Seemingly within minutes Wednesday, The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, The Hill and several other of the usual suspects all ran stories attempting to explain — and by explain I mean “mock/dismiss/deride” — an internet phenomenon known as Q or QAnon.

Here’s a good tip: Any time the news establishment in sudden unison jumps up and screams at the top of their lungs, “Nothing to see here! Nonsense, nonsense! Nothing to see!” it’s a good time to pay attention.

Before we step down into the rabbit hole, keep in mind the people telling you Q is just a crazy, wacky internet conspiracy or elaborate hoax are the same people who insisted you were a Mad Hatter if you said that the Obama administration had conducted surveillance on the Trump campaign.

They’re also the ones spending endless hours and ink insisting Trump teamed with Putin to steal the 2016 election right from under the nose of President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Nonetheless, Q is a rabbit hole. Are they really intelligence agents? Or maybe just some smart guys trying to change the debate? Or even liberal trolls? Some of what they say makes sense. Some of it … seems far-fetched.

So What is Q?

Q or QAnon claims to be a small group of under 10 people very close to Donald Trump. Most are military intelligence, they say. Q says Trump is slowly, methodically, effectively exposing and destroying the Deep State and the corrupt global order that’s long run the show.

These elites are involved in all sorts of nasty business, including murder, pedophilia and child sex trafficking, to say nothing of your run-of-the-mill corruption and connivery. And they are fighting Trump tooth and nail.

However, Q usually doesn’t just come out and just say all this. Often several times a day, Q will leave a post on 8-chan. (A hard-to-navigate website composed of user-created boards.) These Q posts tend to be in the form of questions and cryptic statements. Readers — aka “Anons” — call these “crumbs.” A community has arisen out of the effort to research and explain the posts.

A website called QAnon.pub is an easy way to see and search through the Q posts. This post from December is fairly representative. It came out right after Peter Strzok’s name first became public.

Anons will tell you Melissa Hodgman is Strzok’s wife. She scored a huge promotion at the Securities and Exchange Commission right as her husband was investigating Clinton and Trump. “#2 at FBI”? That was Andrew McCabe. “Follow the Wives.” Remember, McCabe’s wife got over $700,000 in campaign funds from Hillary insider Terry McAuliffe. Also, it has since been revealed that the wife of top DOJ official Bruce Ohr was hired by Fusion GPS exactly when the Clinton campaign hired Fusion GPS to create the Steele dossier.

Meanwhile, here are two Q posts from Sunday.

An Anon could look at the post on the right and say:

The FISA abuses are key to unlocking the DOJ/FBI corruption. Q going mainstream last week had to happen before the evidence supporting Q assertions could be made public. “You have more than you know” is a Q slogan. The facts are out there. Just have to put them together. WWG1WGA is the main Q slogan. “Where we go one, we go all.” It’s thought to come from the 1996 Ridley Scott flick White Squall. The film concerns a group of young people caught at sea in a terrible storm. “The Storm” is a common metaphor for Trump’s assault on the Deep State. Trump himself referenced it last October during a dinner with military commanders.

Some QAnon Assertions

Let’s look at a couple Q assertions.

“Trust the Plan” — Jeff Sessions is not just sitting on his rump when it comes to the criminality of Hillary Clinton, the Obama Administration and the Deep State. Bringing them down is slow methodical business.

True or False? Well, Q was saying “trust the plan” long before it was revealed Sessions had appointed U.S. Attorney John Huber in Utah to handle prosecutions stemming from the IG investigation into the DOJ/FBI antics during the 2016 campaign. And that Huber’s office had actually been quietly working on prosecutions since last summer. Around the country there is an unusually high number of sealed indictments. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton is doing a TV show with Spielberg and a guest shot on Madam Secretary.

POTUS spread the word to those corrupted politicians, get out of the Swamp or face the consequences. Have you seen just how many members of Congress are leaving or have quit already? Historic numbers, say the political statistics gurus at FiveThirtyEight.com. On the other hand, maybe they’re just sick of the partisan nastiness … or just Trump.

POTUS spread the word to corrupt corporate titans. Quit or face the consequences. Have you seen how many CEOs have up and departed in the past year? Trump passed Executive Order 13818 declaring the government can take all of their assets if involved in serious human rights abuse or corruption. Anons will tell you it’s not a coincidence. On the other hand, with the economy booming, what better time to cash out? (The “Me too” movement has also taken out its share of people as well.)

Powerful people are involved in sex and human trafficking. That seems hard to swallow. On the other hand, we have seen from the administration an intense effort to arrest traffickers and smash child sex rings. The NXIVM sex trafficking cult has high political connections. Convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein regularly flew the world’s powerful on his “Lolita Express” to his island of underaged debauchery. The Clintons acted as if they had a time-share there.

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Perhaps unrelated, perhaps not. Why the sudden call to Abolish ICE? Did you know ICE has more people working to stop human and sex trafficking than it does arresting illegal immigrants?

There is a global conspiracy at work hellbent on bringing Trump down. This one gets mocked by the media. The same media that gleefully reports how the EU — and other new world order types — loath Trump and want to bring him down. Meanwhile, former Sec. of State John Kerry is running around Europe and Iran assuring everyone they won’t have to worry about Trump much longer. Obama has been saying pretty much the same thing as he travels the globe, often hitting spots just after a Trump visit.

For that matter, just think of the Steele dossier. That alone involved Russians feeding Clinton operatives, British intelligence, an Australian diplomat, the State Department official at the Middle East desk, John McCain, Fusion GPS with its deep MSM ties to say nothing of the top officials at the FBI, DOJ and CIA.

Further Down the Rabbit Hole

Some of the other Q assertions are way out there in the Twilight Zone. Remember when Atlanta’s airport mysteriously shut down for hours? That was so military planes could fly in a bunch of captured prisoners headed to Gitmo. In June, there was an “accidental” missile launch that forced POTUS to reroute his flight. The Hawaii false nuclear attack alarm? Not a false alarm. Deal with North Korea? Q spent the winter saying the deal was worked out last November. And Iran is next.

Vegas massacre? A diversion to hide the real target, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He was there, owns the top floors of the Mandalay Bay and had just begun cracking down on those in his country that are part of the global corruption.

Crazy? Yes. But how much crazier than some middle-aged rich guy suddenly deciding to shoot up a crowd with, according to the official report out last week, no discernible motive? Or Obama flying in multiple planeloads of cash to seal the Iran deal? And how crazy is it North Korea did turn around so suddenly?

Just consider the past couple years. If crazy were cupcakes we could stock a national chain of bakeries.

Why the Sudden Interest by the Media?

Yes, why. You’ll hear it’s because on Tuesday night, someone wearing an “I am Q” shirt was seated prominently behind Donald Trump during the President’s Florida rally. Q has gone mainstream. It’s now in the public. Except people in Q shirts have been popping up at Trump rallies for a couple months now.

However, it is interesting to note that moments before Tuesday’s rally, Q posted “The world is about to change.” And the rally did sport a sea of Q shirts and signs.

Since the rally, Q has seemed to take pleasure in the anti-Q frenzy. “Enjoy the show,” is a common refrain.

So Is Q Itself a Show?

Is Q a LARP? A live action role play? Sites like QPROOFS.COM and QANONPROOFS.COM offer what they say is proof of Q’s legitimacy. Use your own God-given discernment.

Is Q a Sasha Baron Cohen-esque hoax, a way to say, “Look how dumb and gullible these Deplorables are?” Perhaps, but like Hillary’s insult, it has backfired. What has emerged is a community of people eager to determine the truth, a group of patriotic citizens celebrating the notion of “Power to the People.”

We could find out tomorrow the whole thing is a sham. But the belief “Where we go one, we go all” is no lark. It is “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Instead, I have to wonder what would motivate the mainstream media to erupt in such a unified chorus of contempt? What is so ghastly about people researching for themselves matters affecting the nation’s governance? Wrestling with questions posed in a Socratic method, forcing readers to think, to debate, to share? Perhaps getting it wrong, perhaps getting it right?

Even if a prank that’s grown out of hand, a well-meaning amusement or an educational game gone wild, what’s the problem? What is it about a community that believes in a government of the people, by the people and for the people that has the media minds so hostile?

Simple: A public that believes in each other and America’s principles more than our government and media institutions poses a mortal threat.

Those institutions vowed, “We’ll stop it.”

The Q movement says, “Guess again.”

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream, and co-author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration.