Since the first “Q drop” in 2017, which predicted the imminent arrest of Hillary Clinton, QAnon has predicted that certain events are about to occur. When these events fail to occur, followers invent elaborate explanations for why the prediction failed and move on to the next event, gaining more followers, a typical pattern for people who believe in prophecies.
Prior to the Trump shooting, QAnon promoter Phil Godlewski predicted to his 200,000 followers on his Rumble show that a “horrifying event” or a “9/11-like event” would occur within the next few weeks. After Trump was shot, many of Godlewski’s followers were quick to claim that his prediction had come true.
“If this were to happen, Q’s friend would call and tell me not to be scared because it was all part of a plan,” says Jay, who asked to be known only by his first name to protect his privacy. “When the shooting happened, my friend would call me right away and tell me that this horrible thing had happened. He told me not to be scared because it was all staged and that I should trust that Phil was right and that his sources were right.”
Jay said his friend also claimed that a global financial reset will come next before Trump is returned to office in November. “Phil has made a lot of vague predictions in the past that haven’t come true, but now that this vague prediction has come true, his friend Q has doubled down on it,” Jay said.
In at least one case, the shooting appears to have reinstated former QAnon believers into the conspiracy theory.
Amy, who asked to only use her first name to protect her privacy, said she has known her friend Jane since they met at university 20 years ago. During Trump’s first term as president, Jane began posting positive messages about the former president on Facebook, and when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she became more interested in QAnon conspiracy theories.
“Her posts got crazy and extreme,” Amy tells WIRED, “speculating about deep-state type conspiracy theories. She hated Democrats, Joe Biden, and the Clintons for a whole bunch of crazy reasons.”
Over the past few years, Jane has largely stopped posting conspiracy theories about Trump and the deep state, instead sharing photos and messages of her pets. Then the shooting happened.
“Hours of completely erratic posts,” Amy says of Jane’s social media posts. “She was fully and openly pro-Trump. She was blaming the shootings on liberals wearing alt-right shirts. She definitely believes Joe Biden or the Democrats planned it.”
Katrina Vaillancourt, a former QAnon believer who wrote a book about her experiences with the group, said that if she was still under its spell, the Trump shooting would have strengthened her belief even more.
“I would have thought this was a desperate attack by an evil cabal with deep state tentacles, including members of the FBI and Secret Service, and the fact that Trump survived is the closest thing we have to evidence that God is on Trump’s side,” Vaillancourt told WIRED. “I spend at least four hours a day doing ‘research’ online, and up to 10 hours a day if it’s something that really bothers me, like this one.”
