Conspiracy theories have been part and parcel of our lives for centuries but since the assassination of former U.S. President John F Kennedy, the term became popular. Some experts even suggested that the term was coined by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to discredit the official version of Kennedy's assassination that a gunman acted alone to shoot the president. The number of conspiracy theories has multiplied over the last decade thanks to social media and especially YouTube.
The theories and theorists are mostly discarded and the term has been perceived as an insult, prompting hardly anyone to endorse someone who believes in an alternate narrative. However, that hasn't stopped a Republican candidate from winning the Congressional election. Marjorie Taylor Greene is the first public supporter of a conspiracy theory to become a congresswoman.
QAnon Conspiracy Supporter
The Republican candidate from northwest Georgia's 14th district won the House seat with 74.7 percent of the votes against Democratic candidate Kevin Van Ausdal. Greene who was expected to win the election caught the public attention for supporting bizarre QAnon conspiracy theories.
The supporters of the conspiracy theory known as 'Q' believe the incumbent U.S. President Donald Trump is the savior of the nation and will bring down the Satan-worshipping pedophile rings that operate within Washington's corridors of power. In the last few years, QAnon has gained huge momentum amongst Republican voters and politicians alike. Calling 'Q' a patriot, Greene said they were "worth listening to."
It has even reached the President, who happily shared a tweet in support of the theory. By doing so, he unknowingly fueled the fire and support poured in. But his own government agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have warned that such views lead to a domestic terror threat. However, for Trump, Greene is a future Republican star while other Republicans have touted her endorsement. During the Republican primaries, some were against her nomination though.
Misinformation
However, during the later parts of her campaign, Greene, a businesswoman, said that she stopped supporting the theory after she "found misinformation." "I was just one of those people, just like millions of other Americans, that just started looking at other information. And so, yeah, there was a time there for a while that I had read about Q, posted about it, talked about it, which is some of these videos you've seen come out. But once I started finding misinformation, I decided that I would choose another path," she told Fox News.
Since then, social media platforms YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have deleted most of the accounts, posts and videos about QAnon including several of hers'.
Queen of Controversy
Supporting QAnon was just one part of the story. She is one of the conservative candidates to believe that "there is an Islamic invasion into our government offices right now" and in a Facebook post said that followers of Islam and Sharia law should "stay over there in the Middle East."
The list goes on. She said that the White males were the most mistreated of people in the U.S. while Black people were held slaves to the Democratic party. One of her posts on Facebook contained her image holding a gun with Democratic representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib in the background. She urged the "strong conservative Christians" to be offensive against the "socialists who want to rip our country apart." Facebook removed the post for violating the platform's policies.
Another disrespectful comment that attracted attention was against George Seros, a holocaust survivor. She said that Seros, a billionaire, collaborated with the Nazis besides saying that Black and Hispanic communities were actually drug dealers. Now, she gets to represent the people of Georgia's 14th district and it remains to be seen if she changes her stance.
