I wonder how much they were harmful? What would have been different if there wasn’t any of this Q baloney? I’m not sure there would be much difference but who knows?
However it did play a lot of games with people’s minds. I had someone tell me the other day that moving vans and piles of boxes in front of the WH didn’t mean anything. One delusion after another.
How would things be different?
1. When viewed from the outside the Q stuff is ridiculous. When a outsider listens to them try to explain this stuff they begin to think they are crazy and by extension all Trump supporters. This becomes a barrier to explaining the more realistic side of our story. I have to spend most of my time trying to explain that no, I don’t believe this crazy idea or that crazy idea.
2. The misinformation seeps through many conservative news sources. Between the hyper partisan reporting on the mainstream media and the sketchy stuff that floats in the conservative side it becomes hard to put together an accurate picture and not get caught relating something untrue. This is a deliberate part of the Q psy ops. They are planting falsehoods that fit our confirmation bias again to make us look like we are ignorant and misinformed.
3. “Trust the plan” led many to put too much trust in people like Sessions, Barr and even Trump himself to do things that were simply not possible. This led to inaction and lack of criticism when they were making mistakes. Lack of self criticism on our side meant meant a lack of adaptation when things were going wrong. Too many Trump supporters are still intolerant of criticism.
4. When the Q followers did take action that action was to do boneheaded things like raid the Capitol building. This finally gave the left the proof of rightwing violence they needed to justify the American Kristallnacht we are seeing right now. Never mind it was only a few dozen deliberately criminal actors out a protest of hundreds of thousands that has become the pretext to censor and de-platform all Trump supporters throughout the internet, fire and harass people who just attended the protest, and blacklist administration members from future employment.