'This movement is bigger': Inside QAnon's insidious plan to transform from 'crazy cult people' to school board members
Since former President Donald Trump's election loss, QAnon believers have been working around the clock to incorporate new ways get their message across.
According to NBC News, their latest plan involves infiltrating schools by way of the school boards. The publication recently highlighted details from Drake Wuertz's appearance at the Seminole County School Board. In a video posted to the school district's YouTube account, Wuertz expressed concern about the possibility of children being exposed to "systemic abuse."
"They're being carried away through our education system, through the woke ideology that's infiltrated professional sports, through the sexual grooming and pedophilia that's apparent in the entertainment industry," Wuertz said. "We need to run for precinct committees, we need to run for City Council, run for school board and primary the RINOs in this room," he said, using the RINO acronym which stands for Republicans in Name Only.
Stil, Wuertz has made attempts to publicly distance himself from what he describes as "Q theories."
"I can tell you that I 100 percent don't subscribe to Q theories. Q theories hurt the mission of fighting sex trafficking and bring negative attention," Wuertz said.
The publication notes that many QAnon believers are taking the same course of action publicly. As they position themselves to run for public office, they are speaking less about the movement publicly. Mike Rothschild, author of "The Storm Is Upon Us: How QAnon Became a Movement, Cult, and Conspiracy," weighed in on how QAnon believers are flipping the perspective of their movement.
"If you identify as QAnon, people look at you like you're crazy. But if you passionately talk about how we need to be saving children and protecting them from trafficking, then you come off as a compassionate person who really cares about the welfare of children," Rothschild said. "You're no longer one of those crazy cult people who thinks Hillary Clinton is trafficking kids in a tunnel under Central Park."
Since Trump's election loss, Rothchild explained how QAnon believers are making impromptu changes.
He later added, "QAnon traditionally was top-down. It was, at its heart, Donald Trump tweeting, 'My fellow Americans, The Storm is upon us,' followed by hundreds of thousands of arrests. They know now that's not happening," Rothschild said. "The prophecy around which QAnon was built is now done, but this movement now is bigger and stronger and more vocal than ever. So rather than just abandon it, they are changing it. They're rewriting it on the fly. And now it's really coming from the bottom up."
