Why the pro-Trump QAnon movement is finding followers in Japan

[Klaralven]

Undeterred by the mayhem at the Capitol in Washington and the near-universal condemnation of Donald Trump's failures in the dying days of his presidency, the small but committed Japanese chapter of the far-right QAnon movement is standing by its man.

It is also advancing some absurd, albeit uniquely Japanese theories: The imperial family was replaced by "fakes" during the mid-1800s; Emperor Hirohito was British, an agent for the CIA, and owned the patent for the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the closing days of World War II.

The group clearly has an ax to grind with its monarchy, as members are also convinced that the nearly 20,000 people who died in the tsunami triggered by an earthquake off northeast Japan in March 2011 were victims of the "artificial tsunami terrorism" overseen by Hirohito's son Emperor Akihito, who abdicated in April 2019.

A past tainted by cultish beliefs

A member of the group who goes by the name Eri claims there are at least 500 QAnon followers across Japan and a further 100 people are part of the QArmy Japan Flynn — an allied group that idolizes Michael Flynn. The former national security advisor to Trump had to step down after just 24 days for lying over his links to Russia before the 2016 presidential election.

https://www.dw.com/en/why-the-pro-trump-qanon-movement-is-finding-followers-in-japan/a-56333553

[samnsara]

1. more low lying fruit for the crazy train...

[Kid Berwyn]

2. Ask Steve Brannon, NAZI

QAnon is a Nazi Cult, Rebranded

by Gregory Stanton
JustSecurity.org, September 9, 2020

Excerpt...

QAnon true believers think Donald Trump will rescue America from this Satanic cabal. At the time of “The Storm,” supporters of the cabal will be rounded up and executed.

The QAnon conspiracy theory has now spread to neo-Nazis in Germany, where over 200,000 German QAnon accounts infest the internet. A faction known as “Reichsbürger,” or citizens of the Reich, orchestrated a brief storming of Parliament on Aug. 29.

Many people are perplexed at how any rational person could fall for such an irrational conspiracy theory. But modern social science shows that people in groups don’t always think rationally. They respond to fear and terror. They blame their misfortunes on scapegoats. They support narcissistic demagogues they hope will rescue them.

In the 1930’s, millions of Europeans were unemployed. Violent battles between Nazis and Communists raged in city streets. Democratic governments were powerless. Fascist dictators ruled Spain and Italy. Hitler took power in Germany and conquered Western Europe. Stalin’s Communists conquered the East. The Hitler-Stalin Pact sealed totalitarian rule over most of Europe. It took World War II and the deaths of millions to defeat the Nazis’ genocidal tyranny, and another fifty years to free the gulags of the Soviet Union.

Today the American people suffer from a Plague. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Angry mobs roam American cities and battle militarized police and heavily armed militias. The American government seems to be paralyzed. Dictators rule Russia and China. Islamic fascists rule Saudi Arabia and the old Ottoman and Persian empires. The American President appeases Russia, scapegoats China for the pandemic, and looks the other way as Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Salman murder their opponents.

Continues...

https://www.justsecurity.org/72339/qanon-is-a-nazi-cult-rebranded/

[hlthe2b]

3. I so cringe to think of the WWII-fighting generation seeing lessons learned & sacrifices forgotten

in such an utterly ignorant, dismissive, ugly way.

Meanwhile, these RW cretins are working overtime to redefine our past and teach our youth a totally bastardized revisionist history.

[Kid Berwyn]

4. They work to make "antifa" into a bad thing.

Hoping to erase that it stands for Anti-Fascist.



My brother in law’s dad was there, a Navy XO, and survived a direct hit on his LST’s bridge that killed the Captain.

[Mc Mike]

5. Military intel psy op.