QAnon Supporters Await JFK Jr. in Dealey Plaza

[Chance]

No, the headline didn't make any sense to me either. From Dallas Morning News:

Scores of QAnon believers gathered Tuesday afternoon in downtown Dallas in the hopes that John F. Kennedy Jr. would appear, heralding the reinstatement of Donald Trump as president.

The supporters first gathered Monday night in downtown Dallas, and about 1 p.m. Tuesday there were several hundred people near Dealey Plaza, where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

Kennedy’s son died in a plane crash in 1999 at age 38, but some supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory believe that he has spent the last 22 years in hiding. They think John F. Kennedy Jr. will reappear at the plaza before midnight Tuesday....

....

Experts who have been following QAnon since its inception said that even they were surprised by the number of people who showed up Tuesday in Dallas.

”Frankly, I’m kind of shocked at how many people turned out for this,” said Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab who researches domestic extremism. “This wasn’t a widespread belief, even among QAnon followers.”

....

QAnon is an umbrella group, in which different segments don’t always agree on ideologies, Holt said. He believes Tuesday’s event grew out of chat channels that are obsessed with numerology.

Posts in those channels indicated JFK Jr. would reveal himself Tuesday, but Holt said he was uncertain why believers decided he would pick Dallas, the site of his father’s death, of all places, to reveal himself.

I'm sure some of those folks just showed up for the party, but the fact this was even a theory is... great.

[fatdog]

Some times I think a lot of the QAnon people are just having fun with tormenting the leftists and really don't believe any of it.

[SecondsCount]

What 3 letter agency is behind this?

[Joe in PNG]

"Okay, let's see what ridiculous crap we can get people to go along with this time."

[Hieronymous]

I have a well educated, retired insurance executive neighbor who has been slowly warped by her following/fixation with QAnon and other odd conservative conspiracies. She thinks Trump is still actually the President, Melania is really Princess Diana in some kind of suit, John Durham was unsealing 240,000 indictments (can you imagine?). In early October she shared that Trump was going to introduce JFK, Jr. There’s more wacky stuff but I can’t bring myself to type it.

I am honestly curious about the reasons why people can get duped into believing stuff like this. It’s almost cult like.

[Joe in PNG]

I have a well educated, retired insurance executive neighbor who has been slowly warped by her following/fixation with QAnon and other odd conservative conspiracies. She thinks Trump is still actually the President, Melania is really Princess Diana in some kind of suit, John Durham was unsealing 240,000 indictments (can you imagine?). In early October she shared that Trump was going to introduce JFK, Jr. There’s more wacky stuff but I can’t bring myself to type it.

I am honestly curious about the reasons why people can get duped into believing stuff like this. It’s almost cult like.

Start here- United States of Paranoia.

My theory is that the idea that events are under control is more appealing than chaos. That some human (or near enough) agency is making thing go according to some plan, even if it is an evil and malign plan, is more comforting to some than the idea that most leaders are in over their heads, are making things up as they go along, and really don't know what they are doing.

And experience has shown that most people would rather make facts up than to face an inconvenient reality.

[Hot Sauce]

Melania is really Princess Diana in some kind of suit

I got this far and nearly keeled over laughing. Please tell me you followed up to ask exactly what kind of suit she was suggesting it was.

[Hieronymous]

Honestly, I was shocked and didn’t know (and still don’t) how to politely tell her she’d lost her mind. Plus, she lets my dog live with her when my family goes on vacation, so selfishly I also can’t bring myself to sabotage that arrangement!

[Ed L]

I'm wondering how many of these people are live action role players pretending to be Qanon believers.

Someone needs to hijack the twitter account of some high level celebrity who the Qanon people would be obsessed with and post this message: "All QAnon supporters: mandatory meeting outside of FBI headquarters in Washington. Please retweet."

The movie that I'm hoping they make is Harold and Kumar join Qanon.

[Joe in PNG]

Honestly, I was shocked and didn’t know (and still don’t) how to politely tell her she’d lost her mind. Plus, she lets my dog live with her when my family goes on vacation, so selfishly I also can’t bring myself to sabotage that arrangement!

One of the more useless and absolutely frustrating activities is trying to argue with a conspiracy theorist. My sister's first husband was of the Jihad Wing of the King James Only Fundamentalist cult (and an abuser, but we didn't know that until she left him). His irrationality was proof against any mere facts, but he sure loved the kookiest of arguments, especially numerology.