“What's different now is that there are people in power who are spreading this conspiracy theory,” she said, adding that Trump's conspiracy-minded rhetoric seems to fire up part of his base. An FBI bulletin in May warned that conspiracy theory-driven extremists have become a domestic terrorism threat. A Trump campaign spokeswoman and a White House spokesman didn't respond to emails seeking comment. The disruption, which ended when the imageboard relaunched in November under the new name 8kun, hardly spelled the end of QAnon. Travis View, a conspiracy theory researcher who co-hosts The QAnon Anonymous Podcast and has written about QAnon for the Washington Post under his pseudonym, said the sense of community forged by QAnon believers has helped it endure beyond the life span of other conspiracy theories.

Source: New York Times February 09, 2020 13:18 UTC