Two Republican Party organizations in Florida and a GOP group in Georgia have used their Facebook pages to promote the violence-linked QAnon conspiracy theory. Dozens of congressional candidates have already backed QAnon and President Donald Trump has frequently amplified supporters of the conspiracy theory on Twitter.
QAnon conspiracy theorists essentially believe -- based on cryptic posts to online message boards from an anonymous user known as “Q" -- that Trump is secretly working to take down the purported “deep state,” a supposed cabal of high-ranking officials who they claim are operating pedophile rings. The FBI released a May 2019 bulletin listing QAnon as a potential domestic terrorism threat, and the conspiracy theory has been linked to multiple acts of crime and violence.
Media Matters has documented that there have been at least 54 current or former congressional candidates who have embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory so far this election cycle. Marjorie Taylor Greene may potentially become the first member of Congress to openly back QAnon after she finished first in Georgia’s recent GOP primary election and is now headed to a runoff. The president has also amplified QAnon Twitter accounts at least 131 times.
The Polk County Republican Party in Iowa recently posted an image with the QAnon slogan WWG1WGA (“Where We Go One We Go All”); it was later deleted. In 2018, Florida’s Hillsborough County Republican Executive Committee promoted a QAnon video on Twitter; it was also later deleted.
Media Matters found several other Republican Party organizations that have been backing QAnon on Facebook.
Republican Party of St. Lucie County (Florida)
The Republican Party of St. Lucie County posted a photo of Trump supporters, including someone wearing a QAnon t-shirt, on their Facebook page to promote a pro-Trump event last October. The organization also repeatedly wrote the QAnon slogan “Where We Go One We Go All!”
