The threat posed by the extremist right wing QAnon conspiracy movement is set to be targeted by the incoming Biden administration’s top intelligence agency in the wake of the movement’s growing influence in US politics.
The movement was prominent in the January storming of Capitol Hill, where QAnon adherents played a role in attempts to overturn the US election in favour of Donald Trump.
In Australia though, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is still refusing to make any comment on the close friendship that exists between the family of Scott Morrison and a family which includes two of Australia’s leading QAnon followers.
The prime minister’s wife Jenny Morrison is best friends with Lynelle Stewart, whose husband Tim Stewart is a highly visible QAnon proponent in Australia. The Stewarts’ son Jesse, 22, is also a fervent QAnon backer. At the same time Lynelle Stewart has been on the government payroll, drawing a salary as an assistant to Jenny Morrison. In days gone by the families have mixed freely together.
The PMO has maintained a policy of silence on the QAnon question stretching back to Inq’s revelations in late 2019. Back then Inq documented how Tim Stewart claimed to have influence on the prime minister when it came to the wording of Morrison’s 2018 national apology to the survivors of institutional child sex abuse.
In one text message Stewart promised that “disturbing information” he had been given on school sex education would go “straight to Scott”. Stewart had gained a large following among QAnon adherents under his Twitter handle of Burn Notice (@BurnedSpy34), at one point reaching well over 30,000 followers before the platform moved to suspend QAnon accounts.
In the months since Trump lost the US election in November 2020 Tim Stewart and his son have barely taken a backward step in their support for the movement. The conspiracy, which has moved from the fringes of US politics to centre stage during the Trump years, grew around the idea that Trump was placed in the White House by an anonymous official named “Q” to cleanse the world of Satan-worshipping, paedophile elites who allegedly populate the so-called “deep state” and control the levers of power.
A YouTube video shows Tim Stewart and son Jesse (using their pseudonymous Twitter names Burn Notice and Negan_HQ, respectively) in a lengthy discussion with US QAnon supporters on a channel called the “Patriot Transition Voice”. The name is a reference to the “patriot” takeover of the United States being planned by QAnon.
Recorded two weeks after Trump lost the election, the channel displays the QAnon hallmark fusion of esoteric religion, supposed patriotism and revolutionary fervour. It is an article of faith, of course, that the election was stolen from Trump.
“Pray — behold the hand of God as he delivers us from tyranny”, the video says in its introduction over a backdrop of rolling biblical clouds dissolving into a sepia image of the founding fathers huddled over the US constitution. Those words appear to be a portent of the conflict to come. “Believing they could steal our freedom without a fight, again they were wrong” it warns.
At the time the video was made there was much to look forward to. Trump lawyer Sidney Powell would be filing the court actions which they believed would overturn “fraudulent” election results. Tim and Jesse Stewart were welcomed as cherished Aussie brothers before an hour and a half or so of conspiracy banter.
Despite Twitter’s vow to suspend the accounts of QAnon proponents, Jesse Stewart continued tweeting until only yesterday under the name of Negan (@Negan_HQ) — styling himself as a fictional tough guy from the Walking Dead television series. Jesse Stewart also has an account on the far right-wing platform Gab, a platform which appears to be a digital shrine to the glory of Donald Trump.
In the days after the storming of Capitol Hill on January 6 and the failure to stop Congress accepting Biden’s legitimate electoral college victory, Jesse Stewart took to twitter to pass on to QAnon followers that Australia’s PM would be taking “official leave” until January 18, a move which he called “interdasting (sic) timing…”.
This is presumably a reference to the days before Trumps’ departure on January 20 and an imagined role Morrison might have in the Trump/QAnon saga.
On Thursday, Twitter finally suspended the Negan account, and the tweets have since become unavailable.
Stewart senior appears to now be way down the QAnon rabbit hole. When Inq contacted him this week he denied any inference that he might support the kind of violence which took place at Capitol Hill.
“If you print anything about me in that light I will sue you for defamation” he wrote in a text. In any case, he added, the Capitol Hill storming was “also being exposed as organised by Antifa and others and arrests are occurring”.
The proposition that Antifa, a broad left-wing anti-fascist and anti-racist movement, is behind the Capitol Hill violence is yet another conspiracy promoted by pro-Trump acolytes to explain the violence which occurred.
The QAnon question has split the Stewart family, with Tim Stewart’s sister Karen having recently gone public with her concerns.
Karen Stewart told Inq that the family has reported concerns to “authorities” about what they believe is a tweet from Tim — under a separate and since-deleted Twitter account Spies Like Us (@RealStealthSpy) — supporting the Capitol Hill action.
The tweet said the riot would be “remembered as one of the greatest days on earth: When the civilians and the military retook control of the republic”.
Stewart has outright denied to Inq that he uses Twitter any more, though said that some Twitter accounts appear to “push out my blogs”. Twitter yesterday cancelled the Spies Like Us account. It is not known whether this is linked to questions which Inq put to the PM’s office earlier this week.
Karen Stewart is anxious about the apparent radicalisation taking place within her family, but the PMO appears to have adopted a strategy of ignoring the story altogether.
In October 2020 — just four months ago — an official from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet told Senate estimates that Lynelle Stewart had a security clearance to work at Kirribilli House. The same official said she knew nothing of an FBI decision at the time to categorise QAnon as a domestic terror threat in the USA. Nor did she know that Tim Stewart had just been suspended from Twitter for “engaging in co-ordinated harmful activity”.
But the QAnon story isn’t going away any time soon and the link may become harder to ignore if — when — it gains further media exposure.
In the United States, QAnon supporters have been grappling with the impact of Trump’s departure from office and have been seeking ways to reinterpret the conspiracy to adapt to the reality that the “Great Awakening” — heralding the mass arrest of deep state paedophiles — has not yet come to pass.
Some saw signs in Trump’s departure that the movement would continue, noting that the 17 US flags framing Trump’s farewell address corresponded to Q being the 17th letter of the alphabet. Others took heart in Trump’s final words: “We will be back in some form. Have a good life. We will see you soon.”
The Washington Post reported that on one QAnon channel commentators seized on the farewell words of Eric Trump that “the best is yet to come!” — a common slogan for QAnon adherents.
“It simply doesn’t make sense that we all got played,” the Post quoted one bewildered supporter as saying.
It’s not clear how deep Morrison is with all this. He’s never clear about it, even when he says something relevant. His refusal to say anything against backbenchers like Kelly and Christensen amounts to endorsement. Perhaps worst is his response to the armed insurrection at the US Capitol some days back; Morrison’s remarks about things said that were ‘incredibly disappointing’, and so on, are ambiguous enough to be interpreted as regret that the insurrection failed to stop the transition of government from Trump. Morrison did not condemn the insurrection. He did not say the claims of a stolen election were false.He did not say anything openly in support of democratic government or the rule of law. Given how the QAnon followers love to find hidden messages all over the place, Morrison’s performance must give them great encouragement, as much as if he had openly declared support for them.
I think Morrison’s sole aim is staying in power and everything he says and does is put through the prism of ‘what will appeal to the punters whose votes I need to win’? And he uses his ingrained salesman’s mind to craft the message that will most appeal. He doesn’t care what progressives think because he knows they won’t vote for him, and because of this he can slag off at progressives to reinforce his street cred.
I guess if you buy into the whole ‘christianity’ thing, you’re already half way to believing anything.
Kinda, Bref, but atheism (being one myself) isn’t a panacea in these matters either.
Only sky-fairy believers think that there is such a thing as Panacea.
Zeus did the right thing thunderbolting her pater, Asclepius, for fear that he’d teach Man resurrection.
Bloody Immortals, ever jealous that we’d join them!
The Greek and Roman gods ALL possessed human-like qualities and, thus, the devine stuff seemed so alien and impractical.
Greater familiarity with the Greek gods would, I suggest, occasion fewer surprises from politics.
Your intellect isn’t deep enough for you to be an atheist.
Atheism is just another religionTonyP. Agnosticism is the only refuge for the enlightened.
An examination of Huxley’s application (or invention) of the word places it at little more (if anything) that common sense.
All religions begin with a doctrine of some sort which is never susceptible to verification by observation – whatever the inherent wisdom. Atheism, in contrast, proceeds entirely from the characteristics of empiricism; as does all hard science and engineering. Thus, there is no religious commitment to atheism.
Neatly put.
Nicely, one might even say.
No it isn’t and you’re not a lexicographer and have no authority to make up word meanings. What makes you think I’m just an atheist, in actuality I’m an anti-theist.
I suggest that even DB would consider himself a member a different club to Huxley but you might reflect upon the “authority” for the introduction of words from “selfie” to “woke” or realigning the word “gay”. Something etymological will assist.
As to religions one dichotomy is between diest or diesm and the other being thesist or thesism.
Are you announcing your inclination for Thesism or a disinclination for atheism. It is no big deal but your reply is far from clear.
Nothing but semantics. Imagine the state of the world if everyone started using personal interpretations on words. The Christian religion comes to mind, its a dogs breakfast* when there are over 50.000 different denominations.
Have you ever read Voltaire’s “Letters from England”? Aside from the history Voltaire records “they have no shortage of religions but only two sauces”.
“all is for the best, in this the best of all possible worlds.” Which version of his death do lean to?
You are confusing Candide (an assault upon Leibniz actually) with the Letters.
I thought he also used this quote while in England to an English Lord which I assume he disagreed with. I could be wrong though.
Perhaps, if at the time he’d been impersonating that great polymath & alround smart-aleck, Dr Pangloss, Candide’s mentor.
Perhaps.
Morrison is a grub. I do not like anything about him. Nothing. His indignant response to C.A.s decision to not mention ‘Australia Day’ in its Jan. 26 promotions just exemplifies what a nasty, dimwitted racist he is. His call of ‘Cricket Australia should stick to cricket and keep out of politics’, after he inflicted himself on the Wallabies as waterboy, is the perfect example of his hypocrisy. Trump is gone, Johnson is finished – I can’t wait to see the back of Morrison.
thank you Joe, my feelings exactly
It’s not clear by design. But it’s very clear to fellow evangelicals, who have no trouble reading the cues communicating just how committed Morrison is to the quixotic “truth”.
As Forrest Gump’s momma never said, “Folks are like a box of chocolates, and some are nut-clusters.” All joking aside, SmoCo’s association with these people should trouble all thinking Australians, but won’t.
I disagree, Richard. It will trouble all thinking Australians. The problem is it won’t trouble the unthinking majority.
Intelligent people know why conservative governments always cut education funding, to dumb down the population, and it works, E.G the U.S clearly the dumbest nation on earth, but Australia is gaining rapidly in the dumb and dumber handicap and is not far from the lead.
Who wins a Dumb & Dumber race – the smartest contestant?
Is it like Alice’s Caucus race – no rules; all of the participants run haphazardly around in no particular direction, and everyone wins?
Certainly sounds very like the Benighted States.
I consider that the whole problem which has resulted in this rise of the right and the Trump disaster was caused by the US public school system being devolved to a local level.
Trump harnessed the energy of the disenfranchised and under/ unemployed white males who had been educated to work in a local industry, which has subsequently disappeared.
Anger is a powerful tool and these people have no basic transferable education and or skills, it is easy to manipulate this group.
This is why the Biden government should complete the impeachment process of Trump, as to ensure he can not hold any position of trust again.
There has been a fair volume of discussion that illustrates that Trump is a symptom of the polarisation and has not caused the polarisation that has developed over decades; the last two decades in particular. It is a fair bet that a replacement for Trump will be located whatever happens to him via the Senate or the Courts.
As to the first part of your post, what you are referring to is “Occupational Immobility” which means being unable to move from location A, where jobs have disappeared, to location B, where there are apparent employment opportunities, because of difficulties relating to skill transfer or logistic costs or whatever.
Unlike the UK, there is little in the way of gov. supported retraining programmes in the USA. It is not clear just how effective they are in the UK; all costs considered but there have been some success stories.
As to another impeachment, other than entering the book of records, I suggest that history will repeat itself.
Surely that was Mary Cooper (Sheldon’s mom) reflecting that he was a genius yet his twin sister, Missy, was “dumb as soup“?
Sweet baby jeesus there are some nutjobs roaming this earth.
Someone just ask Scotty, ‘C’mon, do you really believe there is a secret, elitist paedophile cabal running the US/world? Really? If so, are you part of it or actively fighting it?’
Or “Do you give any credibility or validity to the QAnon supporters or are they all deluded by a conspiracy theory for which there is no evidence?”
‘Is there any truth to the rumour that Peter Dutton is actually a shape shifting lizard? If so, do you see that as a threat to your leadership? Are you aware of the rumours that a number of Liberal branches are being stacked with shape-shifting lizards?’
I’m still waiting for the Gestapotato to shape-shift and resemble a human being.
I’d be pretty sure he wouldn’t accept the premise of that question.
Plausible, but firstly it requires a ‘journalist’ to be unafraid of negative consequences, receiving a clear answer from Morrison and potential embarrassment for the latter; unlikely to happen or at least MSM won’t be taking the lead.
Yes you did get played!