QAnon

Since 2017, QAnon largely avoided mainstream controversies with few notable exceptions. In 2019, the lawyer of Anthony Comello claimed that Comello was motivated by his obsession with QAnon when he allegedly murdered Francesco Cali, a reputed mob boss.

In February 2020, a man, who was arrested in 2018 for barricading the Hoover Dam with an armored vehicle, quoted a phrase associated QAnon—Where We Go One, We Go All, often abbreviated as WW1WGA—in a letter explaining his motivations. 

QAnon fully broke into the mainstream, however, in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. QAnon was connected with rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories around the coronavirus, and QAnon-related websites and social media accounts saw an explosion in traffic. Awareness of QAnon would further spread thanks to retweets of QAnon supporters by Donald Trump and his son, Eric, who posted a QAnon meme on Instagram while promoting one of his father’s rallies.

Several QAnon supporters made bids for political office during the 2020 election season. While most of these campaigns were hopeless or short-lived, QAnon supporter Lauren Boebert won an upset victory over a veteran Republican representative in a Colorado primary, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, a passionate QAnon supporter, was at one point considered competitive in a Georgia congressional race before withdrawing.

QAnon has continued to gain support—and spread disinformation—despite social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter banning thousands of QAnon-related accounts and groups.