Several Republican Party organizations -- including the Texas state GOP and county parties in California, Oklahoma, and Texas -- have been promoting an upcoming pro-Trump event by sharing a flyer that features the slogan of the QAnon conspiracy theory. A Republican state representative in Iowa has also shared the QAnon flyer.
QAnon is a violence-linked conspiracy theory based on cryptic posts to online message boards from an anonymous user known as “Q" that have spread rampantly on social media and among fringe right-wing media. QAnon conspiracy theorists essentially believe that President Donald Trump is secretly working to take down the purported “deep state,” a supposed cabal of satanic high-ranking officials, who they claim are operating pedophile rings. The FBI has labeled the conspiracy theory a potential domestic terror threat.
Media Matters has documented that numerous Republicans, including Trump himself, officials in his campaign and administration, and local Republican organizations, have legitimized and built up QAnon. Notably, there have been at least 73 Republican congressional candidates who have expressed support for the conspiracy theory, including at least 20 Republicans who are on the ballot in November.
On September 5, Trump supporters nationwide are planning a “Drag the Interstate” rally in which they’ll use their vehicles to “gather together and organize into rolling flag parade caravans within their States.”
The event has been promoted with a flyer that contains the QAnon slogan “WWG1WGA” an abbreviation for “where we go one, we go all.” The contact on that flyer is for “GhoSTorM143,” a QAnon-promoting account on Twitter. (It wasn’t immediately clear who created that flyer, but GhoSTorM143 began promoting it in early August).
Republicans have been promoting events in their respective areas by using the QAnon flyer.
The Oklahoma County Republican Party is headquartered in the state capital, Oklahoma City, and represents the most populous county in the state. On August 29, the GOP organization promoted a Drag the Interstate event at the state Capitol with the QAnon flyer:
The Garfield County Republican Party in Oklahoma shared the Oklahoma County GOP’s post the following day.
The Republican Party of Texas, which is led by conservative pundit and former Rep. Allen West, lists a local event on its website and posted the QAnon flyer.
On August 23, the Fresno County Republican Party in California posted the flyer on its Facebook page:
On August 21, the Republican Party of McLennan County in Texas promoted a local event and shared the QAnon flyer on Facebook:
On August 14, Iowa state Rep. John H. Wills, a Republican who represents District 1, also shared the same flyer containing the QAnon slogan to promote a rally that he’s hosting in Iowa.
