Are the conspiracy theories now officially entering US politics?
The website operator Ron Watkins, 34, who is linked to the right-wing extremist conspiracy movement QAnon, has announced his candidacy for Congress. In the elections for the House of Representatives in Arizona next year, he wants to run for the Republican Party, Watkins said on Thursday (local time) on the Telegram messenger service.
The parliamentary seat he wants to apply for is currently held by a Democrat politician from President Joe Biden (78).
Watkins is an ardent supporter of former President Donald Trump. “President Trump’s election was stolen – not just in Arizona, but in other states as well,” he told Telegram.
He continued: “We have to take this fight to Washington, DC to vote out all of the filthy Democrats who stole our republic.”
Trump has not recognized his electoral defeat by Biden in the presidential election to this day. The 75-year-old continues to spread the claim that he was deprived of a second term through massive electoral fraud. The 45th Commander-in-Chief of the USA, who is still very popular with his party base, repeatedly and publicly flirts with a third attempt at the White House in the 2024 election.
Watkins and his father Jim became known on the Internet as operators of the image board “8chan” and its successor “8kun”. Since 2017, bizarre conspiracy theories have been spread in the forums under the pseudonym “Q”. In the meantime, the so-called QAnon movement has developed from this, which has hundreds of thousands of followers in the USA.
The US Federal FBI said last year that it was monitoring QAnon as one of several potentially dangerous fringe right-wing groups.