“I’m sorry, I don’t follow. What is this ‘4D chess’ you say I’m playing?” (Photo: Win McNamee/ Getty Images)

It’s a curious thing that the same alt-right scumbags who scream about “facts” and “fake news” are many of the same people bellowing about unsubstantiated conspiracy theories propagated on forums like Reddit and, especially, 4chan. In the same way that Republicans bent over backwards to justify voting for an alleged child predator, others have resorted to conjuring elaborate fictions that prove, once and for all, that Democrats are pedophiles and Donald Trump is both good and right.




The latest, and most labyrinthian, story to squint at is “The Storm,” a catch-all name for the theories sprouting up around Q, an anonymous 4chan user who claims to be a “high-level government insider with Q clearance.” Q says he’s tasked with posting intel directly to 4chan to inform “the people” (if that’s what we want to call the gathering of neo-Nazis and misogynists that populate 4chan’s /pol/ thread) about Trump’s overarching plan to “stage a countercoup against members of the deep state.” Look, the lunacy here goes deeper than we can comprehend; thankfully, New York’s Paris Martineau has compiled a helpful primer.

Of particular note is Q’s explanation for the appointment of Robert Mueller and the investigation into Russia’s collusion with the Trump campaign, which, surprise, is actually all about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. In this scenario, Mueller is actually Team Trump, and the ding-dong who needs two hands to drink a bottle of water is actually running a long con to bring down the “globalists.” Also, the Las Vegas massacre was an inside job.


Martineau writes:


Despite the mental gymnastics it takes to not only find logic in this but also to believe that Q is actually who they say they are, the Storm theory is spreading quickly. Martineau writes of the numerous texts, charts, and YouTube videos outlining the conspiracy, as well as the steady rise of the #QAnon hashtag on Twitter, all of which you can dig into yourself if you want to go insane.

All of which—the circa-2016 partisan conspiracy, the pedophilia, the elaborate deep state paranoia, and the spread among listless 4chan trolls—makes this sound a lot like Pizzagate. Hopefully things don’t go as far as that one did.