Episode 168: The Mutant QAnon Numerology Cult in Dallas
The 'Negative 48' cult seen from multiple perspectives: Katy Garner, who lost her sister to the cult, researcher '2021_Karma' who has been listening in on their unending telegram voice chats, and Steven Monacelli, a journalist covering them on the ground in Dallas. We try to figure out what the hell is up with the gematria-based QAnon-supporting cult of 'Negative 48' AKA Michael Protzman, who continue to gather in Dallas awaiting the return of JFK, JFK Jr, and an array of other dead celebrities.
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Welcome, listener, to Chapter 168 of the QAnon Anonymous Podcast, the Mutant QAnon Cult Occupies Dallas episode.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Rokitansky, Julian Fields, and Travis View.
This week, we're taking a close look at the Negative 48 cult, led by a guy called Michael Brian Protzman, who has successfully used numerology and the promise of JFK and JFK Jr.' 's return to lure large groups of followers to Dallas, where they've joined in multiple public gatherings.
We'll be speaking to three people along the course of the episode.
The first is Twitter user Karma 2021, who has been monitoring negative 48's ongoing streams and voice chats.
The second is Katie Gartner, a woman who essentially lost her sister to the cult.
And the third is Steven Monicelli, a freelance journalist who has been covering the physical gatherings in Dallas.
Travis, do you think we got enough perspectives here?
No, no, we're missing yours, Julian, I say.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Good comeback.
Yeah, I'm corn cobbing over here.
Negative 48.
Now, over the years, there's been a lot of thoughtful discussion about whether or not QAnon qualifies as a cult.
And I personally think it does.
But it's just, you know, not always an easy thing to do about, you know, was a distinction between a, you know, an online community and like an enthusiastic fan club and a religion and like a straight up I guess one of the arguments around that word is not whether or not QAnon can be qualified as a cult, it's whether that then supersedes other definitions of it.
Yeah, it can be, like, complicated.
There are a few ways people might, you know—even experts in this kind of thing—have difficulty nailing down, like, what exactly makes a cult.
But today we're gonna be talking about a group that I think More clearly qualifies as a cult in every available definition of the concept, and that is a group led by Michael Brian Protzman, who is better known to his followers as Negative48.
Now, Protzman really wasn't on the radar of most extremism researchers, with a few notable exceptions like exposing extremism on Twitter.
But all that changed when a group of negative 48 followers gathered in Daly Plaza, the site of JFK's assassination, on November 2nd.
But I read that they actually started gathering a few days before that on October 31st.
They just sort of made their presence known in a big way on the 2nd.
So this group of them, they waited for hours to see the appearance of JFK senior and junior because they don't believe that important people apparently die.
If you're famous enough, then you're immortal.
You just sort of like, you fake your death and you go underground.
This is what they essentially believe.
And since then, some of Prossman's followers, they've hung around for weeks in Dallas.
They've been staying at hotels and Airbnbs.
One of the followers at the site, who is a rapper by the name of Prime Minister, he apparently offered use of his nearby property so people could stay for long periods of time.
But I don't think that ever panned out.
So now they're sort of been forced to stay in local Airbnbs and hotels.
So what do we know about Prossman himself?
Prior to becoming a QAnon influencer, Prossman ran a demolition company called Eclipse Demolition for the last 14 years from his hometown of Federal Way, Washington.
Records show that the company went into administration last year.
Friend of the show Amanda aka NoTurtleSoup17 on Twitter reported on court records which show that his wife accused him of domestic violence.
Court records from King County Superior Court in Washington show Protzman was arrested in July 2019.
While the case was eventually dismissed without prejudice, the details on record are as follows.
Redacted, stated on 7-31-19 at approximately 7 in the evening, she arrived home and went inside her residence she shares with her husband of 25 years, Michael Protzman.
They are currently in the process of getting divorced, and Michael told her that if he couldn't have her, no one could.
For the past two weeks, Michael has been acting differently, not showering or working, and believing in government conspiracies.
He physically held her down on the bed, using both of his hands to physically restrain her, using one of his legs to brace hers, rendering her unable to move.
Michael held her in this position for approximately two to three minutes, until she told him that she would agree to marriage counseling so he would let her up.
When she attempted to walk down the hallway, he physically grabbed her, preventing her from leaving.
She was eventually able to get out of the house and walked barefoot to her neighbor's house where she called 911.
Redacted stated she is scared of Michael because he has, quote, blind rage, and she believes he may hit her.
Michael has assaulted her in the past, strangling her approximately six years ago.
Court records also show that Prospin's wife filed for divorce in June of 2019.
Her petition stated that the couple had lived in separate households since November of 2018 and that their marriage was completely broken.
In a response, Prospin stated that he wanted marriage counseling before considering divorce.
The divorce proceedings continued until September of 2020, when both parties stopped showing up to court, resulting in a dismissal.
Further court records show that Protzman is facing financial difficulties.
His neighborhood homeowners association sued the Protzmans, alleging that they owed nearly $40,000 in assessments, late fees, interest charges, violation fees, and attorney's fees.
Both Protzman and his estranged wife failed to show up to court, resulting in a default judgment for the full amount in April of 2021.
After the 12-month redemption period ends in April of 2022 without the debts being paid, their property will be seized and sold to repay their debts.
So, it doesn't seem like a very stable or impressive figure, but despite that, over the past few months, Michael Protzman has managed to build quite a devoted following.
Now, the key trick used by Protzman is Jarmatjia.
Softji, first of all, to all you people who've been coming down to my pronunciation, I looked this up.
So we were right the whole time?
We were saying gematria, too, though.
Well, yeah, I don't—yeah, yeah, gematria, gematria.
It's gematria.
Is it?
It's gematria.
Good.
Gematria, this is a system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase in the belief that the number has some kind of significance or that words or phrases with an identical numerical value bear some relation to each other.
Gematria has been used for divination and prophecy for thousands of years, but is most closely associated with Jewish texts, notably those associated with the Kabbalah.
Apparently in Hebrew, each letter has a numerical value.
But Prossman and his followers work with a Gematria cipher known as Simple English, or Original English.
This is just where A equals 1, B equals 2, etc.
etc.
In fact, this is where negative 48 gets his name.
So you start with the word evil, and E equals 5, V equals 22, I equals 9, and L equals 12.
You add that together, you get 48, and since Protzman is apparently the opposite of evil, he's negative 48.
I did not learn this in preparation for my bar mitzvah.
No, no.
I did learn that because of Jewish Shemot Shia, like, 18 is a lucky number, apparently, in Hebrew.
It's true.
18 means, stands for chai, which is life.
You know, oftentimes, you know, at birthdays and Hanukkah, I would get $36 from my grandparents because it was double chai.
This is a thing that would happen.
You gotta aim for triple high, man.
Now, I have seen QAnon followers dabble in gematria before, but usually that was confined to, like, posts and tweets.
Now, Prospin does something a little bit fresh in that he sort of does a freestyle gematria in person, where he'll sort of insert numerical values of words and make connections, like, while he's talking on the fly.
For example, here's him talking recently about some connections he made with words.
We're going from 3D to 5D!
Which happens right here.
Weakness, 97.
Popcorn, 97.
Thank you, 115.
Thank you, 115.
Very much, 115.
345.
Do you have your popcorn ready, 345?
That's not what Donald Trump was really saying.
He said, do you have your weakness ready, 345, for a download?
What a ghoul.
I much prefer Tommy Numbers, if I'm being honest.
If I had to pick, gun to my head, you know, which numerical prophet to watch videos from, I would go with Tommy aka Numbers.
I don't know.
Protzman has a certain drunken style.
You know what I mean?
Like he's kind of, every time you think that he's, you know, fallen and he can't get up in the middle of his sentence, he just kind of bounces up again like a puppet.
It's, I like it.
Protzman has also claimed that he and Trump communicate in code somehow.
And Trump knows the statements I've made.
We don't talk on the phone.
We talk in code.
That's the only way I talk to him, is in code.
He puts out stuff.
I put out stuff.
I really don't follow him a lot.
Everybody else does.
Oh, look what he put out.
I'm not obsessed with it.
I just go with the flow.
I just go with the flow.
Yeah, because you know you're going to see exactly what you need to see.
I'm going to see whatever I need to see.
Once I realized who I was and what I knew and what I needed, Trump's going to make sure I get what I need.
To figure it out, because I'm the one that's going to figure it out.
Everybody knows it because nobody on social media knows anybody else that's figured it out.
So, I mean, he's positioning himself as a kind of prophet, a communicator with the divine by communicating through these numbers and Trump.
In a way, it's smart.
He's doing the ascended masters, but he's channeling a living person, Donald Trump.
Now, I know this shtick sounds dumb, but it somehow has made Prossman into a post-Q star of the QAnon world, with a particular sort of really devoted sec.
Back in March, his negative 48 Telegram channel had about 1,700 members, but today it has around 100,000, and they're very, very active.
Oh boy.
Besides the sheer number of people who follow this guy, I mean, what's really bizarre is the degree of loyalty and trust that he has somehow inspired in his followers.
Like, they listen to him.
They think he's speaking a profound truth.
They, in some cases, upend their lives and empty their bank accounts for the sake of this guy.
It's very, very strange.
Some people have even claimed that Protzman speaks for God.
Unsurprisingly, some of his most devoted followers even think that he is actually JFK Jr.
himself.
Now, this would, of course, challenge the other living JFKs, both 107 and Vincent Fusca for the crown.
I think we need to have an election eventually to decide who is the true JFK Jr.
Careful what you wish for.
On YouTube, there is a video titled Voice Comparisons of JFK Jr.
and Michael Protzman, and it's exactly like it sounds.
It plays a video clip or an audio clip of JFK Jr.
speaking and then plays an audio clip of Michael Protzman speaking, and it claims that they're similar.
I didn't hear it, but there are lots of followers who think that it proves something significant.
Now that video has over 30,000 views, and I just want to share the top three comments of that YouTube video.
I wanted to say that they seem to think that JFK Jr.
is like the demon in Fallen, that you can just kind of pass his spirit through various people, maybe by touch.
Maybe he's singing an old song.
What a bizarre reference.
That's only a reference that my melted mind could come up with.
I'm very proud of you.
Thank you for catching me when I fall.
Debra writes, I was listening to Negative 48 on with Charlie Ward and I kept saying to myself that this guy sounds familiar, like JFK Jr.
I believe Michael and Jr.
are the same person.
And that has 54 thumbs up.
Marianne says, being a New Yorker and having heard JFK Jr.' 's voice many times, I have no doubt they are one and the same.
Now listen, listen up here, wait a second.
You being in New York probably doesn't, I mean, you saw him maybe on TV.
What are you, spending time around him because he's a New Yorker too?
Doesn't make any sense.
Tanner writes, I absolutely love just hearing negative 48 speak and teach and tell stories.
So calming and fills me up with joy.
The patience this man has is UNBELIEVABLE in all caps.
Now Protzman is perhaps most, I guess, notable for his total denial of celebrity deaths.
I don't think he's ever once come across a dead celebrity and say, no, actually that one's dead.
In addition to JFK Jr.
and Sr., Prossman has denied the deaths of Elvis, Aaliyah, and Prince.
But it goes beyond just politicians and musical artists.
In one livestream, Prossman claimed that the tragic helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant and his daughter didn't actually happen.
Helicopter motor, and of course it was a borrowed helicopter because it wasn't even a helicopter.
I mean, it's just ridiculous.
Hmm.
False alarm.
Yeah, and everybody was emotional because the daughter died.
Oh, I can't think now.
No, nobody died in a helicopter crash.
When a helicopter 111 backstage 111, then you bury him in Corona, California.
There's your first clue.
And the White Hats are giving it to you.
We don't believe in coincidences except for every single aspect of my life is a coincidence,
which means it's not a coincidence. They're all so fucking happy. They're just giddy. They're
just fucking having one. Like it just looks so fun. I mean, yeah, they really love him,
even though, you know, sometimes the stuff Protzman is talking about is impossible to
decipher, even to people who are close to him, it seems like.
For example, he has promised followers that they're going to The Ball, or The Inauguration.
No one's quite sure what this means, but this activity will somehow require suits and dresses, so he claims.
I mean, just like, what this ball is, when it will be, Why is it happening?
Who exactly will be going?
All of this is unclear.
So here's what he said.
We are going to the ball.
We that are here are going to be going to not only the inauguration, we're going to the ball.
And right now people are donating money because we're all out of town.
We don't have suits, dresses and stuff.
So they're all donating money on, on, um, Negative 48 on Shelly's Bimeo account and we're going to the ball.
This is so melted.
I mean, there's a guy labeled as Colleen Marie and it's just a shirtless young man.
What?
And they're all, everyone, like, how does he convince young people to sit next to him in these videos, to gather with him?
He's one of the most unconvincing people.
He literally seems fucked up.
I gotta say, I don't get it either.
But he has, again, they're really super devoted to his message, even though, again, they're unclear on what his message is besides, you know, the resurrection of dead celebrities and, you know, some cases like, you know, He sometimes talks about stuff like MedBeds, which is this promised device that heals all diseases, like Elysium or something.
Followers of Negative48 also appear to be taking orders from a Twitter account called At418Jaw, which has the handle JohnFKennedy.
John F. Kennedy!
Over 100 negative 48 followers.
They showed up on November 22nd, which is the anniversary of JFK's assassination.
And on that day, this Twitter account tweeted this.
Can we do candlelight tonight at Dealey Plaza from 21-11, 9-11 p.m.
to 23-11, 11-11 p.m.?
Can we make that happen?
They can make that happen, actually.
And they did, as they were told.
They held a candlelight vigil while singing, We Are the World.
We are the ones who dream brighter days, so let's start giving.
Apparently has been a favorite song of the group throughout their weeks long sort of stay in Dallas.
They've sung it repeatedly.
They also love to do the full dance for Thriller.
That one.
Not true.
There are a few more reasons why Negative 48 is a lot more concerning than your typical QAnon group.
First, You know, there's the overt anti-Semitism, which is most QAnon followers are happy to make it covert.
So, for example, Prostman's channel has boasted Europa, The Last Battle.
This is a 10-part film series that claims that Jews invented communism and that they started both world wars.
And poor Germany in World War II was merely trying to defend themselves.
It's also suggested that people read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, so going right to the root of, you know, 20th century anti-Semitism.
Prossman has also promoted the film Adolf Hitler, The Greatest Story Never Told, which also paints Hitler in a sympathetic light.
Recently on a recorded video call with Brosman, one of his followers talked about the need for a physical death to let go of the ego.
This clip was flagged by Hot Tub Twin on Twitter.
Yes, that baptism of fire going through that forge, you know, which is...
Ultimately, what we all have to go through, we have to experience that physical death.
Let go of our ego, and come out on the other side.
Burn everything that doesn't serve us.
Burn all the lies away, and all that's left is the truth.
Here's the thing, I never want to be like, oh, this is something to worry about.
Because I don't want to suggest that people worry, because I want to be the source of anyone's worry, you know, intentionally.
But this is really strange rhetoric when you're talking about the need for death in this kind of cult-like environment.
One of the primary ways that Negative 48, the group, connects is through live chats on Telegram.
You know, sometimes these are video streams of like roundtable discussions with Prossman and people in his inner circle.
And sometimes these are like big, moderated discussions with like thousands of people who are all trying to talk.
Yeah, yeah.
I've seen the development of this as a huge platform for Q influencers who are able to really get parasocial relationships going to a much different level, to the point where now the voice chat for In the Matrix has a schedule with shows that are not his.
Like, he's acting now as a channel, and one of them is called QSchool.
Yeah, I mean, like I said, there's a few advantages.
Number one, they're more intimate, so they increase parasocial relationships.
They're also harder to monitor, so if they're up to some shady shit, it's not as easy to check on them.
Hilariously, I checked in on it, and it was mostly, like, really wholesome self-help kind of stuff.
Like, hey, make sure to, you know, go outside and stuff.
And then they're just like, okay, time to explore the various deltas and the Q-drops.
Like, just hard drop off into purebaking.
Yeah, the negative 48 live chats, they can go on all day long, just hours and hours every single day with like different people coming in and out constantly.
So it's just like, you know, it's just a social group you can dip in on and sort of participate in if you're so inclined.
One person who has been spending a lot of time in these live chats is Karma underscore 2021 on Twitter.
She's been tweeting a lot about the disturbing things that she's been finding and it's been really illuminating.
Yesterday, I spoke with her about what she discovered in these live chats.
Karma, thanks so much for coming on the show.
No worries.
Thanks for having me, Travis.
It seems as though that on Telegram, the main way that Protzman's followers connect is through these live chats.
So how would you describe what goes on these live chats and what's the environment?
Are they very supportive or optimistic?
What happens there?
I follow a few, but there's one in particular I tend to stick to, mainly because it runs sometimes 16 hours a day.
Sometimes they just let it run overnight.
It's quite surprising, so obviously they've got a following from all around the world, but they've also, I've found, a lot of elderly Which surprises me.
I feel like there's way more elderly people who shouldn't be on the internet in those chats.
They are very supportive.
We're all family.
Love each other.
They pray together.
They talk about their personal lives, their families who no longer talk to them, traumas in their lives.
It's pretty much everything.
You get a bit of everything in there.
I've noticed the last week, the actual listeners have been, you know, when they do normally shut down the chat, the listeners have been begging to keep it open and they've allowed them to stay in there and continue chatting with no moderators, which gets quite interesting.
You have people fall asleep and snore and they can't stop them.
They literally snore for hours until the mods come back on in the morning.
While the rest of them just continually talk about conspiracy theories, basically.
A lady the other day said that they were told there was going to be more than 60 plus of these dead celebrities turn up in Dallas.
I don't think it was organized very well.
A lot of people that went and have come back have basically said that, you know, it was kind of chaotic.
No one really knew what was going on.
They stood around for hours waiting for their free t-shirt.
There was sort of no kind of plan to it.
And a lot of them said that it was kind of, they were told it was like a scavenger hunt sort of, where they had to hunt around for these dead celebrities all over the place and just look for them.
So the game is to find someone who vaguely looks like Prince or something, and then report back to the group that what Michael Prossman said is true, he has returned from the dead.
Yes, and it's kind of been like, oh, so this one said they saw Prince, and so therefore, because they saw everybody, now Prince is alive.
There's apparently two Princes, one's in the hospital, and the other one's just out, roaming the streets.
Some of the stories I hear are like, you can't help but not laugh at some of the things they say, obviously, because you're just like, wow, like, how?
How do you even?
I can't wrap my head around it.
How do you actually believe the things you're saying?
Again, it's like, it's a little bit like a, you know, QAnon itself.
It's not just like believing conspiracy theories, you know, it's, it's a participatory where it's, you know, the believers, they go out and they sort of like, they spin their own version of it.
And they, you know, they contribute to the group belief.
Yeah.
I kind of feel like they've taken it, you know, off the internet and gone, okay, let's take it out there in real life.
And, you know, let's, I don't know.
I mean, as I said, depending what channels you're in, you've got different channels where I've watched them.
They're partying at houses, music layering, and they're all just... I think half of them are high, to be honest.
You mentioned that, you know, they're getting complaints where they're staying.
Like, where exactly are they staying now?
Because they've been there for weeks, and apparently there's a flow of...
Negative 48 believers who I guess apparently come in and out.
But, you know, it seems as though there's a pretty steady population of, I guess, around 100 people or so.
So where have they tried to stay there in Dallas?
Because apparently they've come from all over the country.
A lot of the ones that have just, you know, turned up because they've been told have stayed at whatever hotel they can basically get in.
So they're kind of spread around.
They're still at the Hyatt at the moment, but not all of them.
So they've now got two Airbnbs.
So that's where one of them they were told to keep the noise down.
Don't know how long that's going to last because from what I've been hearing, there's a lot of people in Squashed into these Airbnbs.
I've heard that there's people sleeping on the floor because there's not enough room in them.
And whereas I think that main inner circle of negative 48 are still at the Hyatt.
So he seems to have his main circle.
He is apparently staying in the penthouse and he summons people into the penthouse to speak to him and then they all come out all giddy like you know what What did he say?
And everyone, and they're sort of like, no, I can't tell you.
From what I've been told, there's currently over a hundred there.
A lot more obviously turned up yesterday, whether they'll stay or not.
I don't know.
Um, but the ones there was over a hundred before that, but apparently they're saying a lot of those are going to go home for Thanksgiving, but there is 75 that are committed and are not going anywhere.
You talked about his inner circle, and there are a few people who seem to have a special place close to Prossman, and one of them is a man who goes by the name of Stephen Tenner.
He was an actor who has quite a lengthy internet movie database page with lots of roles in movies and TV shows that I've never heard of.
But what exactly is his role in this group here?
So he seems to be close to Michael he tends to um so within his group he sort of comes and goes in and out comes and gives updates on what's going on.
From what I know he already Was pretty red peeled.
Had his own YouTube videos and all that sort of stuff way before he met Michael.
He met him in September and has pretty much just clung to him since then.
He believes that Michael, when Michael speaks, it's God speaking to him.
He really, really believes.
I mean, I have heard him multiple times say he's not leaving.
He will stay there till the end or he will die for the cause.
So he's all in.
But I find that the inner circle They seem to provide Michael with something, whether it's, you know, they're collecting donations, they've donated to him, they all seem to be able to provide him with something.
And that seems to be, the inner circle seems to be around that.
You know, I've heard that they've got hairdressers that they've kept with them, people that can cook, you know, so He's selecting people based on that.
I also heard that they've did an interview process and NDAs have been signed and I believe that would be more with the inner circle or the ones that are committed because some of the ones that have come home have said that they heard about them but they didn't sign anything because they left.
So he's basically told these people that they're kind of like extras in a movie.
They are playing a role in his movie, I guess.
Okay.
Very, very strange.
That's something we've seen from them say a few times, like, it's only a movie.
They even get told this when they complain about, I don't know, losing their home or some other sort of personal calamity.
It's like, oh, it's all a movie.
It's all fake.
He, they really run with the movie.
Even Tenor, when he talks, he, and he talks, he obviously gets on his channel and he'll talk to people.
And, and it's really some of the things, you know, like I've heard conversations where they'll be like, you know, my family member is, you know, dying of COVID.
Why is this happening?
I thought this was all fake.
And they're sort of like, you know, we're at war.
We're in a movie.
There's always casualties in war.
So unfortunately people are going to die.
And I hear that one a lot, you know, and you sort of wonder how these people are sitting there just going, what?
Like, so my family members are all just the casualty in this war.
You know, it's really odd to listen to and just hear them and they accept it.
They, they totally accept it.
Yeah, this is so, so strange.
There are lots of QAnon influencers or QAnon personalities and promoters, but Michael Prospin seems to have a unique degree of devotion, a unique amount of hold on the brains of people who listen to him.
From the ladies that I've spoken to that came back, when he, obviously when they all first started listening to him, I don't know if you're aware that he had like a panda head on.
Or his face wasn't shown when he was talking.
And they seemed to believe that they were mesmerized by his voice and at times his voice sounded like JFK.
And they said that had they have seen him prior, they probably would not have gone to Dallas.
They probably would not have followed him.
Like I was in a chat yesterday and a lady was full on convinced that, you know, Yes, at times he didn't sound all the time like JFK, but 100%.
There were certain times he sounded like JFK while he was talking.
Some believe that he is God.
Some believe that he's JFK.
Some believe he's Patrick Kennedy.
Some of them believe he's just going to rip off a mask all of a sudden and just be somebody underneath it.
I find he confuses them with the way he speaks.
He plays this game where he's sort of yes I am JFK but no I'm not JFK or maybe I am JFK but and he talks like that and you can tell It would be easy, and especially a lot of these people have said that they've stayed up for, you know, 10, 11 hours listening to him non-stop, that when you're that tired, that eventually you're going to start going, oh, you know, whatever he says.
Yeah.
I mean, that, that touches on like two things, like, like all the, the, the, I guess the other two people who, uh, who Clay, who sort of kind of claimed to be JFK as 107 and Vincent Fusca, They both never come out and say they're JFK.
They just kind of allow other people to believe it and like, you know, encourage other people.
I guess he's sort of like doing the same thing.
I think he is.
And he plays it really well, though.
I think he really plays it, because he's been asked straight out.
And he does.
He doesn't say no, but he doesn't say yes.
Yeah, you also mentioned sleep deprivation, which is apparently a common affliction amongst Prospin followers.
How do they often talk about, you know, first of all, why they aren't sleeping and how their lack of sleep is affecting them?
He obviously keeps them busy, that they're always doing something, whether they're going out, To the Plaza or wherever they're actually going.
And then at night time, he keeps them up.
They usually do something where they are, depending, I mean, when they're at the Hyatt, they had a conference room there.
At the start, I just thought it was just hours of him just on the stage, crapping on basically and having others get up and talk.
But now I've come to find out that he does hours of training with them.
Every day.
What kind of training?
Basically, you know, all the numbers and the Metra and trying to, he basically just trains them.
Some of the words have been, you know, it's not just that it's spirituality, you know, truth.
So he's basically training these people to believe whatever he wants them to believe.
Like how to Turn words into numbers and connect those numbers to other words there that have these that add up to the same value when assuming that has that kind of kind of significance.
He's basically just drilling them with that why he's there.
So I've heard different accounts of first it was just training and then they sort of went into a bit more detail about it.
I mean some of them say oh we're free to go and do whatever we want but from what I've seen in the channels you know if a post goes out to them and basically says we need to be here at this time you all have to be here.
I think today I saw a post that said, you know, you need to come and pick up the groceries.
Everyone needs to come to this spot, pick up groceries and bring them here at this time.
He does get them all doing stuff.
They seem to all be doing stuff.
So I also understand that some of Prossman's followers in Dallas, they've been consuming some sort of mysterious gummy treats.
What is that about?
Within the chats, it's sort of come about that these gummies are being given out.
I'm not sure exactly what they contain.
I've also, I guess before the gummies sort of came out, I heard different stories in the chats about them smoking weed in the hotel.
Obviously Prime, who is there, Prime Minister, He has his own company or sells Hemp Works products and pushes them a lot.
I mean, from what I can see, I haven't seen any gummies that he's selling.
I've seen plenty of other products.
Um, but these gummies apparently, um, I've been in chats where heard women talking about them and saying that, you know, when we're really tired, you know, we get given them and they sort of give us, you know, a bit of an up and pick us out.
And so, you know, to me, I don't think it's actually, she, she kept saying THC and I'm like, I don't know about that.
I mean, I don't, I don't see how that would pick you up.
So it sounds like they're not even a hundred percent sure what's in these gummies that they're taking.
No, not at all.
I've heard and, you know, from different channels that like, as I said, I was in a channel the other night and they were partying, full on partying.
And I've heard Prime, I've been in his chats and he, he falls asleep on the chat, like totally out of it.
And then next minute, five minutes later, he's, he's up and talking again, like you can hear him snoring and
everything in the channel and you're just like what is going on down there like
So they are you know at at very minimum smoking some weed while they're hanging out and possibly doing
some kind of upper that may be contained in these gummies They reckon Michael doesn't sleep for days at a time.
They'll say, you know, he hasn't slept.
He's just been, you know, he's got so much energy.
He doesn't sleep.
And you're just like, that's just not normal.
A lot of them seem to think he's funny.
I haven't found him funny listening to him at all.
I find him, you know, like shuts down his followers when they try to speak.
And I've heard a couple of other people In streams try to you know put their opinion across and he yeah attacks them and puts them down so I haven't found anything appealing about him at all.
As the times gone on I guess I've grown more concerned about this group.
Some of the things that get said um now he handed out t-shirts That had the words The Last Dance on them.
No one actually knows what The Last Dance means.
It gets brought up often in chats, but no one actually knows what it means.
And this ball has been, so they took donations for the ball.
We hear bits and pieces, oh yeah, the ball's going to go ahead, you know, we're getting donations, we're buying suits and dresses, but No date, nothing has been set for this ball.
I don't know what the endgame is, but I guess as time goes on, I'm more worried about what the endgame will be.
Karma, thank you so much, first of all, for taking all of that time that you spend to listen to these live chats.
Also, thanks for taking the time to speak with me today.
No worries.
Thanks for having me on, Travis.
Sometimes this stuff gets masks because the stuff that they believe is so ludicrous, especially about the, you know, the celebrities who are long dead walking the earth once again.
But I think it's really important to remember that negative 48 is exploiting really vulnerable people.
I mean, he's like, you know, he's breaking up families.
As for this reason, I spoke to Katie Gardner, who is a registered nurse whose sister is involved with the negative 48 group.
She previously was interviewed by Vice News, and she took some time out of her day to let me know exactly how her sister fell in with this group and how it has affected her family.
Yeah, so it's my understanding that your sister had fairly conventional political beliefs until around like last year or so.
I mean, can you describe what exactly happened?
Yes, absolutely.
So, I mean, she's Republican, you know, but in the same breath, I mean, her and I thought the same when it came to Any type of election.
It's not so much the party, more so the person and what they're saying.
But when it came down to the 2020 election, she was just totally against Joe Biden.
And a lot of people, they are, and that's fine.
Okay, whatever.
But I don't really understand How it got to the point where we're at now because she would say, well, Donald Trump is still going to be president even come your birthday, which my birthday is Inauguration Day on January 20th.
And she kept on saying, your birthday is going to be the best birthday you've ever had.
Joe Biden is not going to be president.
Donald Trump is going to come swooping in and we're going to be under martial law and this, that, and the other.
And it honestly scared me because, you know, she's my sister and we've always been so close.
So I thought, well, maybe this is true.
And then that didn't happen and I thought, okay, well, this sounds a lot like some conspiracy theories to me.
And like I said, it started, you know, around the election time and she would just sit at home and do research over this and The more she researched, the more she found, and it was just like going deeper and deeper and deeper into this crazy conspiracy theory crap that is... I mean, reptilians?
No.
I'm sorry.
That's not a thing.
She was talking about the Obamas and the Clintons and how they You know, sacrifice children and do all these terrible things and she mentioned something about Gitmo and
Jesus Christ!
I mean, every conversation we had was, I could just call her and just check in on her, because we live about an hour and a half away from each other at this point.
She was living in Tennessee, and I live in Arkansas, and just calling to check in, just life update, and the conversation would just turn into, hey, this is what I found about the vaccine.
This is what I found about This is what I found about COVID, and I would listen to her, but I would not indulge, and I would just try to change the subject.
And then it would end up being two-hour, three-hour phone conversations about just crazy, crazy stuff that, if it were to be true, would absolutely be devastating and heartbreaking.
But at that point, she had just lost I guess the common sense aspect of her brain and just she was just sucked into it and she truly believes it wholeheartedly and that's what's so scary to me.
Yeah these conspiracy theories were taking over her I guess her life and her thinking to the point that was the only thing that she could talk about it sounds like and do you know how she fell in with like negative 48 and Michael Protzman?
Honestly, I do not.
I truly believe she just went through all the research and these rabbit holes and was finding all these different things, and then she found this group, which would be QAnon.
And in this group, she found people that believed the same things she did and saw the same things she did.
So they're all like-minded people, which is very dangerous.
It was like, I finally found someone that will listen to me because we wouldn't listen to her.
We would keep telling her, no, that's not true.
What you're saying is not true.
I'm sorry.
That's not...
What's happening, you know?
And she just, she was like, I'm trying to wake y'all up.
Something big is gonna happen.
Y'all just wait.
And we're just like, okay, but nothing's gonna happen.
Nothing is going to happen.
And she just, she kept on and she kept on and her poor husband was having to deal with this.
And I think he was, I mean, he's a doctor and I'm a nurse and we know how to deal with people Not necessarily with a cult mentality, because they don't really teach you that, but they teach you how to deal with people that aren't necessarily in their right headspace.
And you can't, you have to get down to their level and talk to them like you believe them, almost.
And that's what I was doing.
My mother is also a nurse, so that's what my mother was doing.
And that's what her husband was doing.
We were just like, okay, I hear you, but that's not true.
That's not true.
That's interesting.
And the research that you're doing, that's something.
But it's just not true.
And I'm so sorry to tell you that.
And she just got sick of us not believing her.
And she started reaching out to her friends and trying to get them to Listen to what she had to say.
And her friends were saying, no, that's, that's not, no, that's not true.
I'm sorry.
That's not true.
And she found this group and this group, they were just like, yes.
Oh my gosh.
Yes.
It's true.
Absolutely.
What you've been researching, I've been seeing the exact same thing.
And that's how she got involved in QAnon.
And then I noticed on her Facebook page, Her cover photo changed to negative 48 when previously it said negative 48.
I didn't know what that meant, but before it was a picture of her and her husband and her three children.
And I didn't think anything of it.
I just thought, huh, that's interesting.
Because to be fair, I have my own life.
You know, everybody has their own lives and I can't sit there and babysit a 31 year old.
I can't sit there and say, oh, OK, well, what are you researching now?
What are you doing?
Because she's always been so level-headed.
And out of all of my siblings, I really thought that she would be the least likely to get involved in something like this.
If anything, even my dad said it just as a joke, if I thought anyone was going to get involved in something like this, I would think it would be you talking about me.
But no, no, it's her.
So when that changed, I thought, that's odd.
So she found QAnon, and then she found negative 48, and then he was telling her everything that she wanted to hear, that I guess that maybe she felt that she needed to hear.
And it should be noted that she's not to blame in this.
If anything, she's a victim, just like everyone else.
And this Michael Prossman guy, he's a total nut job.
Oh my God, he is crazy!
And it's like he's just... I don't know how to explain it.
He's preying on the weak.
My sister's not a weak person, but She did suffer from postpartum depression after she had her last child.
And I can say that mentally, she had been struggling.
And I think maybe she was just trying to find something to help to cope.
And it just turned into something so much bigger than any of us actually realized it could turn into.
And it's, at the end of the day, it's just, it's heartbreaking because the person that we knew, I'm 26 years old, and the person I've known for 26 years is gone.
I don't know who this person is anymore.
We haven't talked to her in days.
I look for signs of life through her Twitter page, which should be noted makes no sense.
Just rambling of nonsense and numerology, because that's, you know, how they communicate that whole number thing.
And I don't understand it, and I don't have time to sit there and decipher codes.
I just, I just don't.
So, I've been watching that, and I've been watching the Telegram.
What they've been saying still makes no sense to me.
No idea.
But, I mean, all I know is that she's in Dallas and these people have convinced her that she doesn't need her family.
She doesn't need her kids.
She told my dad and my stepmom both that she's staying in Dallas.
She's waiting on this big thing to happen, whatever that is.
And her husband can take care of the kids because she's been doing it for the past five years and she's done, essentially.
You know, for a while, for about a month, she's been gone for about a month, I had said, I just want her to come home.
Let's get her home and then we can figure something out and, you know, if she needs to be mentally evaluated, we'll do that.
That's fine.
But once she said that she was done with the children and her husband, I just kind of, and it sounds heartless, But it's reality.
I just, I had to say, okay, all right, that's enough.
I've had enough.
If you want to stay in Dallas and do this, you're an adult.
You can make adult decisions.
Okay.
If you're going to do that, you do that.
But now my priority is the children and her husband.
And, um, essentially if she ever does decide to come home, I hope she understands that She has ruined the family that she once had, completely torn it apart.
And I don't know what she's going to do.
It's not that we have given up on her.
We never will.
And we're always going to love her.
But she's essentially lost her children.
Because if you think about it, in her mindset, she is not fit to be a mother.
She's a danger to her children.
Because I don't know what she would do.
Because she's been negligent for... I mean, who just ups and leaves their children like that and says they don't care?
She missed her daughter's fourth birthday.
It was the 21st.
She just missed it and she didn't care.
She's gonna miss Thanksgiving, doesn't care.
I have no idea how long she's gonna be gone.
Yeah, that's very, very sad to hear.
So the first time she left home was to visit the site of Dallas, I guess.
They first started gathering around the 31st of October.
Was she among the sort of the first people to gather there in Dallas with Michael Prossman and the rest of the negative 48 people?
Yes, she was.
She had left and she had gone, I think she had gone before.
And she came, she was gone for a week to Dallas, came back for a day to get more things.
And then ever since then, she's been gone.
She was there for the return of JFK Jr.
And obviously that didn't happen.
And then, um, I, you know, he keeps on saying different dates.
Something's going to happen on this day.
Something's going to happen on this day.
And that's, he's keeping them hooked by that.
Just, Something's gonna happen.
Just wait.
It's okay.
And I just, oh my god.
It's just, it's absolutely insanity.
And she doesn't even realize it.
She can't see it because she's so sucked in.
So she has been there from the start of it.
From the start.
This has been planned for I really don't know how long.
I know The last time we talked was maybe mid-September, and she sounded decently okay, but not totally herself.
And then something happened personally with me that I wanted to talk to her about, and her response was just so cold and heartless.
It was essentially, I have over a thousand, this is a quote, because I can see the text message in my head.
I have over a thousand messages I haven't read.
I'm not that worried about what you have going on right now.
We're fighting an invisible war.
It's kind of a big deal.
And then she sent me a screenshot of some kind of letterhead from Donald Trump, which I'm assuming is not Donald Trump.
It's somebody faking to be Donald Trump.
But she had sent me that and I just said, okay.
And then I just, I didn't, I didn't talk to her after that because then I realized something's wrong.
Something is seriously wrong with her.
And never in a million years did I think that she would pack up her shit and go to Dallas.
And that's where she's at.
I read that in addition to this group causing her to upend her life and alienate her family, she's also started to take sort of quack medicine, which is, you know, surprising to hear from a nurse.
So what what exactly happened there?
Honestly, that was more of her research that she was doing.
I don't believe that Michael was forcing her to do these things.
That was not true in the article.
I had mentioned it, that she was taking these things, but he's not forcing her to take these things.
This was something she was doing personally, and she was I don't know.
She's all about this homeopathic crap, but being a nurse, that's very odd to me because we rely on medication and science to take care of our patients and do right by our patients and she's over here Doing this crazy research about 35% hydrogen peroxide, she's drinking it like it's milk, which is not good.
I mean, you can get 3% at any store and it says to not ingest it.
But she's claiming that it's keeping her healthy and it's keeping COVID away.
But what's interesting is that she got COVID back in July.
So obviously that didn't work.
And the biopellets, I don't even know what that is.
I have been personally been reaching out to people that I really did not even think that I would have to reach out to in her inner circle to figure out what she's told this person, what she's told this person, what she's been doing, what doctor she's been going to, etc.
And she had mentioned that she was taking these biopellets for her health.
And I don't know what, when I looked it up, Biopilots are used to clean like aquarium tanks. So that
was just really odd to me.
And I am, I'm very confused why she thinks that she needs that. I know that you go into her house,
which is a complete train wreck of a mess. I mean, I'll just put it out there.
She stopped cleaning.
She stopped cooking for the kids, for herself.
The house was a total wreck.
Anytime laundry needed to be done, she wouldn't do laundry.
She would just go buy new clothes for the kids, she and herself and her husband.
She believes that there is going to be a financial reset.
and no debt is going to be owned.
So she is, she has been blowing through money, just thousands and thousands and thousands
and thousands and thousands of dollars.
She has been blowing through to just, I don't know, just for fun.
I mean, there's shopping bags all over her house.
And it's almost like she's in a manic type state, but I've never seen someone be in a manic state
for this long, so I don't know if that's what it is.
But it's just, or maybe it's just the brainwashing, but she's just been spending and overspending.
And you go into her bathroom, open her cabinet, and then there's just all these supplements of crap that she takes that makes literally no sense for her to take.
And the kicker is her husband is a doctor.
And she's a nurse and she's over here thinking that these crazy things are going to help her.
And yeah, she's one of those people that thinks like the horse paste or whatever is going to cure COVID too.
I mean, yeah, she's one of those people.
So yeah, you mentioned that you have no idea, like, when she is coming back.
I mean, is there gonna be ever a point when, like, you know, the money's gonna run out, where she's going to get exhausted?
I mean, do you have any hope that you'll see her by Christmas?
Essentially, when her husband reached out to all of us and told us what was going on, Because he had been holding this in for a long time because he thought he could handle it.
And it got to the point where he couldn't.
When this came out, we told him, cut off the cards.
Cut them off.
She's not getting any money.
Make sure that if she has to, if she tries to call the bank to get more money, she's not allowed.
Cut that off.
So that's been cut off.
She doesn't have access to any money.
She's been telling I think she told my dad that she's staying somewhere for free and all of her food and her shelter is being covered.
I know she won't be home by Thanksgiving.
We're trying to make plans at least for the kids and her husband to wear.
We'll be able to celebrate.
I mean, I'll be working on Thanksgiving, but just to keep the normalcy for the kids, you know, and no, I don't think that she'll be home by Christmas.
Like I said in the article that people have seen, I'm not going to say I've lost hope because I love her to death, and I just want to believe I really want to believe that something is going to wake her up and she's going to realize that this negative 48 guy is full of shit and she needs to come home.
But in the same breath, I just, I'm mourning the loss of my sister because the person I knew is gone.
This person now I don't know her because the person my sister she would never leave her kids and she would never do these things but she's just so sucked in so to answer your question no I don't think that she'll be home by Christmas I think that she's I know that she's all in and it should be noted that she actually got
I don't know if y'all know about this guy named Jon Jon.
Have y'all heard of a guy named Jon Jon?
No, who's Jon Jon?
But this Jon Jon guy called my dad from my sister's phone and was saying that, because my dad had been involved in some Like the Clinton administration, nothing sketchy, nothing weird.
Just he was, he knew Bill Clinton and you know, it was just something along those lines.
And I don't know what went through my sister's mind, but she thought that it was a good idea to get this guy who calls himself John John to call my father and say, you know, we're armed.
And if you try anything, you know, I just want you to know that we're armed and just essentially threatening him in a way.
And my dad did not take that lightly.
And I will not repeat what my father said.
Cause I, no, just not going to repeat that.
But she has, she's in so deep that she's getting these people.
It was the one time she did it, but she got this guy to contact my dad.
I'm assuming to get, I don't know, for, I guess for her to get my dad to understand what's going on, because she does believe this is true.
And my dad's like, no, this is not true.
Absolutely not.
You're, Acting a little crazy, but okay.
But it's just, I don't know who this guy is, but my dad said that he sounded like he had an accent, and he said that he was from Africa.
Negative 48 did one-on-ones with every single person that had gone to Dallas.
My sister had done a one-on-one, and they He had said that she is a chosen one.
She is being picked to stay in Dallas, and he named her the Ambassador of Africa.
How does that make any sense?
is really one of the strangest things I've heard, and there are lots of strange things coming out of this Negative 48 group.
Well, I mean, again, thank you so much for talking about this.
I know it really can't be easy, and I will say that many of the listeners of our show, they are in similar situations in that they have family members who are just getting sucked down the conspiracy rabbit hole, And they're just different people.
So I'll say that I'm certainly rooting for your sister to get back on track and to rediscover her life and her family.
And I'm sure many of my listeners are too.
Absolutely.
And if, if I can stress anything, it's, you know, if you do notice that your family member is being, um, being distant and they're talking about things that you know are not true, even if, you know, cause not everything on the internet is true.
That has to be stressed.
The internet is full of lies.
Just try to pull them back into reality and hold them tight and tell them, look, If you have something going on, if something is wrong, talk to me and tell me because that's what I feel like happened to my sister.
I really think that something was happening with my sister that she didn't feel like she could talk about and she needed to be around.
People are surrounded by people that she could talk about something, you know, just open up about something.
I don't know.
I've just been scrambling trying to figure this out.
But I just want your listeners to not lose hope because maybe they aren't as in as deep as my sister.
And I do hope for all of us that they do come home.
And this negative 48 guy is just completely... I hope that he's arrested.
I hope that he's taken down because what he's doing is absolutely insane.
He's tearing families apart.
But I just hope, and I hold on to the hope, that all of this will be over soon.
And that we will just be able to get her into counseling and get her back on track and get her back with her kids.
And she may not be back to 100% herself, but if I could just see a little bit of her again, just a little bit, then I would have even more hope.
And then I'll keep on pushing and pushing and pushing for more help.
For her to get so we could get back to the old person that she was.
So just I hope that everyone understands how serious this is.
And I hope something is done eventually because essentially the family members, all we can do is sit at home and watch this unfold.
And there's nothing else we can do but watch.
And it's absolutely heart shattering.
All right, Katie.
Thank you so much for your time today.
I really, really appreciate it.
I think people will really, really resonate with your story.
No problem.
Thank you so much for your time.
I really appreciate it.
And I'm really excited about this to come out.
Oh, man.
Unbelievable.
Yeah, super grateful that Katie was willing to speak on the record about her experiences.
I'm sure there are many more families who are going through a very similar situation and having people they love getting sucked up into Michael Prosper's barely inscrutable charisma, who aren't able to speak out.
But it is really horrifying, you know, to watch someone Because it's not just, you know, people believing silly things like a family is shattered, children, you know, a husband, a home.
That's not stable anymore because of it partly because of these online conspiracy theories and people like Michael Prossman willing to take vulnerable people into their fold.
The JonJon reference, I think that's a JFK thing.
That's what they call JFK Jr., if I'm not wrong.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
That's, yeah, JonJon is a nickname for JFK Jr., but apparently, according to her, someone calling themselves JonJon?
Not to mention the idea that Jon Jon has some sort of administrative control over Africa, which is a continent.
Yes.
It's disturbing on multiple levels, because it sounds like there's just lots of weirdness that has not even been reported yet.
Some weird structural stuff that's going on in the Negative 48 organization that That because that the weird whoever is surrounding negative 48 is doing some weird shit.
It seems almost like this guy is just opening a market for grifters to come and take advantage of very vulnerable people in specific spaces and times.
We are joined now by Stephen Monticelli.
He is an independent journalist from Texas who was on the ground with negative 48 in Dallas and wrote about his experiences for Rolling Stone.
Stephen, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Thanks for having me.
So have you had the opportunity to speak with Michael Prossman himself?
So, no, I actually didn't.
I reached out for comment.
He didn't respond to me.
When I was there, I just, like, didn't run into him personally.
And he was always surrounded by his flock of people.
But another local reporter did actually, like, finally get a chance to approach him and try to talk to him.
And he recorded that interaction and he called him a "prestitute"
and a "dumbass" which is, you know, just very lovely.
And that was in response to the question, "So when are you guys gonna leave?"
Yeah, that's the other big question.
I ask some other people this, but what exactly is the endgame here?
What exactly is the big reveal?
What will make them say, aha, I got what I came for and now I'm going to go back to whatever it was I was doing before that?
Do you have any idea what that might be?
Based on what I'm hearing from people who are still around and have been here for I guess now three weeks, basically like the sky opening up, this is like a revelatory sort of event that they're expecting to occur.
At least that's what Prostman and the True Believers say is, you know, some sort of great reveal where JFK Jr.
and a bunch of other secretly alive celebrities who we all think are dead Are, you know, going to elevate Trump back into the White House and take down the global Illuminati pedophile cabal.
And there's lots of talk about clones, holograms, the idea that the assassination of JFK was like a spell cast by the Illuminati.
And so what they are expecting is quite literally something miraculous, because Protzman's prophecies are based on Dramatria, which I'm sure you all know about, the whole religious numerology thing that he does, and it's deeply intertwined with sort of millenarian Christian beliefs and very sort of apocalyptic thinking.
So it's unsettling, right?
Because there are people who, you know, I guess I think some people have been disaffected and have since left. But basically what they're looking for, it's
not going to happen. Either it's not going to happen or it would be the biggest fucking
deal ever. It would be like literally Jesus Christ resurrecting, which is quite
literally what some of these people think and kind of compare this to. There's this discussion of a
secret bloodline, a religious bloodline that goes back to Christ himself that the Kennedys
are a part of.
So, you know, there's a lot going on.
Complexities to this sort of belief structure that Protzman has created around himself.
I mean, it's like a tent revival atmosphere.
And quite literally, they use that language in some of the telegram.
Chats.
This isn't the first time I've been around a grouping like this, and I described the one that was in Dallas previously for God and Country Patriot Roundup as like a tent revival.
It's like church to some of these people.
It's deeply religious, which makes it even more unsettling because it's not just like a political belief.
For an ideological belief.
It is a theological belief at a certain point for a lot of these folks.
And they're really happy to be there.
It's like a community, their chosen family of sorts.
I tried to observe as much as I could, but I would also just chat with people and I would never try to question them in terms of scrutinizing their beliefs.
I would ask them questions, just ask them What was on their mind and why they were there and they would tell me I think some of the more self-aware of them would say sometimes they would preface like well if I tell you you're gonna think I'm crazy when we're talking about this sort of stuff it's
It's impossible to get inside people's heads, but the question that comes to my mind a lot is, are these people really believing this?
Are they true believers in what they're pushing?
Or are they grifting?
Are they, you know, just hawking whatever they have on hand because that's what they want to do?
And, you know, if we could understand which of those it is, then maybe we would have a better understanding of what might happen.
Based on what I've seen and the sort of stuff that comes through his chats and how he's acted around other journalists and stuff, I mean, he could be closer to being a true believer in what he's peddling than not, which would be unsettling because I think that would make it less likely for them to just say, oh, well, we got to, you know, get out of here before the whole thing implodes.
On the other hand, you know, they are still people and He seems to be able to gather a bunch of people around him.
So maybe he will make that choice and something will occur and they'll be able to, you know, use it as a satisfying enough event to not lose the flock that they've developed.
Because I think that's really what it's about for him.
is the way that he acts, it's this flock of people that he's developed. It's an ego thing.
He seems kind of megalomaniacal. Whether he goes one way or another, I think it just kind of
depends on where he falls in this and it's impossible to tell.
I guess there's also the idea that regardless of whether an event takes place or not, for some
people, just being with a group of people who believe the same things that they do might be
more fun. That's better than having to go back home and say, "Nothing happened."
And yeah, I spent a ton of money.
I mean, there is kind of that human element to that, that, you know, it might just be enough to keep it going.
That's something that came up – I'm forgetting what her name was – but one of the speakers at the For God and Country Patriot Roundup, the QAnon conference in Dallas, one of their speeches was basically like, it's about the friends we make along the way, and we've learned how to do research together, and it's about the people we've found and the communities we've built.
And I'm like, That's what you're taking away from this?
Like all of these things failing to occur and, you know, this deep, deep, deep rabbit hole you've gone down that is a total dead end.
That's what you've taken away from it?
And I think you're probably very right there.
Like that is probably what some people will walk away from this with.
Gosh, I just want like one normal week before the end of the year in Dallas.
Well, go check out Steven Monticelli on Twitter and ProteanMag.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
Thanks for having me.
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