Kash Patel’s QAnon Dalliances Reflect an Outlook That Pits Trump Against Evil Conspirators
If the Senate confirms Kash Patel as President-elect Donald Trump’s FBI director, perhaps he will get to the bottom of an international conspiracy involving “a secret cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who are abducting, abusing, and ritualistically murdering children by the thousands.” Or so QAnon followers, whose bizarre beliefs are guided by the oracular posts of one or more individuals dubbed “Q,” might hope, given Patel’s overtures to them.
Patel, for his part, says he “disagree[s] with a lot of what that movement says.” He nevertheless sees it as an important component of the MAGA constituency, has appeared on many pro-QAnon shows, and has promoted the sect in social media posts.
Patel’s attitude is perhaps not surprising, since QAnon depicts Trump as a savior battling the forces of evil that comprise the “deep state,” which allegedly includes prominent Democrats, Hollywood honchos, the news media, and other left-leaning organizations. Shorn of its most outlandish elements, that is essentially the story Patel tells in his 2023 book Government Gangsters, which describes a “Deep State” conspiracy against Trump that Patel equates with a scheme to subvert democracy and the Constitution.
“The Q thing is a movement,” Patel told podcast host Mary Grace in November 2022. “A lot of people attach themselves to it. I disagree with a lot of what that movement says, but I agree with a lot of what that movement says.”
Patel took a similar position during a June 2020 interview with BardsFM. “I agree with some of what he does, and I disagree with some of what he does,” he said, referring to the pseudonymous source of QAnon theories. “If it allows people to gather and focus on the truth and the facts, I’m all for it.”
When a Patriot Party News host asserted, during a June 2022 show, that “Q has been so right about so many things,” Patel concurred. “I agree with you,” he said. “He has. And you’ve got to harness that following that Q has garnered and just sort of tweak it a little bit. That’s all I’m saying. He should get credit for all of the things he has accomplished, because it’s hard to establish a movement.”
The minor tweaks that Patel had in mind presumably would include ditching claims such as the fictitious video that supposedly showed Hillary Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin “ripping off a child’s face and wearing it as a mask before drinking the child’s blood in a Satanic ritual sacrifice.” Patel might also want to excise the belief that Trump, by sipping from a water bottle during a speech in his first year as president, was displaying “a secret sign that he [was] about to bring down an elite child sex-trafficking ring.” Come to think of it, that whole idea of an “elite child sex-trafficking ring” run by progressive Satanists, which is central to QAnon teachings, might have to go.
Such quibbles did not stop Patel from effusively praising his hosts during a September 2022 appearance on The MG Show, a QAnon podcast. “You guys are the best,” Patel said. “I love being on your program.” What makes them “the best,” it seems clear, is that they have the right enemies, who are for the most part the same nemeses that Patel identifies in Government Gangsters.
That book includes a 60-name list of current and former government officials, ranging from President Joe Biden to disaff
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