Former President Donald Trump has now shared his most explicit endorsement of the QAnon conspiracy movement to date.
Trump shared a picture of himself wearing a Q lapel pin, overlaid with the QAnon phrases “The Storm is Coming” and “WWG1WGA,” on his Truth Social account on Monday evening. The post was originally shared on Truth Social by an account called “Patriots in Control,” before Trump re-shared it.
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“How much more obvious can it get?” one QAnon follower asked in the QAnon-focused Great Awakening forum.
In QAnon world, the “storm” is the moment when Trump will reveal his secret plan to dismantle the deep state and the group of elites QAnon followers believe are operating a global child sex trafficking ring. The “storm” will also, they think, trigger Trump’s return to power and the public executions of those who’ve acted against him, from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to current President Joe Biden.
The post comes just weeks after the ex-president went on a QAnon-filled posting spree on Truth Social. “It’s almost like Trump is trying to tell us something,” one popular QAnon influencer wrote, referencing Trump’s increasing embrace of the QAnon conspiracy. Trump’s influence is undeniable: As he continues to hint at another run for president in 2024, Trump is using his huge sway within the Republican Party to endorse a slate of candidates for the November midterms who openly support the lie that the 2020 election was rigged.
The QAnon movement has been in flux since Trump’s 2020 election defeat coupled with the lack of any communication from Q over the last 18 months. But Monday’s post by Trump has once again invigorated his most loyal base of supporters.
Telegram channels and message board threads lit up on Monday night with supporters who believed that once again, this was a sign that “it’s happening” and that “there’s certainly no doubt now that Trump is openly endorsing Q.”
“Just in case it wasn’t abundantly CLEAR at this point, President Trump himself is making it UNDENIABLE that he is 100% aligning with the Q operation,” John Sabal, the organizer of QAnon-focused conferences, wrote on his Telegram channel which has over 60,000 subscribers.
Some of the members of a QAnon-focused message board claimed that Trump posting this photo just days after the death of Queen Elizabeth II—an incident that QAnon supporters had a lot of thoughts about—was an indication that this time the “storm” really is coming.
But for some QAnon supporters who have believed for a long time, it’s all getting to be too much:
“I hope we are almost there…. I am so tired… and broke,” one wrote on Telegram. On the QAnon message board, another simply wrote: “ I’m exhausted.”