Q Anon is a superconspiracy, defined in the literature by Barkun, a sociopolitical movement, and a psyop in the classical sense. Psychological operations influence emotions, motives, reasoning and behaviors at sociopolitical, governmental, organizational, group and individual levels. For certain Anons, and they know who they are, Q is a moneymaking enterprise.
Sebastian Gorka wades into the Q'verse with typical belligerence. Gorka's academic reputation is contested: dismissed by political scientists as a weak researcher with partisan publications to his credit, Gorka's PhD was issued by Corvinus University of Budapest. Keep in mind that up to now, Gorka's critics were partisan themselves.
With a resume primarily as a guest lecturer with defense agencies of the US government, Gorka failed to complete a degree at Harvard, yet he cites his incomplete attendance on his LinkedIn page. I am impressed that he was even admitted to the program, and not interested in why he failed to matriculate.
Sadly, Gorka brings weak methods to the Q arena: Gorka hates the Q'verse, and Q partisans hate him right back. Donald Trump, Jr. defended Gorka, but the collective Q'verse shrugged: nobody who follows Q Anon respects Gorka.
I harbor no animus for Gorka, and I am no cultish partisan of the expanding Q'verse: I am a political scientist and critic of the Q phenomenon with lesser academic credentials than Gorka. But I lack patience with bad analysis of Q, and Gorka's analysis is defective.
On April 10, 2019, Dr. Gorka tweeted "Q is NOT on America's Side. It's all a con job."
Gorka's first sentence is debatable. His second sentence contains elements of fact. Then Gorka links to that article on his website. I will address the Q moneymaking grift and the ex-convicts that perpetrate it in a later work. For now, let us focus on Gorka and his article.
In this article, Gorka harkens back to signs at Trump rallies in the lead-up to the 2018 Midterm Elections. Gorka remembers:
"...strange signs started appearing at political rallies. Held up by nondescript attendees, the signs read simply, "we are Q."
Gorka explains:
"The group appeared from the fringes of internet chat rooms, such as on the website of 4Chan, a peculiar mixture of cyberpunks and various online misfits."
(Sebastian Gorka, "The Truth About Q-Anon--America First with Sebastian Gorka," SebGorka.com, April 10, 2019).
"Nondescript?" "Online misfits?" Gorka managed to alienate me with two simple sentences. Gorka's characterizations coincide with fake news descriptions of Trump supporters as mouth-breathing Walmart shoppers. Gorka's elitism is on full display.
More, Q was no longer on 4chan at the time of the Midterms, as all Q partisans and informed Q critics know. Not to belabor facts, but Q was on 8chan, an entirely different site, and on Discord, Reddit, Voat, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. Gorka intends to malign Q: so he mentions only 4chan, where Q was born on October 28, 2017.
Gorka is merely getting started. He calls Q loyalists "Far Right activists on gonzo internet forums." Before you read past this statement, think about it: Gorka is endorsing the equalization of the "far right" with White nationalism pushed by the fake news media. The unspoken implication is that Q partisans are "far right," therefore they are also racist.
Gorka confirms his intent when he mischaracterizes Q Anon using the same derisive talking points disseminated by the fake news media.
"The conspiracy goes like this: the real purpose of the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation was not to investigate Donald Trump, but instead to investigate Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and people like former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman, John Podesta ... One addition ... to the conspiracy last year was that the Mueller probe was also looking into the now-deceased Senator John McCain (R-AZ) for his illegal activities."
Gorka adds:
"QAnon conspiracy theorists have simultaneously argued that the ultimate target of the Mueller investigation is either the "Deep State" of nefarious anti-American, globalist actors, or the aim is to pursue high-profile pedophiles in the United States government and in other powerful circles related to the government."
What surprises me is that Gorka turns out to be just another fake news fake journalist. We thought that Gorka was one of us, one of the MAGA faithful. Not so much. But read on.
Gorka's mixing of correct and incorrect assessments of Q offend even me, a critic of the Q movement. Gorka not only does not understand Q, he cannot persuade anybody who does.
After reading his article on his eponymous website, I went from indifference to Gorka to opposition. Gorka's reputation for weak research follows him even to the Q'verse.
Then Gorka compounded my dislike by sowing fake news talking points:
"Now for the most pernicious aspect of the QAnon conspiracy theory. In 2016, conspiracists on 4Chan and other similar fringe messaging boards claimed that the emails stolen from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s (and subsequently made public by WikiLeaks) contained secret messages referring to a powerful ring of pedophiles who were using a local Washington, D.C. pizzeria as a base of operations to conduct their crimes. None of these claims were true. But, what ended up happening was that the highly irresponsible conspiracy theory triggered a mentally unstable man, who in turn took a gun to a D.C. pizzeria with intent to use it."
This is not what Pizzagate alleges, and any honest conspiracy theorist knows it. The Podesta Leaks do contain a substitution code pertaining to pedophilia: anyone who reads the emails of John Podesta walks away changed for the experience and convinced of it.
Fake news defenders of social elite pedophilia insist that Comet Ping Pong is the epicenter of the conspiracy. I will be quite specific. Comet Ping Pong matters because its owner, James Alefantis, posted Instagram photos that were more than problematic. They remain unaddressed and un-investigated to this day, by all but PedoGate researchers.
Comet Ping Pong also matters because its website featured an encrypted section that was accessible only to those with the URL, which was distributed by word of mouth. Hacktivists found the page, they found the encrypted data, but they failed to crack it. This secret portion of the Comet website remains un-investigated by all but independent researchers.
The Pizzagate conspiracy theory does not claim that Hillary Clinton raped infants in the nonexistent basement of Comet Ping Pong. That is how the fake news media defines Pizzagate, erecting a straw man, painting the theory as ludicrous, so they can disprove it and declare victory.
Not only does Gorka adopt the deliberate mischaracterizations of the fake news media, he declares, "None of these claims were true." This statement by Gorka ruined him for me, and removed him from my good graces. Gorka is not just wrong. Gorka is in the enemy camp, an enemy that covers up elite circle pedophilia.
You will find elsewhere on this website an analysis of PedoGate in 48 chapters. I eviscerate these fake news claims that Gorka adopts with such alacrity.
Worst of all, Gorka throws out the "conspiracy theorists are potentially violent" trope so beloved by the purveyors of fake news.
But this article is not about Pizzagate or PedoGate. It is about the defective analyses that Sebastian Gorka steals from the fake news media and foists onto the Trump faithful. Gorka then passes judgement on the 'chans. He condemns 4chan first.
“The source material for these theories is the vile, uber-fringe 4Chan and 8Chan. 4Chan was launched in 2003 as a place to share images and discuss Japanese anime. In fact, it was modeled on the Japanese anime internet boards, such as Futaba Channel. Over time, though, the already eclectic group of online personalities that 4Chan attracted devolved into something darker. It became a haven for crazed conspiracy theorists from both sides of the political divide. 4Chan also became popular among the white nationalist community, and also became a place for hackers and other criminals–including child pornographers. If there was a Hell on the internet, 4Chan was Hell.”
Gorka does not understand the 'chans, much like the fake news media does not understand them, and what people do not understand, they sometimes fear. The 'chans may be the lone remaining bastions of free speech, so it is inevitable that the worst sort of antisemitism and bigotry would infest them.
It is not my intention to defend the 'chans, but to explain them--you know, the way that political scientists are supposed to do.
Nobody is under any compulsion to visit 4chan. 4chan does not target the same audiences that patronize Twitter or Facebook. If you are incapable of contextualizing stupidity, then you should not explore 4chan. Those who bring intellectual maturity and a thick skin to the exercise realize that 4chan provides a safe harbor for opinions that literally cannot be expressed anywhere else. For this reason alone, we must protect and defend 4chan and 8chan.
(For the record: Blogger refused to allow me to link to 4chan and 8chan, and threw up Save errors after I inserted links to them. Net censorship is real, it is pernicious, and it is ubiquitous across all net services--except for the 'chans, where it is beleaguered.)
Then Gorka turns his stereotypical guns on 8chan.
“Meanwhile, a similar website, created by gonzo software developer, Frederick Brennan, 8Chan (sic) was launched in 2013 as a response to what Brennan believed was the rise in authoritarianism, censorship, and surveillance on 4Chan. Despite the fact that 8Chan has become the 3,857th most viewed website in the world, with an average of 35,000 unique visitors per day and 400,000 original posts per day, it too has become mired in controversy. 8Chan, which has been billed as the more libertarian (though, perhaps libertine would be better) 4Chan, has apparently become a hub of international child pornography postings. This became such a problem that, in 2015, 8Chan was blacklisted by Google search. It is a profound understatement to claim that anything positive or good comes from these boards. Yet, it is precisely from sites like these that the “Pizzagate” and now the QAnon conspiracy theories emanate.”
Q emanated from the 'chans because Q began as a LARP (Live Action Role Play), and the world's most effective LARPers are on the 'chans. It is as simple as that. When you fold in the fact that the 'chans may be the lone remaining strongholds of free speech on an increasingly siloed, censored and balkanized internet, there is no mystery why Q began on 4chan and why Q persists on 8chan.
Those who are incapable of understanding 'chan culture should stay off those boards. Again, nobody is under any compulsion to browse either service. The Anons on 4chan and 8chan never put out "Welcome" signs, and they are unsparing towards "normies" who do not belong there.
If you bruise easily, if your feelings are readily hurt, if racism, bigotry, misogyny, sexism and antisemitism offend you, then stay off the 'chans.
As for child porn--the Anons know who posts it on both boards, and it is not them. External actors post the worst content on the 'chans to attract official scrutiny and to get them shut down. The Anons delete child porn found on their boards. You can imagine who might want to shut down the last remaining centers of free speech on the internet.
The Anons who masqueraded as Q on the 'chans knew that Q needed to be disseminated to a broader audience immediately after its inception. They accordingly migrated to Reddit in November 2017, until Reddit banned them--not once, but twice.
As the world witnessed these successive attempts to throttle the growing Q movement in March and September, 2018, coordinated with thousands of fake news articles criticizing Q, the attempted censorship predictably backfired and Q spores spewed across the internet.
Yet another iteration of Q continues to post Q drops to 8chan as I write these words. After a ten day pause to regroup after exposés of the ex-cons running the Q grift were published in late March and early April, Q returned to 8chan on April 11, 2019.
The 8chan con artists running the psyop needed to reorganize. The BO, the Board Owner of the Q board on 8chan, resigned. One prominent Q interpreter threatened critics with "10,000 Anons pilfering through their garbage," then pulled language from his website claiming that donations to his religious ministry were tax deductible. He promised to cease accepting donations on Patreon.
I discuss the perceptible versions of Q in a forthcoming work. For those who are not familiar with the Q movement, Q posts on 8chan, and "bakers" analyze Q's gnomic utterances on dedicated 8chan boards, on Discord, on VOAT, on websites, on forums, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on multiple YouTube channels.
History will record that the attempt to kill Q instead disseminated Q to millions of mainstream readers that recognized censorship and rejected it. The fake news media committed ideological suicide by trying to suppress Q and they still do not realize it. By failing to ignore Q, by demonizing Q, by ranting against Q, the fake news media facilitated the proliferation of Q, like a virus.
Human curiosity is boundless. The fake news media maligned Q in such derisive terms that millions of eyeballs that never explored alternative media before found themselves in Discord chat rooms, on 8chan boards, on VOAT, and following YouTube channels, researching conspiracy theories that resonated with their own politics and their own values.
Gorka then lists failed Q predictions, which are legion, and which require a separate treatment. So I will elide past them here.
But Gorka confirms: not only does he not understand Q Anon, he does not understand the 'chans. Worst, Gorka does not understand the MAGA Faithful.
I apologize for the length and the number of these quotes from Gorka's article, but it is better, I think, to let him hang himself with his own words. Gorka continues:
“The fact that the QAnon conspiracy theory is tied in with the “Pizzagate” fiasco is bad enough. The more damaging part is that these cult-like actors link themselves to the Trump movement, despite the fact that no member of the Trump movement has anything to do with these insane theories. They are the outgrowth of a pathetic group who exist online, in the dark corners of the worldwide web. That they have attached their delusions to the Trump movement is unfortunate. But, they do not represent and are not affiliated with President Trump, his supporters, or those who work for the president.”
I am still shaking my head all the way on the other side of the world in Bangkok. Pizzagate is real. Gorka confirms his reputation for weak scholarship by parroting the fake news media's talking points that dismiss it.
Then Gorka states: "... no member of the Trump movement has anything to do with these insane theories."
Precisely whom does Gorka believe comprises the Trump movement? QAnon partisans comprise a large part of it. If Gorka understood Q, he would know this. If Gorka understood the Trump movement, he would know this.
Some may not like it, but Q loyalists are the most fervent supporters of the 45th President. The truth is, the Trump movement is evolving in ways that leave weak researchers and abrasive personalities like Gorka in the dustbin of history.
Gorka is off on a solo ideological tangent. He says that Q is "decidedly not close to the President, they are not Conservatives, and with every post that they make, they subvert the MAGA Agenda."
I agree that Q is not "close to the president," and I address this in another work about the Q movement. Q is not a military intelligence operative within the President's physical orbit. Q is an imaginary "patriot" concocted by Anon moderators on 8chan, posting cryptic drops which are not classified.
As for claiming that Q partisans are "not Conservatives," I think that this remains to be delved, as what, exactly, is a Conservative these days? We see a breakdown of historical and traditional definitions of Democrat and Republican, the dual-party paradigm is more blurred every day.
We see this much: the deep state is real, and it includes both Democrats and Republicans. The true battle for the future of the Republic is globalism v. nationalism. We find globalists in both parties. Economic nationalists appear to be condensed in the old Republican Tea Parties, which are reemerging in the Q'verse.
The worst members of the deep state are, in fact, Republicans, if only because they masquerade under false pretenses and pretend to be conservatives. The term "RINO," Republican in Name Only, is apt.
For purposes of moving along, let us just agree with Gorka that Q partisans are conservatives of a new type. I think that Q loyalists would agree, and I think that this is an accurate characterization. We can belabor it further elsewhere.
But we must wonder: whom does Gorka think devises the so-called "MAGA Agenda?"
The President? Assuredly. The supporters of the President? I think so. But not Gorka. Clearly not him. Gorka does not speak for me, and after his article, I do not think that Gorka will speak for more than a small, irrelevant slice of the collective Trump movement.
The MAGA Agenda is bigger than Gorka realizes. It is more inclusive than Gorka understands. It is unsparingly exclusive, and Gorka will find himself outside the MAGA movement looking in after this article. We do not need Sebastian Gorka. We do not want Sebastian Gorka. We are leaving him behind.
Reading this analysis by Gorka, I realize that Gorka not only fails to understand Q, Gorka does not understand President Donald J. Trump.
Nor does Gorka understand modern conservatism, nor the direction that our conservative movement is heading.
No matter how much fake journalists like Gorka may hate it, Q is a movement, and it is still--despite reams of bad analysis and lies, despite massive counter propaganda--still growing, it is still spreading, and those who follow Q are becoming more entrenched as Q teaches them more effectively than any other form of media.
Q is new media. Q tells Q partisans to research for themselves, to think for themselves, and in the process, Q red-pills millions of deplorables who previously were asleep, passively absorbing fake news propaganda.
These good Americans, all of them deplorables like you and me, the Q masses, our tribe, are now awake. They will not go back to sleep. The puppeteers pulling our strings are only gradually realizing that we see the strings, and we refuse to dance for them anymore.
For now, dismiss the superficial and stereotypical analyses of bad researchers like Sebastian Gorka. Do not waste another moment of your time on him.
Gorka is irrelevant. Gorka does not understand Q, Gorka does not understand you, and Gorka does not understand me.
Doc T sends.
Bangkok
Updated, April 16, 2019