Trump whispers in their ear.

You might shake your head and think this is all crazy. Well, four years ago, did you think we’d have an American President who worked with the Russians to get elected, asked two foreign countries to help collect dirt on a political opponent, worked hard to undermine allies while showing sycophantic affection for murderous dictators, and who has stood by while an est 200,000 of his own countrymen died?  

This is where we are.

So, don’t fool yourself.

Trump is going nowhere.