It always seemed to me that QAnon was some sort of online LARP on 4chan that got out of control and metastasized. It’s left a trail of broken families and swept into the mainstream with branding and everything. After the predictions of Trump’s return to power after Jan 6th it seems to have fizzled out. Did QAnon stop posting? Did their adherents just glom onto the next crazy theory? How many followers now disavow the theories of QAnon?
It’s my theory that QAnon was being controlled by Republican election strategists. Steve Bannon has bragged about this.
It was no coincidence that Pizzagate started immediately after the news broke that Trump used to go into teenage dressing rooms.
I don’t doubt the a MAGA crowd leant into the Q conspiracy and were happy to co-opt it’s adherents into it’s electoral base. However is there any evidence that links its genesis to the like of Banon? Most of what I heard (from across the pond, indirectly) was more traditional wedge issues like anti-DEI and anti-trans rhetoric.