QAnon, Jan. 6th, & Putin’s Real Motive

Review by Bill Doughty––

Jewish elders supposedly gathered in a cemetery in Prague at the beginning of the last century to discuss their plan to rule the world. The cabal of Jewish elders reportedly wrote down their plan in a document that would become known as “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” published as “Anti-Christ” in Russia. The book injected an idea that would spread fear of replacement of white Christians through various extremist groups.

The trouble is, the document was not real. Russian secret police forged it under the reign of Czar Nicholas II. Nicholas needed to distract the public from his failures as a leader. Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko call “The Protocols” “the original fake news” in “Pastels and Pedophiles: Inside the Mind of QAnon” (Stanford University Press, 2021).

The authors take readers along a poisonous vein leading from “The Protocols” to replacement theory, apocalyptic terrorism, the J6 Capitol insurrection coup attempt, and various overlapping COVID conspiracies, including conspiracies involving Navy hospital ships USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort.

“In April 2020, Eduardo Moreno, a train engineer from San Pedro, California, derailed a train because he believed the USNS Mercy hospital ship was part of suspicious plot to spread (and not cure) the coronavirus.

“On April 30, 2020, Jessica Prim, a 37-year-old QAnon supporter from Illinois, was arrested after live streaming on Facebook her journey to New York City to ‘take out’ Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton … Prim, a stripper, was traveling with a dozen knives. She said she was driving to the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship docked in New York harbor, but accidentally ended up at the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier museum … She claimed to have been inspired by President Trump. ‘I was watching the press conference with Donald Trump on TV and felt like he was talking to me.’”

It wouldn't be the last time Trump followers were incited to attempt violence.

Hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH 20) returns to Norfolk, May 2, 2020, after treating COVID-19 patients in New York and New Jersey (MC1 Joshua D. Sheppard)

A Woman's Place: In QAnon?

Bloom and Moskalenko make an eyebrow-raising assertion: That women were a “driving force” of the failed insurrection of January 6, 2001, and that they play a “pivotal role in bringing together an ad hoc network of far-right militants, Christian conservatives, and adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory.”

Women have a protective instinct about children (who are supposedly threatened by vampirish pedophiles), according to the authors, and many white women have a vested interest in maintaining a white patriarchy. “Women have been at the forefront of white racist movements for the past 100 years."

It's hard to agree completely with the authors’ contention about a prominent role of women in domestic extremism when considering the male-dominated so-called “militias.”

And it should be noted that strong, patriotic women have stood up for democracy, as personified this week by Cassidy Hutchinson (pictured above). Hutchinson testified to the U.S. House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Another patriot, Representative Liz Cheney (pictured at top),  places the Constitution and the truth above political power.

The ranks of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, Patriot Front, and other militia groups are apparently overwhelmingly male.

Many of these white supremacists, Aryan Nation believers and Christian nationalist extremists have embraced global conspiracies and targeted the federal government as the enemy. They focus on prominent Jews like George Soros, and they justify their beliefs, in part on the antisemitic “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

Although “The Protocols” isn’t real, it hasn’t stopped true believers from thinking otherwise –– and acting on their beliefs. QAnon promotes theories that Democrats drink the blood of babies and that lizard people are in positions of power in various countries. QAnon believers, led by people such as retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (disgraced former National Security Advisor  to President Trump) think they must “save the children” from evil nonbelievers.

Then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn returns a salute upon his arrival at MacDill, AFB, FL, Feb. 6, 2017, with President Trump. (D. Myles Cullen)

Bloom and Moskalenko take a compassionate approach in understanding and explaining how QAnon believers like Ashli Babbitt and Roseanne Boylan (both killed in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol) came under the spell of QAnon after their own personal setbacks and trauma. The authors show there is a tie to PTSD as they offer help in mindfulness therapies. In fact, the authors devote the last part of their book, in a section called FAQs, to strategies and tactics to help friends and family members.

Russia Connection, Putin's Motive

Russia figures prominently in the origins of the conspiracies on which QAnon is based –– and promoted. 

Russia has been using QAnon to advance its interests,” Bloom and Moskalenko write. Russia promoted Pizzagate, Michael Flynn, Trump, and online misinformation related to Q, including COVID disinformation.

"With ample evidence of Russia supporting and amplifying QAnon social media conflict, it is important to identify the man behind the curtain. Q may not have been directly controlled by Russia, but Russia has been using QAnon to advance its interests. Vladimir Putin has ruled Russia for over 20 years…

“Putin’s reign has become famous for the way he constructed a ‘vertical of power,’ with him at the top, and anyone below either heeding his command or suffering the consequences. Twenty years into this effort, it is safe to assume that Russian foreign policy efforts are Putin’s foreign policy efforts. In this sense, QAnon’s speed is a well-executed psyop –– a psychological operation to influence ‘hearts and minds’ –– a specialty of Putin’s KGB training.”

Just as Czar Nicholas had tried to distract the Russian people, Putin did the same with bogeymen creations 120 years later, according to the authors. He targeted the United States, Ukraine, the World Health Organization, and NATO with stories of victimization and conspiracy theories. Putin embraced fascism and Orwellian schemes to justify his revanchism and ethno-nationalism.

“Russia’s efforts in amplifying QAnon have promoted Vladimir Putin’s primary interest in ‘Making Russia Great Again,’” the authors write, “as well as his master plan of undermining democracy in the United States and abroad.”

Often Russia’s efforts targeted elections, both in the United States and Europe, with Putin and Q followers targeting progressive democracies, supporting authoritarians, and stoking anti-vaccine conspiracies.There are parallels with what QAnon did during the COVID pandemic.

“Thus, the ‘manufactured virus’ –– that in the American QAnon version originated in a Chinese bio lab in Wuhan –– in the Russian version originated in a U.S. lab and was brought to China by NATO soldiers. The NATO soldiers were carrying the virus around the world, the narrative explains, because it serves the deep state’s purpose to get rich off the mandated masks and the lockdowns, This story was followed up in the Russian-controlled informational space by fear-mongering stories about the dangers of collaborating with the United States in the area of biochemistry. These follow-up stories supplied a list of ‘dangerous’ laboratories in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kazakhstan –– post-Soviet countries that Russia has attempted to bring back under its influence. The nature of the folQlore is the same: Use the real threat of the virus, add to it a sinister component of plotting governments, and point the finger at potential targets of public anger. Only the main characters are recast to better fit the audience’s mindset. The Russian version of QAnon folQlore blames NATO, an organization Putin detests, and directs public fear and outrage at countries that reject Russian control.”

The authors note, “Both narratives fan public distrust in science and fear of vaccines.” And, with Putin’s devotion to Russian Orthodox Christianity, there are strong parallels related to religion. QAnon is popular among American evangelicals.

“What made evangelicals especially vulnerable to QAnon was that the language and terminology that QAnon used sounded explicit Christian, debating the existence of good and evil,” Bloom and Moskalenko say.

Can it be that Putin’s purported reasons for invading Ukraine –– to rid the former Soviet territory of Nazis –– is actually an Orwellian Big Lie? Like QAnon, is it fake News?

Remember QAnon’s roots in “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” replacement theory, and especially antisemitism and Christian nationalism. Is it possible that Putin’s hatred of Ukraine and his unprovoked attack on innocent civilians is fueled by the fact that President Volodymyr Zelensky is a Jew?

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy participates in an Armed Forces Full Honors Wreath-Laying Ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia, September 1, 2021. (Elizabeth Fraser)