One of Trump's supporters photographed by Washington photojournalists during the Capitol invasion on Wednesday was more “Viking” than anyone else.
With a painted face, half-naked and horns on his head, the man who starred in Wednesday's Trump's raid on the Capitol goes by the name of Jake Angeli and belongs to the far-right QAnon conspiracy movement.
Angeli has taken part in many mobilizations outside the Capitol, from 2019 until today, on the side of Donald Trump.
He has stated that he is circulating dressed as a Viking, in order to attract attention and then to be able to transmit his ideas about QAnon and other truths, which, as he claims, remain hidden.
Among other things, he has taken part in demonstrations to open businesses in Arizona, which were closed to stop the coronavirus pandemic, and others related to the election results in the region, while he also believes that world leaders have conspired to hide scientific discoveries from the world. to keep the system as it is.
An online forum against the “satanic pedophiles” of the world
QAnon is an online forum with the central theme that the world is ruled by a clique of “satanic pedophiles” who conspire against Donald Trump while managing a trafficking ring that abuses children.
Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online.
According to QAnon supporters, Donald Trump was recruited by top military officials in 2016 to run for the presidency, with the ultimate goal of dispelling this clique and revealing the truth.
The first appearance of the hard core conspiracy theorists took place in October 2017 on 4chan, from an anonymous account called “Q Clearance Patriot”.
According to “Q”, the final development would be a big “Storm”, which will be marked by the moment when Trump will expose the “dark clique” that rules the planet.
The largest QAnon group on Facebook, had almost 200,000 members before the page was closed by Facebook itself. From time to time new pages of this type rise and “fall”.
Similar actions have been taken by Twitter and TikTok, with Trump himself, of course, putting up with the social media that he considers to be attacking him.
QAnon websites in Europe appeared in late 2019 and early 2020, but their traffic skyrocketed with the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown.
In the US, the QAnon nebula is considered by the FBI to be a potential terrorist threat and in Europe as a phenomenon to be monitored.
Trump has occasionally retweeted posts by followers of the QAnon theory, and has openly stated that these are people who “love their country.”
In fact, his last statement was in August, in his pre-election speech, in which he received them warmly.
Twitter has taken action against members of the movement, and in terms of American public opinion about the organization, last September almost 50% of citizens had heard of QAnon, twice as many as six months ago.
Of these, 1/5 also had a positive view of the movement.
The image of Jake Angeli and other rioters in QAnon T-shirts smashing windows and vandalizing Capitol halls culminates in Donald Trump's use of social media tools to spread conspiracy theories.
