This is an interesting pattern to take note of. Trumpty Dumpty is still able to draw a crowd, especially in traditionally deep red rural areas, but the QAnon shock troops don’t seem to be able to get arrested these days. At least that is the conclusion one would draw from two events out west, just this weekend. One in Salt Lake featured Michael Flynn as the keynote speaker. It was supposed to have attracted a crowd of 10,000 and in fact between 650 and 1,000 people showed up. Those are the empty chairs in the photo above. Salt Lake Tribune:
The Western Conservative Action Network, or WeCANact event, was billed as a place to learn to fight “against the socialist, communist, and Marxist ideologies” in government, schools and the media. The event did focus on that promise, but also offered up a large helping of misinformation about COVID-19, vaccines and the 2020 election. And, to top off the fringe political buffet, there were lots of references to the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Organizers initially hoped to sell 10,000 tickets or more to the two-day event in Salt Lake City. They fell far short, with fewer than 1,000 in attendance on Friday. […]
The falsehoods and half-truths flew fast and furious Friday.
A favorite target for speakers was the COVID-19 pandemic and any protective measures taken to stop the spread of the virus that has killed more than 720,000 Americans.
“Masks are the new swastikas. You wear a mask to signal you’ll give in to fear,” said Doug Billings, who hosts the online show “The Right Side with Doug Billings.”
Other speakers spent time promoting unproven alternative cures for the virus.
“COVID-19 is 100 percent treatable using budesonide, hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin,” Clay Clark falsely claimed, adding that he also sells the drugs online.
Budesonide is a steroid commonly used to treat Crohn’s disease that some preliminary studies have suggested could help treat COVID-19. Hydroxychloroquine is an anti-malarial that has no proven efficacy against COVID-19, while ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug that also shows no effectiveness against the virus.
Clark also said remdesivir was responsible for killing COVID-19 patients in the hospital because it causes renal failure, and that it was funded by frequent right-wing boogeyman George Soros. Left unsaid was the fact that President Donald Trump was given the drug when he was hospitalized with the virus last year.
From the looks of this they weren’t exactly eating up conspiracy theory with a spoon in Romney country last Friday. What is intriguing about that, is that a lot of Utahans seem to love the Big Lie. But apparently they draw the line at quack COVID cures. I guess that’s something. They’ll listen to CT, it just has to be the right CT.
Then there was this weekend’s QAnon convention in Las Vegas, yet another flop. The For God and Country Patriot Double Down event, was moved from Caesar’s Forum to the Ahern Hotel, after Caesar’s Entertainment got wind of the QAnon symbolism in the advertising and decided to pass. Don Ahern is finance chairman for the Nevada GOP and a big Trump supporter, so he let the “couple of hundred” people who showed up, as estimated by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, meet in his hotel near the Strip.
Media access to the event was highly restricted. A Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter was escorted by event staff, confined to one area and told to leave shortly before noon.
Shawn Sudduth, an executive assistant for one of the event’s organizers, said he doesn’t think there is widespread belief in the secret cabal of cannibals conspiracy, and that the people behind the event on Saturday are not “those people.”
He said the media has misrepresented QAnon as an organization, and that the movement is about a search for truth. This weekend’s convention is not a QAnon event, but just an opportunity to bring God-loving American patriots together, he said.
He did say it’s possible the cannibalistic pedophile group does exist because “people are capable of all sorts of things.”
The FBI has recognized QAnon as a potential domestic terror threat, but Sudduth said the people in attendance want peace.
It’s a little hard to sell that QAnon is a peaceful group when the insurrectionists on January 6, who were anything but peaceful, carried QAnon flags.
Interesting that the press was so rigidly controlled at the event. Maybe that’s because another speaker was there, touting the “global cabal that is enslaving humanity” and all the comic book level gibberish. I suppose one person’s “search for truth” is another person’s comic book, at least with respect to political matters in 2021.
They probably didn’t make enough to pay for the rent on the halls.
(I’ve been on a convention committee and sat through business meetings. We knew what our break-even point was in both dollars and people, and were greatly relieved when we hit it in attendance.)
I guess they didn’t learn from the master. Like the mall at his inauguration, they just need to repeat over & over…the seats were full, the seats were full. Where the hell is Sean Spicer when u need him? If u can’t find him, find the big rube from Arkansas or the professional blond snake with forked tongue. Goddamnit. Get with it boys.
“He said the media has misrepresented QAnon as an organization, and that the movement is about a search for truth.”
You mean the way the QAnon folks and their right-wing media backers have DELIBERATELY misrepresented BLM and Antifa as “organizations” rather than “movements” seeking justice?
Maybe the COVID denial rallies attendance is down because they’re all dying off?
Look at all the room for social distancing!