QAnon Cultists Spreading False Claims That Are Consuming Resources Needed to Fight Wildfires
September 15, 2020
USA-WILDFIRES (Jeff Head)
By Mark Sumner
Believers in the destructive cult QAnon are quite capable of extending the tentacles of their mass delusion based on the perverse inspiration of individual cultists. Given that the core beliefs revolve around Donald Trump saving the world from a Satan-worshiping cabal of pedophile pizza fanatics, it’s not hard to see how various factions have also swept in Nazi invaders from “inner space” and Alex Jones’ lizardmen. But the latest assault on reason from the metastasizing remains of the Republican Party are having a practical, and sickening, impact in the midst of yet another crisis.
The first, second, third, and fourth largest wildfires in California history are burning across the state at the same time, turning the skies of West Coast cities an apocalyptic orange and making the simple act of breathing torture even as homes, businesses, and thousands of acres are reduced to ash and rubble. As of Friday, 12% of all residents in Oregon had been evacuated from their homes to avoid the advancing flames.
And against this nightmare background, QAnon cultists have been flooding the phone lines at 911 dispatchers, and interfering with firefighting operations, with claims that fires are being started by “antifa terrorists.”
Antifa, as an organization, is no less mythical than bigfoot, pyramid power, and how Donald Trump and Robert Mueller were secretly working together to bring down Hillary Clinton’s murder machine. Which means it’s a perfect fit for QAnon. But this time, it wasn’t a spontaneous brain fart from a random cultist that triggered the flood of calls that has officials in multiple states begging the public to disregard the barrage of lies.
This incredibly harmful claim began with a post from “Q” — the anonymous account that represents the Oracle of Delphi for this malignant cult. The original posts from the person putting themselves forward as having “Q level clearance” predicted that Hillary Clinton would be arrested before the 2016 election. Since then, dozens of posts have predicted the mass arrest of Democratic officials, and how the Mueller investigation would wrap up by springing the trap on unsuspecting Democrats who didn’t realize Mueller and Trump were actually working together.
The fact that none of the predictions came true hasn’t made the least amount of difference. Because like all good cults, nothing behind QAnon can ever be disproven. It only mutates, with each missed date and failed prediction only being twisted into “proof” that Q knows all.
And in this case, the QAnon cult is riding on a wave of false antifa claims from Donald Trump, William Barr, and others within the White House who have worked hard to erect a boogeyman to frighten supporters. Trump’s ads have been filled with doom-tinged music, using clipped-together moments fully intended to make the Black Lives Matter movement, Democratic leaders, and anyone not a gun-waving racist seem like a threat to “the American way of life” and, of course, “the suburbs.”
As CNN reported on Friday, dispatchers have been overwhelmed by cultists delivering false reports of antifa started fires, or by other cultists calling in with demands that these illusory terrorists be arrested. Frustrated state officials have turned to the FBI, which on Friday produced a statement to make it clear the claims had zero basis in fact.
Claims that antifa was igniting fires were also sent by former Republican Senate candidate Paul Romero, whose tweet that Douglas County police had arrested “six antifa arsonists” has been repeated tens of thousands of times. Romero has repeated these claims to local radio and television stations, claiming that they are true, even as the county policy have repeatedly tried to explain that this is a sick fantasy with no truth behind it.
Both Oregon, where a massive windstorm felled millions of trees and brought down power lines, and California, where a series of “dry lightning” storms triggered hundreds of fires while providing little rain, have suffered from weather conditions that have made 2020—on top of everything else—a year horribly well suited to generating wildfires. And while there have undoubtedly been some human-caused fires and even some arrests for arson, the QAnon calls are not only baseless, they are consuming vitally needed resources and misdirecting investigators in the midst of an emergency.
The only thing that spreads faster than wildfire may be false-claims from QAnon cultists. With Facebook and right-wing media serving to amplify the claims, they may be even harder to put out.
Posted with permission