Pizzagate’s violent legacy; The Washington Post, February 16, 2021

 Michael E. Miller, The Washington Post; Pizzagate’s violent legacy

The gunman who terrorized a D.C. pizzeria is out of prison. The QAnon conspiracy theories he helped unleash are out of control.

"Alefantis had hoped Pizzagate would be the end of the baseless claims, but it had been only the beginning. The sickness had spread to members of Congress. The fraying social fabric had snapped completely.

He still believed that the country would get through the madness. But he was no longer surprised when people came to Comet, screaming hate and searching for something, as Welch had, that did not exist.

“It’s not just a pizza place,” a male protester shouted into a megaphone on Jan. 19. "It’s a pedophilia place as well.”And so Alefantis did what he had done four years earlier, when the same group first showed up. He pumped music from Comet’s outdoor speakers to drown them out, and customers began to dance.

As Lady Gaga’s “Perfect Illusion” boomed, Alefantis greeted the picketers with a tray of champagne. A protester stepped forward, grabbed a coupe and poured it onto the sidewalk.

Then he tipped over the tray, and all the champagne came tumbling down in a riot of broken glass."

What Is QAnon: Explaining the Internet Conspiracy Theory That Showed Up at a Trump Rally; The New York Times, August 1, 2018

Justin Bank, Liam Stack and Daniel Victor, The New York Times;

What Is QAnon: Explaining the Internet Conspiracy Theory That Showed Up at a Trump Rally

 

"Why should I care about a fringe corner of the internet?

Because QAnon is not limited to a fringe corner of the internet. In addition to its front-and-center presence at Mr. Trump’s rally, it has been promoted by celebrities including Roseanne Barr and Curt Schilling, the former baseball star who has a podcast for Breitbart.

The paranoid worldview has crossed over from the internet into the real world several times in recent months. On more than one occasion, people believed to be followers of QAnon have shown up — sometimes with weapons — in places that the character told them were somehow connected to anti-Trump conspiracies.

“The biggest danger is you are one mentally unstable person away from the next massive incident that defines whatever happens next,” Mr. Decker said. “The next Pizzagate, which for better or worse did define the political conversation for a while.”"