QAnon Is Going After Members of Congress Now – By Aaron Mak (Salon) / Oct 1 2020
“It’s not every day,” says Rep. Tom Malinowski, “that the fake and likely nonexistent guru of a conspiracy-mongering cult personally attacks you.”
On Tuesday, followers of QAnon sent a barrage of death threats and hatred to Democratic New Jersey Rep. Tom Malinowski and his family after their leader, the anonymous figure Q, attacked the congressman in one of their missives. QAnon is a conspiracy theory with a huge following that contends that a powerful syndicate of pedophiles controls the world’s major institutions and is trying to bring down President Donald Trump. Dozens of candidates for state legislatures and the House and Senate this election cycle have given credence to QAnon, and Trump himself has praised its supporters. Republican House candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene, who’s endorsed QAnon in the past before distancing herself from it somewhat, is almost certain to win the seat for Georgia’s 14th District.
Q targeted Malinowski partly due to a House resolution he co-authored that would formally condemn QAnon. The post, or “drop,” on the imageboard 8kun included a screenshot of the resolution along with a press release from the National Republican Congressional Committee falsely alleging that Malinowski “lobbied to protect sexual predators.”* (This claim has been roundly debunked by local and national media outlets, though the NRCC has declined to back down even after Malinowski was threatened.) BuzzFeed News was the first to report the threats, one of which Malinowski received via voicemail: “If you’re not rotting in a prison cell somewhere, you’ll never be safe on the streets, mark my words. You will have a target on your ass for the rest of your life and there’s nothing you can do about it. Fuck you, die, rot in hell. We cannot wait to destroy you. Fuck you and your families. Fuck you.”
I spoke with Malinowski to get a sense for how he has been handling the threats, what he plans to do about QAnon going forward, and whether he worries about QAnon’s influence in the next Congress. Our conversation has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Continue to article: https://slate.com/technology/2020/10/qanon-malinowski-congress-threats.html
