JUDY WOODRUFF: With less than three months
until Election Day, much of the attention
has been on the presidential race. But Amna
Nawaz looks at how a conspiracy theory could
make its way into the halls of Congress after
the election.
MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R), Georgia Congressional
Candidate: America's the greatest country
in the world.
AMNA NAWAZ: On Tuesday, Marjorie Taylor Greene
won the Republican run-off in Georgia's 14th
Congressional District.
MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: I'm a conservative
Republican.
AMNA NAWAZ: It's an overwhelmingly GOP district,
so she is favored to win in November.
MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: We have an Islamic
invasion into our government offices.
AMNA NAWAZ: But after Politico uncovered Greene's
previous Islamophobic, anti-Semitic and racist
remarks about black people, GOP leaders distanced
themselves, condemning her words as appalling,
disgusting and bigoted.
But Republican leaders remained largely silent
about Greene's support for a far-right conspiracy
theory known as QAnon, support she professed
in a 2017 video she deleted before her campaign
launch.
MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: Q is a patriot. He
is someone that very much loves his country,
and he is on the same page as us, and he is
very pro-Trump. OK?
AMNA NAWAZ: QAnon first emerged in the months
after President Trump took office, starting
on fringe Internet message boards, before
spreading to social media.
Adherents allege, among other things, that
the president is the target of so-called deep
state actors, high-ranking officials plotting
against him. The conspiracy quickly took off,
and the president's supporters latched on
to the mysterious Q.
Signs and T-shirts appeared at Trump's campaign
rallies. Last year, the FBI labeled the movement
a potential domestic terror threat.
JO RAE PERKINS (R), Oregon Senatorial Candidate:
I stand with President Trump. I stand with
Q and the team. Thank you, Anons, and thank
you, patriots.
AMNA NAWAZ: But now QAnon has firmly taken
root on the 2020 campaign trail.
LAUREN BOEBERT (R), Colorado Congressional
Candidate: Honestly, everything I have heard
of Q, I hope that -- I hope that this is real.
AMNA NAWAZ: Some congressional candidates,
like Lauren Boebert in Colorado, promoted
the conspiracy theory to friendly media outlets,
before later calling QAnon fake news.
According to Media Matters, a left-leaning
watchdog group, 20 candidates, all Republicans,
except one independent, with varying levels
of support for QAnon conspiracies, have advanced
to November's general election.
And now Marjorie Taylor Greene's name will
be on the ballot as well.
To look more closely at the rise and spread
of the QAnon conspiracy on the campaign trail,
I'm joined by Travis View, co-host of the
"QAnon Anonymous: podcast.
Travis, welcome to the "NewsHour."
You have been following the QAnon conspiracy
theory and its followers for a very long time.
Let's start with the basics, though, for those
who haven't been. Just explain to us, where
and how did the QAnon conspiracy begin?
TRAVIS VIEW, Co-Host, "QAnon Anonymous": The
QAnon conspiracy theory originated on 4chan
in October of 2017, though it has its origin
in Pizzagate.
The basic premise is that a group of high-level
military intelligence officials close to President
Trump, QAnon followers believe, are sending
out secret coded messages on these image boards
about this great grand battle of good vs.
evil, in which Trump and what they call the
Q Team are working to destroy a global cabal
of Satan-worshiping pedophiles, which the
QAnon community believes is controlling everything.
And that includes politician, entertainment
and the media.
AMNA NAWAZ: And what is the endgame? If you
are someone who believes in this conspiracy
theory, what do you believe will happen as
a result of all this?
TRAVIS VIEW: The QAnon community is awaiting
two big events.
One of them is called the Storm. And this
is supposed to be a great mass arrest event,
in which over 100,000 people from the highest
levels of power and entertainment are arrested
and face a great day of reckoning.
The other event that they are waiting for
is called the Great Awakening. And this is
basically an event in which everyone realizes
that QAnon was right the whole time, and that
would allow us to enter into a great, brand-new
utopian age.
AMNA NAWAZ: So, Travis, what you just laid
out seems so obviously irrational that a lot
of reasonable people might just dismiss it.
And yet it has picked up real speed in recent
years, right? It was reported just recently
that Facebook found thousands of groups and
pages with millions of followers and members
supporting QAnon.
So, what has helped to fuel this idea so well?
TRAVIS VIEW: You know, it is a really appealing
story, if you happen to feel really disenfranchised
and you want to believe that the world is
about to change in a really important, revolutionary
way.
And it is also appealing because it allows
the QAnon followers to believe that they can
take part in this great, grand revolutionary
change. They think that they are basically
conducting an information war, so that by
going on social media and posting QAnon memes,
and then spreading these QAnon conspiracy
theories, they can help usher in this great
awakening.
And so it sounds ludicrous, and it is. But
the story really has a lot of appeal to people
who might otherwise feel like they have no
voice in the political system.
AMNA NAWAZ: Travis, the fact that President
Trump has been retweeting some of these conspiracy
theories, that congressional candidates are
now saying that they support these ideas,
and are then winning, likely ending up in
Congress, what does all of that say to you
about the potency of this particular conspiracy
theory?
TRAVIS VIEW: Well, there is some historical
precedent for a conspiratorial movement gaining
a significant share of power in Congress.
All the way back in 1833, there was a party
called the Anti-Masonic Party, which was dedicated
to the proposition that Freemasons were controlling
the world. And they gained 10 percent of the
House of Representatives.
There has always been an undercurrent of conspiracy
thinking and paranoia in American politics.
And, occasionally, it can rise up and actually
get some actual significant political power.
So, this is just something we are seeing again.
AMNA NAWAZ: You mentioned the Pizzagate conspiracy
theory back in 2016. We should mention that
has not really gone away. It tamped down a
little bit, but it has resurfaced again recently.
What happens with the QAnon conspiracy theory?
Do you see a point at which this goes away?
TRAVIS VIEW: No, absolutely not.
You know, this is something that has started
very small a couple of years ago. And it has
only accelerated and gained in popularity
and gained in speed. So, if you go by the
trajectory, I mean, this is something that
will almost certainly be with us for at least
a generation, and probably longer.
AMNA NAWAZ: That is Travis View, co-host of
the "QAnon Anonymous" podcast.
Thanks so much, Travis.
TRAVIS VIEW: Thank you for having me.
