New York Times: “Facing questions about its use of the slogan ‘We Are the Storm,’ a rallying cry for QAnon adherents, the Texas Republican Party is defending its adoption of the language, saying it was drawn from a poem and had nothing to do with the internet-driven conspiracy theory that claims President Trump was elected to save America from pedophile Satanists.”

“The state party was responding to a report in The New York Times on Thursday about how a small but growing number of Republicans nationwide have signaled support for QAnon, a movement that the F.B.I. has warned could inspire domestic terrorism. The Texas Republican Party’s use of the slogan was cited by some prominent Republicans there as an example of how some in the G.O.P.’s leadership are opening the party to QAnon followers by adopting language used by the movement.. In a statement posted on its website Friday after the article’s publication, the state party said that the slogan came from a favorite poem of the party’s new chairman, Allen West, and that the line had biblical roots. It is ‘one of Chairman West’s favorite quotes to use in speeches,’ the party said. ‘He and the entire Texas G.O.P. will not be bullied by partisan leftists in the media into ceding powerful phrases with biblical roots — taken from Psalm 29 — to internet conspiracy groups.’ Psalm 29 includes a line about thunder but not the word ‘storm.’ The poem includes the line ‘I Am the Storm.’ Its origins are unclear; it appeared on an Instagram post in 2018 by Tom Brady, then the New England Patriots quarterback, and can be found on a website about scripture and culture.”