For a certain kind of Republican, it is hard to imagine anything worse than the party founded by Abraham Lincoln transmogrified into the party of Donald Trump. Some of those Republicans have openly abandoned the once Grand Old Party, while others quietly await a reform or restoration. Only a few have acknowledged so far that the authoritarian and racist trends in their party cannot be blamed on Trump alone and were visible well before he took over.
Yet as awful and dangerous as Trump undeniably is, there may be something worse ahead for Republicans. That thing is called QAnon, the online phenomenon that has declared war on an international conspiracy of elitist pedophiles and cannibals, which, of course, doesn’t exist.
The burgeoning movement, supposedly directed by a mysterious government official known as Q, already has established itself as an alternative source of authority within the Republican Party. Congressional candidates who support or endorse QAnon, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia, are likely to be sent to Washington from solidly Republican districts where they won primaries. It is astonishing to realize that nearly 80 QAnon supporters stood for election in this cycle, nearly all of them Republicans. Continue reading.