FBI raids, memes and one-man stochastic terror attacks. The FBI visits Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago and a representative for the White House posts about "Dark Brandon". Then a man commits suicide by fed after posting to Truth Social about attacking the FBI. Plus Ron Watkins surfaces in Australia, and it looks like he was lying about being in Arizona during his congressional run.
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Music by G-Dog. Editing by Corey Klotz.
Welcome, listener, to Chapter 199 of the QAnon Anonymous Podcast, the Dark Brandon Rises episode.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Rogatansky, Julian Fields, and Travis View.
This week, we'll be exploring a couple of things.
First up, Ron Watkins, the man suspected of being behind the anonymous poster known as Q, turned up in Australia.
Secondly, and more substantively, the QAnon community is reacting to the FBI's visit to Mar-a-Lago, where Trump allegedly was storing classified documents in a safe.
In reaction, a man has already shown up at the FBI offices and basically committed suicide by cops after an hours-long shootout.
Combined with the administration embracing the Dark Brandon meme, which is officially no longer funny, right-wing online figures and conspiracy theorists have worked themselves up into a froth, and we're gonna walk you through it.
But before we jump into all that, we've got another announcement to make.
New merch has dropped in our renovated online store, this time free of any print-on-demand bullshit.
Visit merch.QAnonAnonymous.com where you can find a Moloch Owl Sanctuary t-shirt and hoodie as well as an I'm Sorry Boy tee.
So, your weird ideas, your weird brain is now printed forever onto cloth, Jake.
A goofy line I came up with probably at three in the morning, probably inebriated.
It will now be worn on a very high-quality t-shirt, I might add.
The quality of these.
And no tags in the back.
It's a printed-on tag.
It's the QAnon Anonymous, you know, clothing company or whatever they call it.
Very weird, very surreal, and I am here for it, as the not-so-young kids say anymore.
Yeah, I don't think that, I don't think anyone says that anymore.
Oh dear.
That's okay.
So as we were saying, original designs, worldwide shipping is available, and if you're a Patreon supporter, we've sent out a code for a 10% discount.
Did you say worldwide shipping?
Shipping.
As in the t-shirts contain a RFID tag so that we can track their movements?
We're tracking people.
We're tracking you.
I mean, if you're wearing our t-shirts, you expect at least as much.
Mind control.
Good, good.
MKUltra, etc.
One last thing, tickets for our September 10th Eugene, Oregon date are still available at tour.QAnonAnonymous.com, so get them before they're gone.
Alright, on with the show.
Ron Watkins, Down Under.
A little more than a month ago, we covered the absence of Ron Watkins from his own congressional campaign trail in Arizona's 2nd District.
For those unfamiliar, Ron is the former administrator of 8chan, now renamed 8coon, and his father, Jim Watkins, is the owner of the image board.
They have at the very least supported and enabled the anonymous poster known as Q, if not outright created the majority of its output.
Now, after Q went quiet in the lead-up to January 6, 2021, Ron continued to spread conspiracy theories as a bogus election specialist on Twitter, Telegram, and in right-wing media.
Finally, he pivoted to politics and ran for Congress.
At first, Ron ran a relatively straightforward campaign, albeit packed, full of his usual bullshit claims.
But then, at some point in late June, rumors started surfacing that he had fled the country.
All through July, Ron posted old photos of himself on the campaign trail, skipped appearances, and had his campaign manager tell people that he had received death threats and gone into hiding.
However, Ron denied having left the country more than a month before the primary, which is Understandable for a congressional candidate who had to loan himself $90,000 and continued to raise money.
This lasted until August 2nd when he came in 7th and last place in his Republican congressional primary with only 3.8% of the vote.
A couple of weeks earlier, on July 22nd, he had pretended to attend an Arizona Trump rally, posting a scenic picture of the region and writing this.
Trump rally in Prescott Valley today.
If you see me, or anybody from our campaign, please say hi, and we will give you some cool campaign merch while supplies last.
If you can't make it to the rally, please support our campaign here.
God bless.
Ron was spotted there by nobody, of course, because he was long gone and just trying to squeeze some extra bucks and votes out of the rubes.
In fact, he frequently posted fundraising links to his telegram all throughout his absence, which may have had something to do with getting subpoenaed by the January 6th Committee in early June.
His reaction to their outreach was to tell them to quote, pound sand, and more crucially, he wrote this.
I am not hiding.
My campaign schedule is public.
Their incompetence is on display for all to see.
Please help support my campaign.
We need to raise $100,000 in the next 30 days to win this race.
Donate here.
So, to recap, Ron got subpoenaed by the January 6th committee, then posted a defiant message on June 8th, and then basically disappeared from the campaign trail for nearly two months, pretending he was still in Arizona while raising money.
During that time, Q returned from a year and a half of silence to post several times between June 24th and June 29th, denouncing the January 6th Committee in the process.
After his primary loss on August 2nd, we still had no information about Ron's whereabouts other than the rumor that he had left the country.
And then, on August 7th, we received a tip from one of our fine listeners.
Ron had been spotted in Sydney, Australia, and there was proof that he had been in the country as early as July 26th, about a week before the primary.
There was also some evidence, which we can't go into the details of, that Ron was planning to stay in Australia for a longer period than just a vacation.
Now, we decided to keep the source anonymous for many reasons, but broke the news on Twitter and shared the information with some journalists.
Soon after the articles started appearing, Ron deleted multiple Telegram posts referencing Australia.
All of them, in fact.
We know this because Haley from Arizona Right Wing Watch, AZ underscore RWW on Twitter, got screencaps of the posts and sent them to us.
So, for posterity, here are a few things he stated about Australia in late 2021.
Do not be complacent.
Australia is the canary in the coal mine.
Dear world, pay attention to Australia because they are testing grounds for what the elites are planning for you.
Australia needs help.
They have fallen into tyranny.
Let us stand together with our brothers and sisters in Australia.
They gave up their guns.
They don't have the freedom of speech.
They don't have the right to peacefully gather and protest.
What they have is God's good grace and the unflinching support of people from all around the world.
Also in response to an article about residents in the Northern Territories.
In Australia, the army is being used to take people to camps.
So Australia is scary but not as scary as a subpoena from the January 6th Committee apparently.
Then, on August 8th, Jim Watkins confirmed that his son Ron was in Australia on his Ahoy!
The Ship Show stream.
He appeared with Ron Watkins' campaign manager and two other flunkies, Dee Stevens and Kevin Laufe, aka Major Burdock.
Here's Stevens pulling up an article by Crikey, an Australian news outlet.
I did see this story.
Has Ron Watkins, who many believe is behind Q and Honor, moved to Australia?
Let's get the scoop on that one.
Crikey, man!
Crikey!
Looks like Arizona behind him.
Just saying.
Well, I don't think he's permanently moved to Australia, but he's in Australia right now.
Ah, okay.
Has he moved?
Yeah.
Some evidence suggesting he might be planning on making a permanent move.
Well, let's consider their, you know, look through their and what they're associating
in their article and then put, they're putting Ron Watkins' good name, congressional candidate,
all around all American guy in there with a bunch of like wacko stuff in the same story
to try to smear him.
So, you know, consider that before you take the article too seriously.
Oh, I'm not taking it serious at all.
Yeah.
But he is in Australia right now, and everyone knows he's had some serious death threats, and it's best for him to be there for right now.
Right.
Wow, that's gotta be a major burn, Julian, scrolling right by your tweet, not saying jack shit about you or the podcast.
Please, call me a homosexual again.
Say something about how I'm Travis View's boyfriend or something.
Goddammit.
It's right there!
It's right there for ya!
I have a feeling they didn't want to get into it again.
Yeah, probably a good idea.
I've become a bit of a thorn in Jim's side.
He's like, um, that one guy, Travis View, an all-around gentleman, we had exchanged a few words and clarified some things and I have no problem with Travis, but Julian, the homosexual, he is a different story.
I'm not sure why Travis, good guy like Travis, would be palling around with somebody named Julian, but stranger things have happened, I suppose.
I'd like to thank researcher 2022 underscore karma on Twitter for alerting us about this stream.
Meanwhile, Ron has gone quiet online.
His last Telegram post was on August 7th.
So, there you have it.
I don't know what else to say except, Ron, wherever you go, no matter how far you flee, my little birds will be there, ever watchful.
You'll find no respite, and there'll be no peace until you log off for good.
Enjoy Australia, buddy.
I have a feeling it won't be as bad as your depiction of it.
Well, yeah, until a giant huntsman spider crawls up his sleeping bag.
Then, you know, he might have some second thoughts.
But the huntsman doesn't, uh... It's just scary looking, but it doesn't hurt you.
Well, yeah, but they're scary looking.
That's the most important part.
I mean... Right.
Rarely, rarely does the fear of spider come from getting bitten.
Something horrible happens to you.
It's having it sneak up on you in your car or outside your sleeping bag or, you know, when you're helpless on the toilet or something like that, you know.
My worst nightmare is, like, you're putting on a shoe camping, and there's something in it.
I don't like that.
And I'm gonna admit, if I see a huntsman, like, crawling all over me, I'm gonna freak out.
It's not... I'm not down with that.
When I went to Israel, when I was a, like, a sophomore, maybe in high school, I did one of those, like, summer Israel exchange programs.
Canceled.
Like, through my shul.
You're done, dude.
You're fired.
We did a three-day camelback ride through the desert, and we camped out in the desert.
And one morning I woke up, and I was rolling up my sleeping bag.
And as I got to the very edge of it, it looked like a hand came out
from the edge of the sleeping bag.
And it was the legs of a huge desert spider, probably like the size of a small dinner plate,
that had been in my sleeping bag and crawled out as I was rolling it up.
So God knows how long it was in there with me.
I do, for those wondering, I know you're going to ask on Twitter.
I do not have any superpowers.
I was going to say, if you were in there, what does it like a fly, the fly machine?
It would have been fucking awesome if I woke up in that desert, like super cut, uh, you know, able to beat up the high school bullies.
What if you were the same?
That would have been amazing.
What if you were the same, but you had like thick horse-like hair everywhere?
That's more likely, I think.
No, no, no.
I'm on a cocktail of medications to get my hair to be as thick as a horsetail, okay?
Everywhere.
Everywhere on your body.
It's been working.
Not on the head, but on the nipples.
Not on the head, but not so much the head.
Each nipple, each looks like a burning bush.
Well, that's it for the little Ron segment.
Ron, I hope you're out there listening.
The Morolago Doorknob.
Well boys, I think it's finally happening.
It's happening!
The Cheeto, formerly in the White House, is going to prison.
Pretty sure.
We'll see.
Forever.
Maybe the electric chair even.
Maybe.
Maybe he'll get charged with treason.
On Monday, August 8th, FBI agents seized boxes of documents in a raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort.
Now, raid is apparently a dramatic term for what actually happened because the Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI officials showed up in like t-shirts and cargo pants and they were told not to take any weapons.
So it was a little more casual than the word raid implies.
Four men out of one car walked up to the door and said, hello, we'd like to see this room, please.
So these events were confirmed by Trump himself in the statement.
These are dark times for our nation, as my beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege.
Starring Steven Seagal, very popular movie.
I like Steven, he's a good guy, good patriot.
Raided and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.
After working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies, this unannounced raid on my home was not necessary or appropriate.
They even broke into my safe.
I can see them now busting in like bank robbers with George Soros masks on.
I saw a pretty funny tweet.
I mean, I'm sure it was like a, you know, ultra lib account, but it was like Baron barely looking up from Call of Duty Warzone, like, safes in the back.
I thought it was like, oh, that's pretty funny.
Because Baron wouldn't care.
He would be like, oh yeah, fucking get this guy out of my life.
He's also not in Mar-a-Lago.
He's in a boarding school where they turn you into a super soldier.
Yeah, he's in cryo-freeze right now.
Yep.
Adding a couple LBs.
God bless him.
He's in like, yeah, some region of Switzerland that doesn't show up on any radar and only rich people know about.
He's actually at the core of CERN, powering the entire thing with his brain.
So the written inventory of what the FBI took was released, and it said that they took about 20 boxes of items from the club, including photo binders, information about the president of France for some reason, and a variety of classified material.
Goddammit, he got the Macron nudes?
Yeah, he got a little crumpet on Macron.
Crumponaut.
It's like Compromat plus Croissant.
See, that's proof that Travis View is not in fact a Russian agent.
No, I have not pronounced that.
So, the most interesting item from the inventory for me was a leather-bound box of documents, specified leather-bound.
I would like to see the craftsmanship on this leather-bound box, personally.
Yes.
Also, wake me up when they find the fucking DVDs, the Epstein DVDs, and publish them, please.
Yeah, that leather-bound book was stolen.
It's known as the Necronomicon, and Donald Trump at some point tried to utter the magic spell to close the gate, and he fucked it up, and therefore, you know, evil spilled out into the world.
This is the first in handwritten edition of C-Spot Run!
These aren't the only boxes of materials of classified information that were retrieved from Mar-a-Lago.
This actually comes after the National Archives, which is charged with collecting and sorting material, said that at least 15 boxes of White House records were previously recovered at Mar-a-Lago, including some that were classified.
In early June, a handful of investigators made a rare visit to the property seeking more information about potentially classified material from Trump's time in the White House that had been taken to Florida.
They were also spotted in the hot tub.
That's the funniest part about Mar-a-Lago is that it's like a resort.
The Washington Post reported that among the items that the FBI agents were seeking are documents relating to nuclear weapons.
It's not yet known why the hell Trump would possibly have documents related to nuclear weapons.
Some people have pointed out that Michael Flynn wanted to, like, basically sell some sort of nuclear information to the Saudis or something.
So they're speculating it might be related to that.
That obviously has not been confirmed.
Yeah, I guess we'll find out.
The storm is here, boys.
The storm is here.
But not in the way that they wanted.
No, it's the blue storm.
Yeah, but that's the funniest thing about this whole thing is that, like, you know, in the early days of QAnon, when the media was all abuzz about Hillary Clinton's email server and stuff, all the talk was that Oh, she had classified documents on the server.
This was a core piece of QAnon's narrative in the early days when it was still kind of, you know, Tom Clancy-esque and espionage and, you know, it wasn't wrought with, you know, Christian dominionism and all that sort of thing.
And that was the thing.
They were like, this is what's going to take her down, is she was sharing secrets.
She had a back channel going to China.
Yeah, this is why Trump is focused on China, yada, yada, yada.
And then in the end, It turns out that he is the one who's getting busted for the classified documents, and not on email either.
He's old school.
He kept them in the leather-bound, you know, journal, the Necronomicon.
Yeah, the funny thing is that it's not Russia, it's Saudi Arabia, but hey.
It was a leather-bound box.
Oh!
Probably, like, coffee-stained and... Yeah.
Sticky from, like, Diet Coke syrup.
We'll tow any line, just give us two weeks at Mar-a-Lago with all the finest food, all the steaks, all the stuff.
So here's the really fun part, you know, because we all know the highest Department of Energy security clearance that allows one to access nuclear secrets, right?
It's Q clearance.
That's what Q came from.
Coincidentally.
Oh, no.
What are you inferring, Travis?
Are you saying Q is real?
No, I'm saying it's a funny coincidence, but some QAnon promoters did seize on this connection.
I saw one QAnon influencer on Telegram insinuate that the FBI was actually on the hunt for Q. Did somebody say nuclear documents?
What program are you required to be in if you have access to nuclear program documents?
What security clearance is required as a prereq for any such person?
The FBI was hunting for docs only a person with Q clearance would have?
Or were they hunting for evidence of the persons in question?
The search warrant was published by several news outlets, and it shows that Donald Trump is under investigation for potential obstruction of justice and violations of the Espionage Act.
Now, I'm told from some legal experts on Twitter that the Espionage Act is a pretty broad law about mishandling classified documents, not just about espionage and spying.
Always making things less exciting.
Yeah.
So I think it's worth noting that this is just one of a few investigations that Donald Trump is dealing with right now.
So he's facing a New York state investigation into his business practices for which he recently sat down for four hours of questioning.
He pleaded the 5th on every question except for when he was asked to state his name.
He's also facing a tax fraud case from the Manhattan District Attorney.
There's a case examining his potentially criminal 2020 election interference in Georgia.
And of course, the Justice Department's probe into January 6th.
So, he's got it coming from all angles right now.
I mean, here's the thing, man.
The world has been engrossed, just the news cycles have been Absolutely monopolized by Trump's legal drama since 2018.
Just endless about whether or not this guy, who obviously has contempt for the law, will ever sort of trip up and actually, you know, run into serious legal consequences.
And, I don't know, it feels like there's gotta come to a head eventually.
This can't just be life.
We just can't be in this purgatory in which we're eternally waiting for the shoe to drop.
Oh, Travis, I wish I could say that you were correct, sir, but we all know.
And look, I think it's looking increasingly more likely that Donald Trump is going to face some severe punishment, potentially.
For, uh, the things that he's done.
But, Julian, don't look at me like that.
But, even if he, let's say he gets indicted, he gets arrested, and he goes to jail, we will still be hearing about this motherfucker 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
People are gonna be like, oh, well Trump reports that Trump got two scoops of ice cream in his jailhouse cell while all the other inmates got one.
Or, you know, a letter intercepted from Donald Trump to Ivanka, sent from the jail, that seems to be plotting an escape.
We will never, we will never not have to hear about this guy in our lifetime.
And I personally, it's driving me crazy.
You cannot go, you cannot walk two or three steps if you are involved or care about politics in any way.
You cannot walk three steps without thinking about Donald Trump, without hearing about Donald Trump.
I'm sick of it.
I wish, I wish that he would get a nice hefty sentence.
He would get locked up and everybody would move on with their lives.
But we all know, boys, we all know that that's not going to happen.
We all know Donald Trump's gonna go out shanked by a card counter that he kicked out of a casino in 93.
And even then it'll be like, oh well the investigation and the casino documents from 1993 are brought into the case and it's just Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
It's just like... You're right.
He never should have been president.
He is the worst example of the kind of person who, you know, should be elected to lead the country.
You shouldn't compare him to any other, any kind of political leader because he never should have been there in the first place.
And yet, and yet, I think for the remainder of our lives, every single political action, political figure, whoever, is either going to be compared to Donald Trump or, you know, he will be referenced.
There will be a Twitter account, you know, The name of the Twitter account will be like, is Donald Trump in prison today?
And every day they'll tweet, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Is Donald Trump still in prison?
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
People are obsessed with this guy because I think personally that he represents all of the injustice in America.
All of the elite class being able to get away with whatever crimes they want or whatever, everything that's wrong with capitalism, everything that's wrong with this sort of exorbitant materialism is embodied in Donald Trump.
And so therefore, because he's already in the public eye, we can't forget about him.
It's much easier to focus on one guy as opposed to going like, okay, you know what?
This guy got what was coming to him.
He fucked up bad.
He deserves it.
He got punished.
Now let's like move on with the world.
No, because even if he gets punished, he'll still embody our age better than anybody else.
He's still better main character material than anybody before or after him so far.
And he's won in that way.
Yeah, not everybody might be talking about him in a favorable or unfavorable light.
But he will always be a part of the conversation.
Forever.
This little, this little, you know, glob of a man is the eye of the tornado of all discussions of politics and America and yadda yadda yadda.
And it sucks.
It sucks for us.
I wish I could live a life where I didn't have to hear about this guy 24-7.
But am I off base here, guys?
No, you're not off base.
Am I the only one that is just so exhausted of having to hear about... I just feel nothing.
You feel nothing.
I'm numb.
I don't care.
I agree.
I'm indifferent.
I'm not going to feel celebratory if he actually does face serious consequences, and I won't feel...
Despairing if he slips out of the clutches of justice yet again and like lives to shitpost another day.
I don't care anymore.
Well, you guys are living optimally because the goal of a comfortable living is, you know, the highs are not so high and the lows are not so low.
So if you're already embodying that, then like, man, God bless you.
Like, that's the way, that's the easiest way to be.
I'm just not there yet.
Travis and I are coated in a duck-like oil and all this is just sliding right off our backs.
It's like the exhibit line, let the shit slide off you, homie.
If you shake the shit off, you don't know where it's gonna land.
It could land on your food, it could land on your car.
Let the shit slide off of you.
Okay, why is there shit on you?
I think it's a metaphor.
Okay.
I think the shit is not real.
You know, it's, you know, life slings and arrows.
I did notice you were covered in shit coming in.
Is that why you asked me to take my shoes off?
Has to take a shower, but the shoes will do.
Now, the FBI targeting Trump in such a manner obviously contradicts the broad QAnon narrative, which states that it's actually Trump's enemies who will face the wrath of federal law enforcement and or the military.
So how have QAnon followers and the broader right been coping with these recent events?
One popular reaction to the news from QAnon promoters was that this was all part of the plan.
Trump is leading the deep state into a trap.
For example, here's how the events were reported on the QAnon Show X-22 report.
Think about why Trump would want the deep state players to go down this path.
Think about what this exposes.
Think about what can be produced, what can be entered into evidence legally.
Think about what the deep state did out of panic and fear.
They played their hand and now it's going to backfire on them.
It already is backfiring on them.
How do you get the deep state players, the stupid people who are panicking, who are afraid, how do you get them to do certain things?
Don't you need bait?
Who's the bait?
It's Trump.
If you notice, he is the one standing out there.
He is the one that they're going after.
He's the bait.
So everything that you're witnessing, everything that you're seeing is exactly What the military, what Trump wants them to do.
He wants them to come after him.
Because what they're going to find is absolutely nothing, but at each phase, he traps them in their stupidity.
It does not sound like they are trapped!
It also, like, bait?
I thought he was the mastermind, and now he's the goat tied to the post?
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, this is same old, same old from QAnon, right?
Anything bad that happens to Trump, it's like, he wanted it to happen.
Don't you understand?
This was all part of the plan.
He needed the FBI to come there so they could steal the documents.
And then, you know, he could say, look, here's Hillary Clinton, actually, in the dye.
The nuclear codes that you thought I stole, she He stole, actually.
Her name's all over him.
That's why I kept him in my safe, to keep them nice for you.
It's all just nuclear secrets, and then child pornography slipped in, so now the FBI is gonna be arrested for CP.
Oh, that would be ultimate.
If all of his hard drives just contained, like, a ton of CP on it, and the FBI went through it, and they all became criminals, you know, just by opening the computer.
Pretty genius.
Sounds like something Trump might concoct.
That's some 5D thinking.
I actually saw a lot of QAnon followers claim that it would all be part of the plan even if Trump is arrested.
They kept thinking that they were quoting Q by saying, the first arrest will shock the world.
You see this phrase over and over again in sort of the QAnon community, but Q didn't technically say that.
They're conflating two different QDrops.
One said, the first arrest will verify action and confirm future direction.
And there was a different QDrop that said, the truth will shock the world.
But still, there's some QAnon followers who are convinced that, like, nothing bad happens to Trump.
So even if it looks like something bad is happening, it's actually good.
Sure, they think that he's gonna be like, you know, the Irishman, you know, once he gets arrested and he's in, like, the big jail cell, like, drinking the good grape juice and eating the good bread.
Oh, Trump is being hung on the Washington Mall currently.
Yeah, you think this isn't part of his plan?
They're gonna be like, oh no, you don't understand, like he had to go to prison so that he could control the military from within the prison.
That way nobody will suspect him.
It's never gonna end.
You know what?
I'll tell you something.
To continue my rant from earlier, I'm sick of these people too.
It's the same shit over and over and over again.
It's like I'm rubber, you're glue.
Anything bad that happens to me is actually not true and good for me and bad for you.
It's just like a childhood game that you can't argue against.
How do you combat an ideology that's main sort of principle is like anything that looks bad is actually really good and good for us and we win.
It's called a Protestant attitude.
I mean, the best part is that this probably won't end even after he dies.
They're gonna say he faked his death, and then they're gonna say, I saw Trump, and he spoke to me, and these are my words, and I am Trump's prophet now, and it's just gonna go on forever.
Yes!
He'll be the new JFK Jr.
Trump is like the kind of troll who'll be like, yeah, when I die, have them put a big golden Q on the casket so when they bury me, we'll get an aerial shot from the drone and everybody can see the Q sort of going down into the thing.
You know, it's like, they'll still, he will be, they've chosen him.
And when you spend, you know, four years, five years, seven years, you know, essentially convincing yourself that like, this guy is the solution.
that he's gonna save you from whatever, I don't know, unfavorable situation you're in
or whatever you don't like about the country or the, you know, the cultural politics of the country.
Like, to all of a sudden be like, "Actually, like, he's the guy slinging them nuclear secrets? Like,
I'm out."
When Trump dies, they're gonna put his casket in the MoMA with the Marcel Duchamp
toilet piece on top, except everyone's allowed to piss in it.
And it's gonna be the most breakthrough piece of contemporary art of our age.
We're gonna be hearing about this guy forever.
I just know it.
It's gonna be, oh my god.
When I'm on my spaceship, when I'm on my spaceship heading to Mars, you know, to go spend my dogecoin, you know, at the Martian Cafe, or whatever, I'm gonna have to look up on the fucking LCD monitors in the tram, in the space tram, and it's gonna be like, news about ex-president Donald Trump.
Another crime he committed that we just uncovered 40 years after his death.
Yeah, he's going to be like Jimmy Savile, like it's going to be, oh, we got him now that he's dead.
Now, this raid on Mar-a-Lago seems to contradict the devolution theory.
This is a popular theory within QAnon, most notably promoted by Patel Patriot, which claims that actually Trump is still secretly in charge of the government and Joe Biden is just a temporary figurehead.
Another popular QAnon video maker named Christian Patriot News claimed that Remember, we said Trump is operating the military behind the scenes.
Think the theory of devolution.
it sets the precedent for allowing raids on the homes of other former presidents.
[clip]
Remember we said Trump is operating the military behind the scenes.
Think the theory of devolution.
People say, "Well, wait a minute.
If Trump's in charge, how is that the DOJ would be able to raid his house?"
Well, the military is separate from the DOJ.
The military is the military.
The DOJ is the Department of Justice.
It is not a branch of the military.
We can trust the U.S.
military.
The jury's still out on the FBI.
Now, I realize most people hearing my voice right now, you think the FBI is completely corrupt, but sometimes things that seem really devastating at the time that they happen are really just part of the plan.
Think Boomerang.
If they were able to raid our favorite president's home, this sets the president for being able to raid other former president's residents.
It's like they're almost there in that, like, yes, no politician, no matter who they are, no matter how wealthy or powerful they are, should be above the law.
It's like they're almost there, but they do a fucking weird, like, 90-degree turn, you know, away from their proper exit to get to the point that, like, oh, well, this is happening to expose the other guys, not because our guy did anything wrong.
Think Boomerang.
I made a point, and then it came back to knock me out.
Another theory promoted was that the raid was conducted because Trump knows all about the satanic pedophiles.
This view was expressed by Anna Perez on Steve Bannon's network Real America's Voice.
And he knows that, and he even said it himself, he was basically supporting QAnon by saying, hey, I hear they're against pedophiles, so am I. Because he knows, and that was another hint he was dropping to us.
A lot of people are saying, yeah, we knew that, those parts, but guess what?
This is all part of the puzzle that I'm trying to put together here.
Which is that the deep state, you know, ultimately this past raid of Mar-a-Lago, it's a threat.
Right.
It's a threat because they don't want him to expose the pedophiles that he knows about.
Right.
And that's what impeachment was about, that's what the Russia hoax was about, that's what every single, that's what January 6th was about, that's why they planted all those people from the FBI there.
That's right.
Because they wanted to make Trump look like he's some domestic terrorist, like he's some insurrectionist.
Right.
It was a threat.
It was a threat from the deep state.
They're coming after him, and it's because they don't want him to expose the pedophiles.
And you know what?
He hasn't really yet.
He hasn't.
He's dropped hints, but he hasn't fully exposed them yet.
What will be interesting is to see if in 2024, if he runs again, or even if he doesn't run again, if he does decide to do that.
Oh my gosh, the other host sounds like a, you know, kind of a concerned mother who's, you know, coddling her child in the midst of a tantrum.
Yeah, well, I know.
And well, yeah, that's right.
That's right, sweetheart.
Yeah, it's going to be OK.
So, I mean, the theory that was that Trump knows all about the pedophiles who are high in government, but he's just keeping that in his back pocket for 2024, allowing these pedophiles to do Yeah, if Trump was really playing 5D chess, he would have faked like he had stolen the nuclear documents, right?
But what's really in the safe, what's really in the leather-bound box is actually all of the DVDs from Epstein's apartment and shit.
The FBI, oh well they have to log it into evidence now and now it's part, like that would be the real, you know, that would be the real move.
But look, can I just say to everybody who's listening and everybody who's not, your politicians, your politicians, nobody's dropping hints to you.
Nobody's hinting at anything.
If they've got something to tell you, they're gonna tell you.
They think that we're too stupid to pick up on hints.
The only hint is send me 20 bucks.
Yeah, yeah, and that's not even a hint, it's a fucking email with big black letters saying we need you now.
It's a text message to your phone from an unrecognized number that says, hey, give us your cash.
Nobody is hinting.
There's no hinting going on.
There's no hinting to be decoded, okay?
They're either telling you what's happening or they're telling you a lie.
It's one of the two.
He's foaming at the mouth.
I think he's rabid.
Somebody cut my mic today.
Somebody cut it.
I've had it up to here.
The reaction on big MAGA forums was more bellicose.
On the forum The Donald, one top upvoted reaction simply said, lock and load.
And reaction to that post asks, are we not in a cold civil war at this point?
As Ben Collins of NBC News reported, that question about a civil war was posted by a user named BananaGuard62, Whose real name is Tyler Welsh Slaker, a Washington state man awaiting sentencing for storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
So we have, you know, still insurrectionists who are still posting about how angry they are and wanted to, you know, do a civil war.
Look, you know, if Donald Trump goes to jail, but he's still in power and it's all part of a secret plan, then you know what?
Me, as an insurrectionist, can also go to jail and still be part of a secret plan and still assume all of my power.
It's, you know, hey, that's a good narrative that jail is actually a good thing and all part of the plan.
And if I get into jail, you know, I can coordinate with the other Arkham inmates and, you know, stage, you know, some kind of breakout and then a takeover or whatever.
Good stuff.
Good, good, good.
Very good.
All good.
The mainstream Republican reaction to the FBI raid was also pretty hyperbolic.
Senator Rick Scott compared the government's actions to Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
This should scare the living daylights out of American citizens and say we have got to change our federal government.
The way our federal government has gone, it's like what we thought about the Gestapo and
people like that, that they just go after people.
What we thought about Soviet Union, what we look at Latin America, we have got to say
to ourselves, this cannot be our country.
We have got to say, we're a country of laws, not of people that are attacking their political
opponent and get away with it.
This chattering skull is right.
What are you talking about?
You do something, you do something elite.
This is exactly the kind of country that you want, that if somebody does something that's against the law, no matter who they are, they're going to get investigated.
It happened with Clinton, as much as I'm no Hillary Clinton fan, but you know what?
She was subjected to fucking investigations for God knows how many hours, and a new investigation broke days before I guess.
I would like to taste this Hillary Clinton flan.
as it's supposed to. You think somebody did a crime, you get investigated. If there's something there, maybe, you
know, you go further. If not, nothing happens, you know? I don't understand.
I would like to taste this Hillary Clinton flan.
It's okay. It's a little runny.
Caramel sauce?
Eh, whipped cream.
I know it's useless to point out hypocrisy, but Trump's like main pitch, one of his main pitches that if elected, I will throw my political opponent in prison.
That's like something he talked about A lot.
And his supporters really, really wanted.
True.
Charlie Kirk of the conservative student organization Turning Point USA called upon state attorney generals to launch their own raids against leftist or liberal organizations in retaliation.
Raids must be met with raids.
State Attorney Generals that are Republican have to authorize raids against Soros Groups, BLM, Planned Parenthood, the Alphabet Mafia, groomers, chemical castration of children now.
Here's why.
A hundred facilities should be raided by the next week.
Find them.
You're trying to tell me there's not a hundred criminal organizations that are aiding and abetting people across the southern border?
La Raza, we know them.
They publicized it.
I'm not saying you have to arrest them.
Just raid them.
Find out what you find.
Why?
I don't think you need to convince the left to hate the FBI.
Yeah.
I think we got you on that, man.
I know!
You read Trump now they're coming after us.
Good.
Now you know there's a price to this.
I don't think you need to convince the left to hate the FBI.
Yeah.
I think we got you on that, man.
I know.
Like, yeah, how would you like it if the FBI targeted the left, huh?
Wow.
How could you imagine a world in which such a thing happened?
That would be so crazy.
I would be like, you know what?
I'm voting for Trump.
A common refrain across the right-wing media ecosystem was a variation of, if they can do this to Trump, imagine what they can do to you.
For example, this is what Donald Trump's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, said on Fox News.
Think about this.
If this is what they're able to do to the former president of the United States, think about what they could do to you, to anybody in America.
We all experience this every day, you fucking dork.
I got a fucking boot on my car twice for not paying parking tickets, okay?
They will come after us for much, much, much less.
Yeah, I don't think that convincing poor people that law enforcement targets them is some sort of new idea.
You know, I mean, but this reminds me of that meme you sometimes see going around.
It shows Donald Trump, you know, sort of darkly lit and says like, really, they're not after me.
They're after you.
I'm just in the way.
There's this vision of like Donald Trump as this kind of like Avatar of this guy who's sort of like, you know, the only thing standing between, you know, the good America loving patriots and the deep state.
Yeah.
As if Donald Trump has anything in common whatsoever with the working class of America.
But man, that's how they see him.
They see him as like, that's like, that's our guy in power.
There's like all, yeah, I mean, yes, he's a New York native born into wealth and he lives in the Golden Tower, but really, He's on our side.
Look, Travis, look, he talks about women disgustingly.
I, too, talk about women in a disgusting way, OK?
We're very similar, the two of us.
You do?
No, not me.
I'm playing the part of a, you know, oh boy.
Canceled.
Done.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene responded to the news by tweeting an image of an upside down American flag and declaring, defund the FBI.
Clearly Satanism.
On Instagram, Green even promoted merch that says defund the FBI.
Now, that is America working again.
Yes.
There we go.
Merch.
Merch, defund FBI.
All good.
Defund Marjorie Taylor Greene defunding the FBI.
And we sell you that t-shirt.
We can do this, boys.
Yeah, we just launched our new merch shop.
That's going to be a new tee coming from us.
The raid on Mar-a-Lago appears to have radicalized at least one man to violence.
On the morning of August 11th, a man named Ricky Schiffer, armed with an AR-15 style rifle, got inside an FBI Cincinnati building, fired a nail gun, and then fled in a car.
Shortly afterwards, Ricky Schiffer exchanged gunfire with the Ohio State Highway Patrol, which left him dead.
It was later reported that Ricky Schiffer was at the Capitol on January 6th.
Now, after the suspect's name was announced, I checked on Truth Social to see if he had an account, and sure enough, he had one that had about 30 followers.
And that account was full of violent rhetoric, a lot of transphobic rhetoric, and other assorted red flags.
He apparently bought into the groomer panic, but he was sent over the edge by the feds raiding the Trump property.
This is what he posted on the day that the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.
People, this is it.
I hope a call to arms comes from someone better qualified, but if not, this is your call to arms from me.
Leave work tomorrow as as soon as the gun shop slash army navy store slash pawn shop opens.
Get whatever you need to be ready for combat.
We must not tolerate this one.
They have been conditioning us to accept tyranny and think we can't do anything for two years.
This time we must respond with force.
If you know of any protests or attacks, please post here.
Jesus Christ.
If you know of any attacks, I'd love to attend one!
Hey guys, when's a cool attack going around?
Don't leave me out.
I'm up for any attacks.
You guys know what's popping off.
It's really sad.
It's like he obviously was trying to organize something with other people, but he went it alone.
Now, what's interesting is that in a follow-up post, he makes it clear that he wants to target the feds and not civilians.
He specifically mentions leftists and transsexuals as the kind of people he doesn't want to target.
So, in response to someone else asking, are you proposing terrorism?
Ricky Schiffer doesn't say no, but instead says this.
Very important question.
No, I am proposing war.
Be ready to kill the enemy, not mass shootings where leftists go, not lighting buses on fire with transsexuals in them, not finding people with leftist signs in their yards and beating them up.
Violence is not all terrorism.
Kill the FBI on sight and be ready to take down other active enemies of the people and those who try to prevent you from doing it.
Note to FBI agents listening, I am reading a quote.
I am not calling for the actual murder of FBI agents.
Yeah.
Now, it seems like kind of strange that he would specifically state that people shouldn't set fire to bus fulls of transsexuals, but I suspect that this comment was made in dialogue regarding extremist tactics, like either in dialogue With other extremists or within himself.
Like, at some point he considered whether or not it was tactically useful to commit mass murder against leftists and or transsexuals and decided against it.
Which is, I mean, it's still kind of disturbing because, like, it seems like he was considering, like, well, should I just, you know, find a house with a BLM sign in front of it and just beat the shit over whoever happens to live there?
Or should I limit my extremist leanings towards the feds?
Entirely unhinged.
I will say, though, never do terrorism under any circumstances.
But if you have to, if you absolutely have to, and nothing anybody says could possibly talk you out of it, it's really best to only do it towards armed agents of the state and not civilians.
Again, you shouldn't do it, but if you gotta, that's really the only ethical way to go.
Uh-huh.
And there you have it.
That is my 5D move for the day.
Travis wrote this episode trying to get me to cancel myself, and I have tricked him into canceling himself.
Folks, we got him.
He's done.
We got him.
That's it.
Wrap it up.
Show's over, babe.
The Truman Show style.
The set collapses around Travis.
Yeah, I walk out and I'm just in a weird glass dome with cameras all around and NPCs that I thought were my friends and family all of a sudden running into their houses and locking their doors.
Another post from that account revealed that Ricky Schiffer was actually against QAnon.
That post says, "Q may have been a cult type. It seems more like a disinformation to keep the
dumber patriots thinking the good guys had already won."
Now, this is interesting because this is actually something we often see from like far-right extremists
who actually take that extra step and commit real violence.
They're usually either not in the QAnon or they're explicitly anti-QAnon.
Now, there have been instances of QAnon followers either committing or planning violence.
There's Matthew Wright, Anthony Comello.
Of course, QAnon followers were a big part of the mob that attacked the Capitol on January 6th, but generally the people who pick up guns and commit terrorist acts that kill multiple people are usually more of like the white nationalist variety.
Ricky Schiffer's final post occurred on the morning of the shooting, and it reveals why exactly he fired a nail gun despite being armed with a rifle.
The first sentence of his final post says this, Well, I thought I had a way through the bulletproof glass, and I didn't.
Jesus Christ.
So, it appears that he believed, for some reason, that the nail gun could penetrate the bulletproof glass, and he was mistaken.
And after he realized his mistake, he fled the scene, and then made one final post on True Social.
Now, imagine, for a moment, attempting a one-man assault on the United States federal government, and then pausing To get out your phone and then make a post updating your 30-some-odd followers about how it's going.
Yep.
Yeah, I can imagine it.
That is where we're at.
Now, out of curiosity, I searched on YouTube to see if a nail gun could beat bulletproof glass.
And there was one video which showed a nail penetrating the glass, but not all the way through.
And it kind of left the nail sticking out and didn't, like, shatter the bulletproof glass or anything.
So he did not do his research on this one.
Just convince the FBI to put their ear up to the glass to listen outside.
And then, you know, you know what's next.
Ricky Schiffer's final post went on to say this.
If you didn't hear from me, it is true I tried attacking the FBI and it'll mean either I was
taken off the internet, the FBI got me, or they sent the regular cops while.
So it just ends abruptly with that, just while.
So I suppose I can't blame him for not finishing his sentence.
His adrenaline was pumping and he was being pursued by multiple law enforcement agencies at the time.
I feel like we can't keep counting on MAGA extremists being this incompetent forever.
Eventually they're going to get organized and be more effective.
Yeah, they won't be like, tell me if you hear of any attacks organized near me, because I don't want to travel too far.
They'll be like, well, now we know that a nail gun doesn't penetrate bulletproof glass, so we're going to have to rethink the strategy.
Ricky died so that we could learn better how to penetrate the bulletproof glass.
Let's mass buy Desert Eagles next time.
The Rise of Dark Brandon.
So before we go today, I want to talk about the mainstreaming of the Dark Brandon So, if you haven't seen this one, these memes depict President Biden as a menacing figure, perhaps with glowing eyes or an eye patch.
While these memes were once posted in leftist or liberal circles, ironically or semi-ironically, dark-branded memes were recently posted by members of the White House and Congress.
For example, on August 7th, the White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates posted a meme of Biden with glowing red eyes and the text, Your malarkey has been going on for long enough, kiddo.
Rob Flatterty, the White House Director of Digital Strategy, also posted a meme of Biden with glowing red eyes.
So this was in response, these memes were posted in response to the successful passage of the Inflation Reduction Act or the IRA, which is like a $700 billion package that attempts to address inflation by lowering energy and health care costs and reducing the deficit.
A lot of climate change wonks also celebrate the bill for its green energy incentives.
So, the fact that the meme reached this level is... I mean, the meme itself is interesting because it's sort of like a recombination and re-appropriation of several different memes.
The first of which, of course, is the chant, Let's Go Brandon.
That started when a NASCAR reporter claimed that a crowd at the Talladega Super Speedway has started chanting that in October, supposedly in support
of driver Brandon Brown, when in fact they were just yelling, "Fuck Joe Biden." And so "Let's go,
Brandon" became a starki way for conservatives to say, "Fuck Joe Biden." The other element
is the glowing eyes or the laser eye memes in which people sort of Photoshop a red or orange glow in
their eyes in order to depict themselves growing supernatural power. This is still very popular in
sort of like Bitcoin circles.
You see a lot of crypto weirdos with themselves with glowing eyes.
And of course, the other element is dark MAGA, in which Trump supporters imagined a authoritarian Trump who mercilessly destroys his enemies.
And so some of the more online leftists mixed up these free-floating meme components to create dark Brandon, and sometimes they ironically depicted Joe Biden as a kind of like Marxist revolutionary.
For example, I have one here which has Joe Biden in front of a hammer and sickle and a globe holding an AK-47, and it says, Join me in the resistance.
Together we can kill God and end liberal malarkey.
Yes.
Yes, yes, yes.
Other times, Dark Brandon is depicted as some sort of cult leader.
For example, there's another photograph here of Joe Biden enthusiastically flipping some burgers.
The text says, POV, you are being ritualistically sacrificed by Dark Brandon as a crowd of acolytes shrieks in ecstasy.
Yeah, I mean, I think what's funny about it for the left is the idea that an entirely kind of incompetent and incoherent man who's able to achieve very little is actually secretly, you know, this dark, powerful force, which is essentially a mockery of QAnon and MAGA people believing that their guy is, you know, a highly able 5D chess player.
Obviously, it's a parody.
It's supposed to be silly.
Yeah, it's not posted like the dark MAGA stuff where they're pretty serious.
They actually want these things and they think it's possible they'll get them.
One of the most popular images of dark Brandon is actually an illustration of Joe Biden sitting on a throne of assault weapons.
And this is comes from a like a Chinese propagandist who was trying to depict him as like evil.
But the problem is that he was just so cool.
That was just sort of like, reappropriated to like, make him look awesome.
Apparently, the Chinese caption on this illustration says, The Sleeping King ascends the throne, the devil is resurrected.
Yeah.
So this is just a weird thing, but it's like you say, well, you know, he's not, I mean, the White House basically, and I think it was at least one Congress member, unironically posted dark-brained memes after the successful passage of this act.
Then some other people sort of used dark-brained memes to talk about, was it the CIA assassination of an Al-Qaeda leader?
And of course, the raid on Mar-a-Lago, because now, sort of a semi-ironic sort of imagination, Biden is now punishing his political enemies.
It's interesting because essentially the mockery of him as someone incapable of getting anything done was taken by liberals and establishment people and they are so desperate to portray him as someone who could get something done that they will put this to any kind of minor accomplishment or change.
The IRA is a fairly major legislation, so this is why they're sort of, like, attributing the success to him.
Yes.
Is it dark Brandon level?
Are his eyes glowing and he's changing everything and things are, this is a revolution?
I don't, I don't think so.
I think, I think that that's what's funny is that they, for them, this is him going super saiyan.
Which is...
So sad.
Right, which is, you know, passing legislation.
Well, and look, like, you know, with all good memes, it starts out ironically, and then over time, the more you post it, it becomes, you know, you are posting it in earnest.
Yeah.
And Pepe was like that.
It was like, sad Pepe was an ironic meme.
And then it was like, actually started to represent the sadness that the image board users felt inside themselves.
I think the next stage would be the Federalist Society declaring dark Brandon a hate symbol.
And being like, this is, they are threatening a communist takeover through this cartoon Biden.
This is just essentially people being like, the storm is here, the rain is falling, and all they're feeling is like that one sluice of water that Immortan Joe had like opens from the top of his castle.
And they're like, I'm wet.
This must mean the storm is here.
And then it's like drying up and you're like, that's it?
I will say, though, that with, you know, as more news comes out about the sort of FBI seizure of the documents at Mar-a-Lago, The more it seems like there is a sliver of waterfall from a Morton Joe, the more I'm like, hell yeah, I'm ready to go full Blueanon, you know?
It's like, with the promise of some kind of sliver of justice in some Some way.
But that justice will only serve as consolidation to power for the very mechanism that causes endemic injustice.
So it's actually just reinforcing itself.
But it will lead to a new spectacle.
It will lead to the end of the old spectacle and into a new one.
And you know what?
I'm willing to settle for that.
Yes, it's an encore, it's the introduction to a new act, and we'll find new and grotesque ways to entertain ourselves.
Yeah, new recurring characters, new locations, you know, maybe a little bit bigger budget.
You know, the J6 committee had a much better structure and budget than the Mueller report.
You know, season two was much better.
I mean, maybe season three, though, they'll really get things going, you know?
Absolutely.
I can't wait for the updated pyrotechnics on the Titanic as it goes down.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
You can go to patreon.com slash QAnon Anonymous and subscribe for five bucks a month to get a whole second episode every single week, plus access to our entire archive of premium episodes and ongoing podcast series like Trickle Down.
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And head to merch.qanonanonymous.com for all the new merch.
Check it out, folks.
Yes, and I will be, I have an appointment with the optometrist, so I will be getting some cyber advancements into my optical sockets, so when you see us on tour, I will actually have lasers coming out of my eyes.
Dark Jake?
Dark Rakitansky will rise.
Okay.
Listener, until next week, may the Deep Dish bless you and keep you.
It's not a conspiracy.
It's a fact.
And now, today's Auto-Tune.
The dark Brandon rises.
Alright, so look at this eagle behind him.
Now, I did a show with Heather Mays.
Very, very amazing woman.
Channels information.
Channeling information about what's going to be happening.
She channeled information about what's going to be happening this month.
And there was an eagle.
There was an eagle involved.
So, what does the symbol of an eagle represent to America?
Freedom, right?
They took that... she is an animal whisperer.
Very sweet and she does collages of people's energy fields, their soul.
Absolutely nothing wrong with this woman.
Absolutely beautiful soul and they took our show down.
