Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • The Atlantic

    The Right’s Disinformation Machine Is Getting Ready for Trump to Lose

    QAnon has become a linchpin of far-right media—and the effort to preemptively delegitimize the election.
    by Renée DiResta Oct 20, 2020 6 minutes
    Source: Shutterstock / The Atlantic

    Whether President Donald Trump wins or loses, some version of QAnon is going to survive the election. On the day of the vice-presidential debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, the individual or group known as “Q” sent out a flurry of posts. “ONLY THE ILLUSION OF DEMOCRACY,” began one. “Joe 30330—Arbitrary?—What is 2020 [current year] divided by 30330? Symbolism will be their downfall,” read another, darkly hinting at satanic numerology in Joe Biden’s campaign text-messaging code. Vague, foreboding messages that could mean anything or nothing—these are the hallmarks of QAnon, the far-right conspiracy theory, built around Q’s postings on internet message boards, in which Trump is heroically battling a global cabal of devil-worshipping pedophiles. But something noteworthy lurked in Q’s final post of the night: “SHADOW PRESIDENT. SHADOW GOVERNMENT. INFORMATION WARFARE. IRREGULAR WARFARE. COLOR REVOLUTION. INSURGENCY.”

    . This was the first time Q used the term. such as the one in Ukraine in 2004, when citizens wearing orange clothes and carrying orange banners rallied to bring in just that way.

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from The Atlantic

    The Atlantic7 min readAmerican Government
    Could South Carolina Change Everything?
    For more than four decades, South Carolina has been the decisive contest in the Republican presidential primaries—the state most likely to anoint the GOP’s eventual nominee. On Saturday, South Carolina seems poised to play that role again. Since the
    The Atlantic4 min read
    Hayao Miyazaki’s Anti-war Fantasia
    Once, in a windowless conference room, I got into an argument with a minor Japanese-government official about Hayao Miyazaki. This was in 2017, three years after the director had announced his latest retirement from filmmaking. His final project was
    The Atlantic5 min readAmerican Government
    What Nikki Haley Is Trying to Prove
    This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Nikki Haley faces terrible odds in her home state of

    Related Books & Audiobooks