Reprinted with permission from Alternet

When NBC's Savannah Guthrie pressed then-President Donald Trump about the extremist QAnon cult during a 2020 town hall, he was evasive — claiming, "I know nothing about QAnon…. I do know that they are very much against pedophilia." Trump obviously didn't want to offend the conspiracist movement that passionately supports him. And now, according to Vice News reporter Cameron Joseph, Trump is openly promoting QAnon candidates.

Two of the far-right pro-Trump QAnon supporters who were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2020 were Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado. But there are even more QAnon candidates with their eyes on the 2021 and 2022 elections, and according to Joseph, Trump is supporting some of them.Media Matters President Angelo Carusone told Vice, "You've had an increase in QAnon-believing candidates out there, coupled with Trump echoing and validating a lot of the sentiments."

QAnon believes that the federal government of the United States has been infiltrated by an international cabal of child sex traffickers, pedophiles, Satanists and cannibals with the help of billionaire George Soros and other prominent Democrats — and Trump, according to QAnon, was elected president in 2016 to fight the cabal. But as ludicrous as QAnon's beliefs are, they have found a home in the GOP and the MAGA movement. And QAnon's participation in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building shows that the movement is quite capable of violence.

Joseph notes that Media Matters has "identified 45 people already running for Congress who've promoted QAnon theories, as well as eight gubernatorial candidates and many more legislative candidates.""Most are fringe candidates who won't win their primaries, much less their elections," Joseph observes. "But the sheer number shows how deeply QAnon has sunk its teeth into the GOP."

The QAnon supporters Trump has endorsed, according to Joseph, include Arizona State Rep. Mark Finchem and Kristina Karamo, who is running for Michigan secretary of state. Both of them are among the scheduled speakers for a QAnon conference in Las Vegas calling itself "For God & Country: Patriot, Double Down."

The Las Vegas event where Finchem and Karamo will be speaking will, according to Joseph, feature "a who's who of QAnon influencers."