Brief Snopes primer on QAnon

https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/08/21/qanon-2020-election/

In the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, elements of an unwieldy and unfounded conspiracy theory, QAnon (Q), were percolating on the fringes of the internet. While Q wasn’t fully Q yet, the groundwork was being laid through rumors that falsely claimed a cabal of Democratic leaders and liberal entertainers engaged in satanic rituals and global sex trafficking.

By this writing in August 2020, Q was going mainstream: A GOP candidate with a record of promoting QAnon had won a primary race in Georgia; QAnon was being regularly promoted on Fox News; and Q content was even appearing in the social media threads of U.S. President Donald Trump. When he was asked about the dangerous conspiracy theory on Aug. 19 at a news conference, he refused to condemn the group, which the FBI has identified as a domestic terrorist threat, and instead called QAnon a group of people who love their country.

As the group QAnon has grown, its tentacles have reached into all manners of political discourse, spreading lies about everything from vaccination, to Black Lives Matter, to the fight against COVID-19. It is a vehicle for disinformation, and it is quickly riding its way to the ballot in 2020. If voters aren’t aware of Q and its origins, they should be.

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