Daily Beast: “A week after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, believers in the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory were looking for new hope. ‘I think Trump is gone,’ one wrote on the messaging platform Telegram. ‘If you think about it, he never said most of what we expected, Q said it, etc. We were putting phrases together and trying to read into things. Trust the plan can mean anything.’ Someone replied that they believed a plan – as long teased by ‘Q,’ an anonymous user on a fringe forum – to uproot Donald Trump’s enemies was still proceeding apace. But another member of the chat offered a more practical action plan: a fascist slogan, an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, and a link to another, even more fringe Telegram channel.”

“The QAnon conspiracy theory falsely accuses Trump’s opponents of satanic pedophilia and cannibalism, and has merged with compatible theories that falsely accuse his opponents of election fraud. But with Trump out of office and no sign of the movement’s much-anticipated mass arrests, some Q believers are looking for new answers. And members of other violent movements are seeking out those disillusioned fans in the hopes of converting them to new and more militant ideologies. Among them are militia groups, members of a hate church, and advocates for secession from the United States. ‘QAnon is really ripe territory for recruitment,’ said Jessica Reeves, editorial director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. At the heart of that crossover, Reeves told The Daily Beast, are shared conspiratorial beliefs between QAnon followers and other militant sects. That mingling was on full display at the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, when Jacob Chansley, better known as the ‘QAnon Shaman,’ allegedly stormed the building alongside members of paramilitary groups. But some of the intermingling began long before Trump’s election loss. In the run-up to voting, members of far-right paramilitary groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers endorsed elements of the discredited theory.”