Welp, inauguration tomorrow. According to Qanon, who have been wrong about every single one of their other predictions, the inauguration will be canceled when Trump finally does the military coup they've been promising since 2017.
None of their other failed predictions have ever dampend their enthusiasm, they just move the goalposts to the next date. But there's something kind of final about Jan 20. It'll be hard to sustain the movement once their messiah isn't president anymore.
What will Qanon do next? That's the question I'm most curious about during this transition period. (well, that and "will anybody try another coup with thousands of National Guard standing there?")
- There's millions of true believers who can't back out easily because they already ruined their relationship with their family over Q shit. Sunk cost.
- Just because trump failed to stop the Satanic Pedophile Cannibal Cabal doesn't mean they're going to stop believing the Satanic Pedophile Cannibal Cabal is real. Believing their enemies are Pure Evil is a psychologically load-bearing part of their worldview.
- They're not going to stop believing the election was stolen, either. That's a core part of their faith now.
- It doesn't matter what anybody does or doesn't post under the "Q" name. (I'm of the opinion that the character Q has already been played by several people, whose real identities are unremarkable and not very relevant). "Q" hasn't posted anything significant since the election and he doesn't need to; they crowdsource their nonsense now, it's self-sustaining
- These are cult followers waiting around free for the taking. They could be picked up easily by any cult leader offering a narratively satisfying explantion for why "The Storm" hasn't happened yet
I imagine they're going to splinter among the following narratives, in some unknown proportion:
- Trump succeeded on a spiritual level, the Great Awakening happened if you're not too blind to see it (i.e. how religious doomsday cults often react when nothing happens on their doomsday date)
- Trump is secretly still president somehow, he's just in occultation like the 13th Imam.
- Trump is continuing the fight from out of office, we just need to decode his secret messages telling us what to do next.
- The inauguration wasn't "real", somehow. "President Biden" is really Trump in a Biden mask, so everything is still great!
- Variant: he "real" inauguration is actually in March, the one in January didn't count because (insert numerology and constitutional Calvinball)
- "Trump failed, now it's time for us to execute the Satanic Pedophile Cannibal Cabal ourselves!" (yikes)
- Trump was deep state all along! We need somebody even more openly fascist to hitch our wagon to.
- Maybe some fraction will decide to rejoin reality? That would be nice. Although you'd assume anyone capable of critical thought would have rejoined reality long ago.
It'll also be interesting to see what the remains of mainstream Republicans do about Trump going forward:
- "Donald who? Biden has been president since 2016, coronavirus is all his fault". If you think this is too absurd to work, remember that this is how the right has treated George W Bush after 2008. They could totally try to memory-hole everything.
- Try to purge the fascists from the Republican party. This would be best for the health of the republic, but I'm afraid the non-Trumpists are outnumbered. (A majority of House Republicans voted to throw out the election results!)
- More likely the fascists purge the few sane Republicans left, double down on getting Trump back in 2024 (I assume some large fraction of Republican voters would write in Trump in the 2024 primary even if he's disqualified. Or dead, or in prison.)
- Or will they desire "trumpism without trump" and search for a new fascist demagogue to rally around, one without Trump's incompetence and laziness? I see Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley are jockeying for this position.
- Trump has apparently talked about starting a third party called the "Patriot party". It would be fantastic if he followed through on this and split the Republican party in half, making them lose every election. But he won't; it would be too much work. (But somebody else could start it! We can hope.)
Will mainstream Republicans attempt to banish Q believers or to integrate them?
Alex Jones has already started working that angle, calling Q an Antifa plot (!!) to keep "patriots" docile. Deep split in the pro-fascist conspiracy-theory fandom.
Can the institutional party do the same? Or are they too deeply infiltrated already, now that they have Q true-believers in their congressional caucus like Marjorie Taylor Greene? For that matter, what will she do, with the hero of her conspiracy theory gone?
