On Bloomberg Technology, Media Matters’ Angelo Carusone outlines Trump's promotion and utilization of QAnon
Carusone: “It’s obviously an intentional electoral strategy”
Published
Citation From the October 30, 2020, edition of Bloomberg's Bloomberg Technology
EMILY CHANG (HOST): Now, President Trump has retweeted QAnon content on multiple occasions, but continues to claim he hasn't heard of them. What's your take on that?
ANGELO CARUSONE: I think it's the same thing that we saw back in 2016, during -- in the lead-up to the 2016 election, Trump repeatedly retweeted the "white genocide" hashtag and prominent members of the white genocide community, which is essentially a racist organization, it's an idea that's pretty racist, then he would sort of claim he didn't know anything about it.
But constantly they interpreted it as a wink and a nod, and as a result of that, that community grew, and it wasn't that long after he was in office that we saw Charlottesville. It's a similar pattern here, which is that most of the retweets of QAnon and promotion of QAnon from Trump has actually taken place since April, more than half of those two -- over 250 have happened in the last few months.
So, it's obviously an intentional electoral strategy, the same thing that those candidates saw in sort of becoming QAnon adherents in order to break through their primaries and win them, as I think what you're seeing Donald Trump do at a national level.