What does QAnon portend? Daily Beast conservative media writer to analyze, Oct. 27

Will Sommer, a Daily Beast reporter who closely tracks the right-wing fringe, will join National Press Club board member Del Wilber in a virtual discussion at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27, about the QAnon movement and what it portends -- in coming days and after the presidential election.

To join the conversation email Wilber at [email protected].

Sommer has been one of the nation's closest chroniclers of QAnon, a complicated conspiracy theory about satanic Democrats who run pedophile rings and how a secret cabal of government officials is trying to help President Trump eliminate them.

President Trump refused to denounce the conspiracy theory when asked about it Thursday during an NBC town hall.  

This is how Sommer described the movement in a recent story: 

"Nearly all QAnon believers sign on to one basic view: that the world has long been controlled by a sinister “cabal” responsible for a wide array of evils, from wars and famines to diseases, including the novel coronavirus pandemic. This cabal is believed to have tentacles in the top echelons of the Democratic Party, Hollywood, banking, and the government 'deep state.”'

"QAnon believers baselessly think members of this cabal – including Barack Obama,Hillary Clinton and various Hollywod celebrities – torture and sexually abuse children in Satanic rituals. To stop this, QAnon’s telling, the military recruited Donald Trump to win the presidency and dethrone the cabal."

Sommer is a politics reporter for The Daily Beast, and the author of the Right Richter newsletter on conservative media. He previously worked as a campaign editor at The Hill, and as a political columnist for Washington City Paper.