Why is ex-US president Donald Trump under fire for QAnon conspiracy theory? All you need to know

Criticism of Donald Trump's QAnon demonstration at an Ohio rally: "He has gone entirely mad," author Kurt Eichenwald twitted.

By ET Spotlight Special | Sep 20, 2022, 12.05 AM IST

Former US President Donald Trump is always in the news. Whether it's through his comments on the current President, Joe Biden, the economy, or something else,Trump has recently posted an image on his own Truth Social Platform containing references to the QAnon conspiracy theory.

The QAnon theory points to satanic worshippers that kidnap children and operate a global sex trafficking and kidnapping group. Since his term as president, Trump and his administration team have fought against the QAnon conspiracy members and stopped child trafficking and child abusers on a large scale.

Trump is said to be an opponent of such things, but he has recently done something shocking. At his latest rally in Youngstown, Ohio, some posts from the last week suggest that Trump is starting to believe the cult's slogans.

He has gone full QAnon, and that cult knows it. Trump has always been mentally ill, but this is a whole new level. He has gone completely insane. https://t.co/R9mxG3YDYs
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) September 18, 2022

In the latest image shared by him, he was seen wearing a Q pin with the slogan "The storm is coming". This storm is said to be the time when Trump returns to his presidential seat with full power, and he will be cruel to his opponents.

Back in 2020, Trump did not know much about the QAnon political conspiracy theory, and he never denied it but never proved that it was true or false. In recent times, with his involvement in Q-related posts, he is starting to seem like he has gone insane. Trump now appears to believe and somehow support the QAnon conspiracy theory.

In such events, it is important for journalists and media people to ask whether Trump openly supports and accepts the QAnon conspiracy theory. If he supports this theory, will he execute all his elite opponents during the promised "storm," or is there a network of child traffickers and kidnappers spread across the world that needs to be stopped? While supporting this conspiracy theory seems to be wrong, that is Trump's style, and we will surely know what the reality of this conspiracy theory is in the coming days and whether Trump fully supports it or not. But at the moment, this seems like something that is sensitive, and it should not be promoted by a person of such a high rank. Many media people have started mentioning that Trump has gone insane on this.

What is QAnon and how are social media sites handling it?

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QAnon followers espouse an intertwined series of beliefs, based on anonymous web postings from "Q," who claims to have insider knowledge of the Trump administration.

A core tenet of the conspiracy theory is that Donald Trump is secretly fighting a cabal of child-sex predators that includes prominent Democrats, Hollywood elites and "deep state" allies. QAnon, which borrows some elements from the bogus 'pizzagate' theory about a pedophile ring run out of a Washington restaurant, has become a 'big tent' conspiracy theory encompassing misinformation about topics ranging from alien landings to vaccine safety.

Followers of QAnon say a so-called Great Awakening is coming to bring salvation.