Yep, this is basically what happened, I watched a lot of former friends basically develop along those lines.
They shitposted their way into turning into fascists, going from being mostly unserious, performatively edgy, to … being extremely serious, genuinely holding these beliefs.
Like ‘God Emperor Trump’ started off as a joke… then they just went ‘no but 4 real he should be a dictator for life.’
You also really, really cannot place enough importance on QAnon, the meta conspiracy framework, that tries(d?) to pull together all conspiracy theories, along a narrative that Trump is secretly waging a war against subversive satanist pedophile Democrats… this is where the whole 12 D chess thing comes from…
And QAnon was born on, and was suckled by 4chan.
Trump kept giving occasional vague nods, using phrases from the QAnon vernacular and such.
In fact, this is arguably what Johnson is clumsily (he is the opposite of a perma online edgelord like Vance or Musk) trying to reference with the FBI Informant thing, this concept that Trump is actually a secret pivotal player in a scheme to thwart essentially a … literally demonic plot to overthrow the US.
This… the whole reason the Jan 6th insurrection happened was because these morons had been promised basically a religious prophecy that Trump absolutely would win that election, their QAnon dogma made concrete and specific promises akin to an apocalypse cult, and when they did not come to pass, they freaked out, thinking the demons had thwarted God’s current agent of destiny on Earth… Trump.
As opposed to, you know, reality, where Trump is a imbecilic criminal mob boss fraudster and serial rapist and also manchurian candidate with a long established track record of literally scamming his own supporters just constantly.
If anyone thinks I am being hyperbolic here… nope, I’m actually underselling how seriously QAnon is a religion more than it is ‘a conspiracy theory’.
Go look up all the evangelical QAnon prophets that popped up during this time, it arguably constitutes a 5th Great Awakening, in terms of mass waves of revitalization and reinvention of Christian religious fervor in the history of the US.
Yes, you heard me right, I am telling you that the 5th Great Awakening of Christianity in the US began on 4chan and pretty much directly caused Jan 6th.
EDIT:
Yep, I’ve now just seen Tim Pool’s reaction to /interpretation of Johnson’s claim of Trump being an FBI informant… he pretty much does just directly try to roll that all back into ‘maybe QAnon is actually real, maybe Trump really is a deep cover whistleblower’ without literally using those words.
Its all this Tom Clancy esque spy thriller secret machinations reality for them… Tim just straight up says ‘how cool would it be if this was all real’.
Pure escapist fantasy as politics, all motivated reasoning, 0 capacity for or interest in critical thought, you know, like a religious fanatic.
Yep, this is basically what happened, I watched a lot of former friends basically develop along those lines.
They shitposted their way into turning into fascists, going from being mostly unserious, performatively edgy, to … being extremely serious, genuinely holding these beliefs.
Like ‘God Emperor Trump’ started off as a joke… then they just went ‘no but 4 real he should be a dictator for life.’
You also really, really cannot place enough importance on QAnon, the meta conspiracy framework, that tries(d?) to pull together all conspiracy theories, along a narrative that Trump is secretly waging a war against subversive satanist pedophile Democrats… this is where the whole 12 D chess thing comes from…
And QAnon was born on, and was suckled by 4chan.
Trump kept giving occasional vague nods, using phrases from the QAnon vernacular and such.
In fact, this is arguably what Johnson is clumsily (he is the opposite of a perma online edgelord like Vance or Musk) trying to reference with the FBI Informant thing, this concept that Trump is actually a secret pivotal player in a scheme to thwart essentially a … literally demonic plot to overthrow the US.
This… the whole reason the Jan 6th insurrection happened was because these morons had been promised basically a religious prophecy that Trump absolutely would win that election, their QAnon dogma made concrete and specific promises akin to an apocalypse cult, and when they did not come to pass, they freaked out, thinking the demons had thwarted God’s current agent of destiny on Earth… Trump.
As opposed to, you know, reality, where Trump is a imbecilic criminal mob boss fraudster and serial rapist and also manchurian candidate with a long established track record of literally scamming his own supporters just constantly.
If anyone thinks I am being hyperbolic here… nope, I’m actually underselling how seriously QAnon is a religion more than it is ‘a conspiracy theory’.
Go look up all the evangelical QAnon prophets that popped up during this time, it arguably constitutes a 5th Great Awakening, in terms of mass waves of revitalization and reinvention of Christian religious fervor in the history of the US.
Yes, you heard me right, I am telling you that the 5th Great Awakening of Christianity in the US began on 4chan and pretty much directly caused Jan 6th.
EDIT:
Yep, I’ve now just seen Tim Pool’s reaction to /interpretation of Johnson’s claim of Trump being an FBI informant… he pretty much does just directly try to roll that all back into ‘maybe QAnon is actually real, maybe Trump really is a deep cover whistleblower’ without literally using those words.
Its all this Tom Clancy esque spy thriller secret machinations reality for them… Tim just straight up says ‘how cool would it be if this was all real’.
Pure escapist fantasy as politics, all motivated reasoning, 0 capacity for or interest in critical thought, you know, like a religious fanatic.