Trust the Plan
The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America
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Narrated by:
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Joe Knezevich
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By:
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Will Sommer
About this listen
"A story so bizarre, only Will Sommer could report it.”—Molly Jong-Fast
The definitive book on QAnon from the reporter knows them best; Will Sommer explains what it is, how it has gained a mainstream following among Republican lawmakers and ordinary citizens, the threat it poses to democracy, and how we can reach those who have embraced the conspiracy and are disseminating its lies.
The Storm is Coming. Trust the Plan. WWG1WGA. You’ve seen the letter Q on TV and in the news–it’s been everywhere from Trump rallies to the January 6th insurrection. “QAnon” used to sound vaguely familiar, somewhat ominous, but not quite mainstream. But what was once a fringe conspiracy theory has now become a household name and its symbols recognizable around the world. How did this happen, who is actually involved, what do they believe, and what do they want?
Daily Beast reporter Will Sommer has been on the ground with Q’s followers since day one, and in Trust the Plan Sommer has written the definitive book on the movement—who started it and who grew it, what they really believe is going on, and what they want to see “the Storm” accomplish on the day of its reckoning. At once a character study and a journalistic exposé, Sommer lets his cast of characters do the talking as he visits them around the world, from their makeshift compounds to the rallies they are still holding.
The great tragedy of this story is ultimately the legitimization of this ideology by mainstream politicians eager to gain access to a large and growing cohort of voters. Though 2020 brought the end of Trump’s presidency, his following within the QAnon community has simply pivoted and grown stronger. Trust the Plan shows us in granular detail who we’ll be up against for years to come, in the US and abroad. Understanding why and how something like Q happens is an indispensable exercise, and in showing us how we got here we can chart a path out.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2021 William Sommer (P)2021 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Please Scream Inside Your Heart is a time capsule; a real-time ride through the maddening hell that was the 2020 news cycle - when historic turmoil and media mania stretched American sanity, democracy, and toilet paper. Who better to examine this unhinged period in all of its twists and turns than news addict Dave Pell, a.k.a. the internet’s managing editor?
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Couldn’t stop listening!!
- By Rofar4 on 11-16-21
By: Dave Pell
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Hatemonger
- Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda
- By: Jean Guerrero
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Stephen Miller is one of the most influential advisors in the White House. He has crafted Donald Trump’s speeches, designed immigration policies that ban Muslims and separate families, and outlasted such Trump stalwarts as Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions. But he’s remained an enigma. Until now. Emmy- and PEN-winning investigative journalist and author Jean Guerrero charts the 34-year-old’s astonishing rise to power, drawing from more than 100 interviews with his family, friends, adversaries, and government officials.
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Deplorable on purpose
- By M. Alice Fisher on 08-15-20
By: Jean Guerrero
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True or False
- A CIA Analyst's Guide to Spotting Fake News
- By: Cindy L. Otis
- Narrated by: Erin Dion
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In True or False, former CIA analyst Cindy Otis takes listeners through the history and impact of misinformation over the centuries, sharing stories from the past and insights that listeners today can gain from them. Then, she shares lessons learned in over a decade working for the CIA, including actionable tips on how to spot fake news, how to make sense of the information we receive each day, and, most importantly, how to understand and see past our own information biases so that we can think critically about important issues and put events happening around us into context.
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Good Introduction
- By Chima Onukwuru on 01-17-21
By: Cindy L. Otis
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Antisocial
- Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation
- By: Andrew Marantz
- Narrated by: Andrew Marantz
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
From a rising star at The New Yorker, a deeply immersive chronicle of how the optimistic entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley set out to create a free and democratic internet - and how the cynical propagandists of the alt-right exploited that freedom to propel the extreme into the mainstream.
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Amazing read!!!
- By Nick H on 10-23-19
By: Andrew Marantz
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The Manipulators
- Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Big Tech's War on Conservatives
- By: Peter Hasson
- Narrated by: Andrew Eiden
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
For better or for worse, Google and social media - “Big Tech”, collectively - have become the new public square. Unfortunately, this public square has a watchful referee standing behind them, ready and waiting to blow the whistle if they veer too far from the preferred narrative. Americans have given these companies enormous power to select the information they read, share and discuss with their neighbors and friends.
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Good Content....Run 1.2x Speed or You'll Go Crazy
- By Peter on 05-17-20
By: Peter Hasson
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Gaslighting America
- Why We Love It When Trump Lies to Us
- By: Amanda Carpenter
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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"Can you believe what Donald Trump said?" In Gaslighting America, Amanda Carpenter breaks down Trump's formula, showing why it's practically foolproof, playing his victims, the media, the Democrats, and the Republican fence-sitters perfectly. She traces how this tactic started with Nixon, gained traction with Bill Clinton, and exploded under Trump. Where some people see lies, Trump's fierce followers see something different. A commitment to winning at all costs: There is nothing he could say that would erode their support at long as it's in the name of taking down his political enemies.
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Right Winger Whines False Equivalency
- By B. D on 05-03-18
By: Amanda Carpenter
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This Machine Kills Secrets
- How Wikileakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World's Information
- By: Andy Greenberg
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The machine that kills secrets is a powerful cryptographic code that hides the identities of leakers and hacktivists as they spill the private files of government agencies and corporations bringing us into a new age of whistle blowing. With unrivaled access to figures like Julian Assange, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and Jacob Applebaum, investigative journalist Andy Greenberg unveils the group that brought the world WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks, and BalkanLeaks.
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Good writing, a little outdated by now
- By Sam on 08-08-15
By: Andy Greenberg
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All Out War
- The Plot to Destroy Trump
- By: Edward Klein
- Narrated by: William LeRoy
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
A new book from New York Times bestselling author Edward Klein!
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This is the first audiobook I played back-to-back
- By ListensToBooks on 10-31-17
By: Edward Klein
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Nobody's Victim
- Fighting Psychos, Stalkers, Pervs, and Trolls
- By: Carrie Goldberg, Jeannine Amber
- Narrated by: Carrie Goldberg
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Riveting and an essential timely conversation-starter, Nobody's Victim invites listeners to join Carrie on the front lines of the war against sexual violence and privacy violations as she fights for revenge porn and sextortion laws, uncovers major Title IX violations, and sues the hell out of tech companies, schools, and powerful sexual predators. Her battleground is the courtroom; her crusade is to transform clients from victims into warriors.
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Everyone should read this book
- By Alexander on 09-06-19
By: Carrie Goldberg, and others
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United States of Jihad
- Investigating America's Homegrown Terrorists
- By: Peter Bergen
- Narrated by: Nicholas Guy Smith
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Since 9/11, more than 300 Americans - born and raised in Minnesota, Alabama, New Jersey, and elsewhere - have been indicted or convicted of terrorism charges. Some have taken the fight abroad: An American was among those who planned the attacks in Mumbai, and more than 80 US citizens have been charged with ISIS-related crimes. Others have acted on American soil, as with the attacks at Fort Hood, at the Boston Marathon, and in San Bernardino. What motivates them, how are they trained, and what do we sacrifice in our efforts to track them?
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More multi-culty dreck
- By Peter on 02-06-16
By: Peter Bergen
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Slanted
- How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism
- By: Sharyl Attkisson
- Narrated by: Sharyl Attkisson
- Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
We have reached a state of utter absurdity, where journalism schools teach students that their own personal truth or chosen narratives matter more than reality. In Slanted, Attkisson digs into the language of propagandists, the persistence of false media narratives, the driving forces behind today's dangerous blend of facts and opinion, the abandonment of journalism ethics, and the new, Orwellian definition of what it means to report the news.
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Connecting the dots
- By Amy Cox on 11-29-20
By: Sharyl Attkisson
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The Rebel and the Kingdom
- The True Story of the Secret Mission to Overthrow the North Korean Regime
- By: Bradley Hope
- Narrated by: Lee Osorio
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the early 2000s, Adrian Hong was a soft-spoken Yale undergraduate looking for his place in the world. After reading a harrowing account of life inside North Korea, he realized he had found a cause so pressing that he was ready to devote his life to it. Hong journeyed to China, outwitting Chinese security services as he helped ferry asylum-seeking North Korean escapees to safety. The Rebel and the Kingdom is an exhilarating account of a man who turns his back on the status quo—to instead live boldly by his principles.
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Phenomenal true story
- By NYCdogmomma on 11-13-22
By: Bradley Hope
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Game of Thorns
- The Inside Story of Hillary Clinton's Failed Campaign and Donald Trump's Winning Strategy
- By: Doug Wead
- Narrated by: Doug Wead
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Here is the first insider account of the precipitous fall of Hillary Clinton. How the scandals of a lifetime finally reached critical mass. How, in the last few days of the campaign, some on her staff saw the ghostly shroud of defeat creeping over them but were helpless to act, frozen by the self-denial of the group.
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President Donald Trump stopped that Clinton Machine
- By Paulette on 03-05-17
By: Doug Wead
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The Exception to the Rulers
- Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them
- By: Amy Goodman, David Goodman
- Narrated by: Amy Goodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In The Exception to the Rulers, award-winning journalists Amy and David Goodman expose the lies, corruption, and crimes of the power elite, an elite bolstered by large media conglomerates. Her goal is “to go where the silence is, to give voice to the silenced majority.” This audiobook includes numerous archival audio excerpts, including statements from filmmaker Michael Moore, civil liberties victims describing their harrowing ordeals in the United States after 9/11, and more.
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lacks balance
- By Amazon Customer on 04-19-23
By: Amy Goodman, and others
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MBS
- The Rise to Power of Mohammed bin Salman
- By: Ben Hubbard
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 11 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
MBS is the untold story of how a mysterious young prince emerged from Saudi Arabia’s sprawling royal family to overhaul the economy and society of the richest country in the Middle East - and gather as much power as possible into his own hands. Since his father, King Salman, ascended to the throne in 2015, Mohammed bin Salman has leveraged his influence to restructure the kingdom’s economy, loosen its strict Islamic social codes, and confront its enemies around the region, especially Iran.
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Suffers from 'Objective Journalism' Syndrome
- By Anonymous User on 05-09-20
By: Ben Hubbard
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Preaching to the choir
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In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a disturbing social media trend emerged: a large number of yoga instructors and alt-health influencers were posting stories about a secretive global cabal bent on controlling the world’s population with a genocidal vaccine. Instagram feeds that had been serving up green smoothie recipes and Mary Oliver poems became firehoses of Fox News links, memes from 4chan, and prophecies of global transformation.
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The January 6th attack is an unprecedented crime in American history. Sprawling and openly political, it can't be handled by the traditional rules and norms of law enforcement—threatening the very idea of justice and its role in society. A mass of online tipsters—"sedition hunters"—have mobilized, simultaneously providing the FBI with valuable intelligence. In this work of extraordinary reportage, Ryan Reilly gets to know would-be revolutionaries, obsessive online sleuths, and FBI agents, and shines a light on a justice system that's straining to maintain order in our polarized country.
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The insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was not a blip or an aberration. It was the logical outcome of years of a White evangelical subculture's preparation for war. Religion scholar and former insider Bradley Onishi maps the origins of White Christian nationalism and traces its offshoots in Preparing for War.
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Religious Fundementalism and Freedom
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Culture Warlords
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One reporter takes an immersive dive into white supremacy's explosive online presence, exploring the undercurrents of propaganda, racism, misogyny, and history that led us to where we are now. Shocking, humorous, and merciless in equal measure, Culture Warlords explores some of the vilest subcultures on the web - and shows us how we can fight back.
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I took this book too personally.
- By Will on 10-22-20
By: Talia Lavin
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Republic of Lies
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American society has always been fertile ground for conspiracy theories, but with the election of Donald Trump, previously outlandish ideas suddenly attained legitimacy. Trump himself is a conspiracy enthusiast: from his claim that global warming is a Chinese hoax to the accusations of “fake news”, he has fanned the flames of suspicion. But it was not by the power of one man alone that these ideas gained new power. Republic of Lies looks beyond the caricatures of conspiracy theorists to explain their tenacity.
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even-handed and thought-provoking
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The MAGA Diaries
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Story
In The MAGA Diaries, she tells not only her story of loving and leaving the conservative movement but the history of the right wing, painting a shocking picture of how they recruit, train, and indoctrinate generations of young people and shape them into the influential leaders and the supporting cast of tomorrow’s Republican party. They are ruthless in building robust networks of power, even if it means demolishing entire civic institutions, from women’s rights to fair elections—and staging a coup when it doesn’t work out.
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An Engaging Story from A Brave Young Journalist
- By SM on 01-25-24
By: Tina Nguyen
What listeners say about Trust the Plan
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- Joshua Kors
- 03-15-23
5-Star Reporting, 1-Star Narration
Strange to give a five-star review to an audiobook I stopped listening to so early, but voiceover artist Joe Knezevich's narration is just unbearable. He narrates Sommer's book like he's doing a parody of a voiceover in a 1990s-era spy thriller. "In a world where Q begins its rise ..."
My response? I stopped listening to the audiobook and immediately ordered the hard copy, so I could continue listening to Sommer's extraordinarily compelling, deeply reported, first-person perspective of one of our nation's most important and horrifying political movements.
Sommer's writing and reporting is the best of what journalism aims to be. And I wasn't going to let Knezevich's gratingly cheesy comic persona and phony dramatic pauses block me from accessing Sommer's electrically engaging narrative.
Strange, too: I heard Sommer discuss his book on "Fresh Air," and he had a beautiful voice and an easy way with the spoken word. Why he turned down the opportunity to narrate his own book is a mystery. Regardless, I'm so excited for the hardcover to arrive, so I can complete my journey through his awesome book.
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- jay maurer
- 06-04-23
Will Sommer is one of perhaps five or six journalists who understand what’s happening right now.
The current state of American political discourse often denies reality for the sake of argument or simplicity. Very few journalists will understand what’s going on in 2025 when Trump/DeSantis inevitably claim they won the 2024 presidential election. They’ll say “no one could have seen this coming” or “it was impossible to stop this” but only a handful of people - Will Sommer, Kelly Weill, Julian Feeld, Travis View, and a few others have been here from the start and know what’s happening and why.
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- Anonymous User
- 03-05-23
Insightful
Great piece dissecting the madness. Good style and incredibly direct. No frills just dense and accessible information
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- Michael Cook
- 03-16-23
makes you think
a wake call to how conspiracy theories are all not new and not going away
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- Jackson Polyp
- 03-04-23
Love it!
I love Will’s podcast Fever Dreams, and I’ve been waiting for this book to come out for a while. It did not disappoint. I thought I knew all there was to know about the Q cult, but there are a ton shocking and crazy revelations in these pages that frankly blew my mind. I don’t think I’ve experienced this many deep, frustrated sighs in a long time. Every 10 minutes I let out a “what!! Oh my god! What?” Great read, or in this case listen. Highly recommended. Narrator was fantastic as well.
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- Cynthia Montgomery
- 10-23-23
The most comprehensive to date
I don’t believe we’ve heard the last of Qanon and this book is a must read for anyone aware of its real presence, a wise one for anyone who isn’t. Well researched, first hand accounts and insights brings this strange American online cult into the light, in an easy, fascinating read.
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- Anonymous User
- 03-12-23
Great Listen
Great research and personal stories about Quanon. Gives the big picture of how Quanon spread but has personal stories of how and why it took hold in America
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- Haven
- 02-22-23
A wildly fascinating and heartbreaking ride
An important and unbelievable read from arguably the Q expert. Sommer is able to dive into the craziest parts of one of the craziest movements ever - and still treat them as mislead people who matter. It could only be better …if it were fiction.
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- Robert Marquardt
- 03-02-23
A good entry level introduction into QAnon
Not a bad book by any stretch but it feels like it could have and should have been more. it's a good first intro to QAnon, but if you've followed Will's work up until now much of it is a recap.
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- Geoffrey Barrett
- 10-11-23
Heed the warnings
This is a must read for any American concerned with maintaining democratic rule in the face of growing fascist threats. It’s clear that a powerful a minority that has relied on the GOP to safeguard its interests against the needs and desires of the masses has run the numbers and sees that maintaining their rule through democratic means is becoming untenable. There is a concerted effort to break down faith in and sow cynicism toward democratic processes. This book shows how that elite (they aren’t shadowy or imaginary, you can see and hear them on FOX every day) can use the madness of the masses to suit their ends. The Q movement, as described by Will Sommer, is an expression of the real angst felt by many people who feel their deteriorating quality of life is being ignored by a liberal elite only concerned with advancing the interests of specific protected groups, racial minorities, LBGTQ+, etc. The irony is that the same people embracing these fascist tropes end up supporting the very party that creates the conditions that they aren’t satisfied with, the GOP. It is a perfect storm for a fascist movement, especially with a feeble Democratic Party as the main hurdle to overcome. We can see how feeble the DP is when we consider how it continues to maintain weakened institutions. The DOJ headed by Merrick Garland is unsure and hesitant, reluctant to even take action against conspirators who plotted a violent overthrow of the US government. The Mueller investigation wouldn’t indict Trump because of the existence of a policy memo created under a different corrupt GOP president. Congress can’t seem to pass reforms that would wrest control of government from a minority determined to maintain anti-democratic rule (ie, white supremacist minority rule). There are bright moments. The House Jan 6 investigation and the special prosecutor investigation. But overall, the prescription to undermining the fascist movement is to meet the needs of the people, regardless of race or gender or anything else.
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