In the early 1900s, an anonymous book known as The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion more commonly known simply as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion began circulating. It was a blatantly antisemitic publication falsely claiming to be written by the “elders of Zion” themselves and detailing their alleged plans for world domination despite being obviously plagiarized from several other historical sources, some of which were not even antisemitic in origin. Most notably, The Protocols copied entire sections from Der Judenstaat: Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage (The Jewish State: Proposal for a modern solution to the Jewish question) originally titled Address to the Rothschilds by Theodor Herzl, Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu ou la politique de Machiavel au XIXe siècle (The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu) by Maurice Joly, and Biarritz by Hermann Goedsche.
Maurice Joly was a French republican who served as a low rank member of the radical socialist Paris Commune, a project which precipitated the split between Marxists and anarchists. His novel Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu ou la politique de Machiavel au XIXe siècle was a political satire criticizing the political ambitions of Napoleon III aka Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte who was represented in the novel by Niccolò Machiavelli and was depicted as having a political dialogue in hell with Charles Montesquieu. The reason for having Machiavelli stand-in for Napoleon III was due to the illegality of criticizing the state at the time although this substitution did not spare Joly from having to serve 15 years in prison for his “crimes.” While none of the characters depicted in the book were Jewish, the book does serve as a thinly veiled critique of Napoleon’s desire for world domination.
In 1968, four years after the publication of Joly’s book, Hermann Goedsche heavily plagiarized Joly’s book for his own novel Biarritz, adding a chapter titled “At the Jewish Cemetery in Prague and the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel” which described a centennial midnight meeting of a secret cabal of Rabbis known as the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel to report on the progress of their own plans for world domination through the infiltration of politics and the media, acquisition of land, industrialization, and so on. This chapter itself was heavily plagiarized from another novel by Alexandre Dumas père entitled Joseph Balsamo which portrayed a fictional account of an alleged meeting between Joseph Balsamo also known as Alessandro Cagliostro and others to plot the “Affair of Queen Marie Antoinette’s Necklace” which was one of the causes of the French Revolution. Neither novel Goedsche blatantly plagiarized were antisemitic in nature by any means but Goedsche was himself notoriously antisemitic and thus decided to portray this fictional plot of Jewish world domination in his novel. It should be noted that Goedsche not only wrote this as a fictional story but was also completely unaware that only two out of the twelve original tribes of Israel even were left in existence during the time period in which he was writing his novel making it completely inaccurate even as a plausible piece of historical fiction.
Theodor Herzl originally wrote Address to the Rothschilds in 1891 as a speech to be delivered to the Rothschild family advocating for the creation of a Jewish state, a plan which was rejected by Baron Edmond de Rothschild who saw it as a threat to the Jewish diaspora and to another settlement which he himself was attempting to establish. The speech was later retitled Der Judenstaat for publication and has since become one of the seminal works of the Zionist movement, having actually popularized the term Zionism itself. The work was also known by another name in its original French and Russian editions: Zionist Protocols.
The unknown author(s) of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion ripped off this name for their own title and heavily plagiarized from Dialogue aux enfers entre Machiavel et Montesquieu ou la politique de Machiavel au XIXe siècle while taking inspiration from Goedsche’s antisemitic twist, even quoting directly from the Rabbi’s speech during the fictional meeting of the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and combining it with an exaggeration of the goals of Zionism. Despite blatantly ripping off fictional sources, this book was claimed to be an actual account of a real meeting written by the Council members themselves, detailing their alleged real plot to take over the world. In addition to their alleged plot to take over the world via politics, banking, media, capitalism, communism, etc. the book also “revealed” their participation in a ceremony known as the blood libel in which they supposedly kidnapped and murdered Christian children to use their blood for ritualistic purposes, including mixing it in the dough used to make matzos to be consumed during religious holiday celebrations.
On October 30, 2016, a Twitter account claiming to be run by a New York lawyer known for posting white supremacist material claimed that the NYPD had uncovered a child sex trafficking ring run by the Democratic Party itself via Anthony Weiner’s leaked emails despite providing no proof to back up these claims. The NYPD denied these accusations but that did no more to stop conspiracy theorists from believing this baseless conspiracy than proving the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was plagiarized from fictional sources stopped conspiracy theorists from believing Hitler when he used the claims in the book to further his plan, claiming he planned to save German Christian children from the Jewish blood libel.
Throughout October and November of that year, Wikileaks published John Podesta’s emails which many of those same conspiracy theorists claimed also discussed the same Democrat-run child sex trafficking operation using the popular code word used in child porn circles, pizza, along with other supposed code words such as hot dogs which are not known for being used in those same circles historically. It should be noted that most of the uses of the term pizza were in expense reports for campaign staff where the amounts spent on pizza seem like very reasonable amounts to spend on actual pizza and not the price of child sex slaves which would likely cost significantly more. It should also be noted that pizza is typically code for child porn and not the purchasing of child sex slaves as these conspiracy theorists claim although it is not a stretch to consider the idea that they were using this popular code in a slightly different manner than it is normally used. It did not help that one of the pizza places mentioned in the emails, Comet Ping Pong used to have a logo of a pizza slice which very much resembled the popular “boy lover” symbol used by both MAPs (minor-attracted people; a more all-encompassing term that includes pedophilia as well as hebephilia and ephebophilia) and actual child molestors (the difference being that while MAPs struggle with attraction to underage children, a majority of MAPs do not act on that attraction and a majority of child molesters are not actual MAPs but rather rapists looking for easy victims, not that MAPs can’t also sometimes be child molesters as well). There were also claims of Satanic ritual cannibalism and abuse mirroring those made against the Jewish peoples in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
While there is little evidence that the Democratic Party itself was running a child sex trafficking ring out of Comet Ping Pong and other pizzerias, that did not stop a conspiracy theorist named Edgar Maddison Welch from entering the restaurant on December 7th of that year and opening fire on partons while demanding to see their basement which was allegedly being used as a sex dungeon; a basement which likely does not even exist according to blueprints of the building and investigations by the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia.
Despite the lack of proof surrounding the particulars of the “pizzagate” conspiracy as it was later dubbed, it is understandable that people would distrust both Snopes and the police in claiming the conspiracy had been entirely debunked considering Snopes’ history as an unreliable “fact checker” and known shilling for the Democratic Party and the very real amount of police in various departments busted for consumption of child porn and participation in sex trafficking operations and child porn rings. The fact that the Podesta emails involved Hillary Clinton — whose husband Bill is a well-known repeat rapist and associate with Jeffrey Epstein who was later busted for running an actual child sex trafficking operation involving a large number of political figures, celebrities, and business leaders — in no way helped to dispel these suspicions either.
Almost a year later, on October 28th, 2017, “Q Clearance Patriot” more commonly known as “QAnon” emerged, posting a thread on 4chan entitled “Calm Before the Storm.” They implied that they were a government agent in the Trump administration with Q level clearance to top-secret information and that they were aware of a secret plot by Trump to investigate supposed Democratic Party-run child sex trafficking rings, culminating in “The Storm” which will allegedly be the mass arrest, imprisonment, and execution of thousands involved in this supposed operation. Q has continued to post since then, sometimes making straight forward predictions and other times offering supposed coded messages on 4chan and later 8chan after they claimed 4chan had been infiltrated and offering no explanation as to how. These messages have been variously deciphered by their various followers, who excuse these predictions’ failure to come true by claiming the alleged deep state conspiracy against Trump is interfering with Trump’s plans.
These rumors seem to be a part of a long storied history of trolls on 4chan posting baseless conspiracy fodder, mostly for the lulz, which as Fox put it in a hilarious badly researched “exposé” on 4chan and Anonymous in 2007, “is a corruption of lol which stands for laugh out loud.” 4chan and related chans are well known for elaborate trolling such as when they posed as feminists on twitter to promote a fake feminist campaign to #EndFathersDay. Despite being well known for purposely spreading false information and trolling gullible idiots, it seems as if some people still can’t help but fall for their pranks time and time again. It doesn’t help that 4chan and 8chan, through their problematic senses of humor, have also become a safe haven for actual neo-nazis and related bigots who truly do seem to believe in various conspiracy theories including those laid out in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Like any good conspiracy theory, there is always a grain of truth to it. While the accusations of Satanic ritual abuse likely stem from the same antisemitic blood libel conspiracies spouted in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the #MeToo movement has exposed numerous sexual abuse scandals in Hollywood, politics, and elsewhere and the arrest of notorious child sex trafficker and sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein has exposed even more high profile people who took part in his abuse of children, including Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, and even Trump himself.
This is not new news for many who had already been paying attention. Trump had previously referred to Epstein’s love for young girls while praising him as a great friend and claiming that they both like their women on the younger end. Trump was also accused of raping a 13 year old girl at one of Epstein’s notorious sex parties. This lines up well with the claims made by underaged contestants in Trump-owned beauty pageants who complained about him regularly walking into their dressing rooms while they were changing, something Trump has literally bragged about doing. This also fits with the long pattern of sexual abuse accusations made against Trump and his buddy Bill Clinton through the years. Yet, QAnon followers believe his friendship with Epstein and the Clintons was him acting as an undercover agent since at least the 90s and that the abuse accusations are another deep state conspiracy. As to his own words? Well they seem to usually just ignore that almost entirely.
We know there are elite child sex trafficking operations, abuse cover ups, and online “red rooms” and similar situations in which children are murdered for the pleasure of truly twisted people, but it is not just tied to one political party or set of politics. Trump was part of the same Hollywood circles alongside abusers like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey for decades before becoming a politician. He visited Epstein’s island and invited Epstein to Mar-a-Lago on multiple occasions, only kicking him out after a business deal gone bad, and only later claiming it was due to Epstein’s sexually abusive behavior. Trump is not trying to take these people down, he is one of them. He’s not trying to drain the swamp, he’s part of the swamp.
But the cult of statism is strong for some and the particular breed of statism in the so-called united states breeds hyperpartisanship which leads people to see their side as the heroes and the other side as the enemies no matter how much the evidence says differently. Nevermind the fact that it was the largely leftist #MeToo movement that outed many of the people that the QAnon conspiracists use as proof that Trump’s campaign to out abusers is working, #MeToo is still dismissed as awful feminist propaganda and Trump gets all the credit instead. Nevermind that Q’s predictions regularly fall flat or are disproven just like nearly every other prank from Anonymous, the deep state is just interfering with Trump’s plan and this time Anonymous is telling the truth, unlike every other time. These people look like fools and entirely lack the self-awareness to realize it. 4channers and 8channers have always pulled these types of pranks and this is just more of the same, the only difference being is that they found a much more gullible audience than usual. And the worst part is, they’re now holding #SaveTheChildren rallies which are obscuring the real fight against child sex trafficking by infusing it with utter bullshit.
Yes, we need to be out there demanding justice for the victims of politicians, celebrities, and business elites. Yes we need to be investigating more into Epstein’s connections and taking down those involved. Yes, we need to be holding Netflix accountable for the Cuties scandal. Yes, we need to abolish Child Protective Services whose foster program is allegedly responsible for the abuse of at least 88% of missing child sex trafficking victims. Yes, we need to do all these things but mixing that with antisemitic claims that there is an evil Satanic cabal of elites drinking baby blood to preserve their youth just serves to discredit anything real coming from that movement and claiming Trump is trying to take these scum down merely serves to boost Trump’s power and preserve the status and statist quo while mirroring Hitler’s exploitation of similar theories to secure his own power grab.
Despite the huge amount of police officers being outed for child sex abuse and accusations that many police are involved in various child trafficking operations, Trump is out there throwing his full support behind the police and trying to take down the very movement trying to defund them and lessen their power and ability to continue their abuse. Despite ICE agents being caught sexually abusing children and a large amount of immigrant children winding up missing, Trump is continuing to spout xenophobic nonsense and throwing his full support behind ICE, while drowning out the call to divest from and abolish the agency entirely. Trump is criticizing the #MeToo movement and the very activists attempting to out these abusers and hold them accountable. While he is wishing Ghislaine Maxwell the best and showing support for misguided QAnon supporters, the real activists tackling these abuse cases are being harassed and threatened by the very same QAnoners claiming they wish to stop this abuse.
QAnon is just an attempt to keep people supporting the state at a time when its worst aspects are being exposed to the public at large. As long as people believe Trump is helping to solve these issues, people will continue to support the state instead of tearing it down and that’s why Trump has thrown his support behind a 4chan prank spun absolutely out of control. If these gullible people were to realize the truth, they would be teaming up with the #MeToo movement and such a movement rightly directed by leftist thought would be more likely to realize that these power structures themselves allow for such abuse on such a mass scale. Such realization would mean that people would have to confront not just the individuals involved but the power structures themselves, threatening the entire function of the state. The only way to truly end this abuse is to tear down the state and capitalist hierarchies and to create a more horizontal system based on consent and accountability. The only way to end the abuse and truly save the children is anarchy.
