A Conspiracy Theory Is Proved Wrong

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2021

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode contains strong language. Inauguration Day was supposed to bring vindication for adherents of the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon. Instead, they watched as Joe Biden took the oath as the 46th president of the United States. What happens to a conspiracy theory and its followers when they are proved wrong?

Transcript

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0:25.6	In the days leading up to Joe Biden's inauguration on January 20th, as my colleagues in Washington
0:36.8	were getting ready to go cover the inauguration, I was checking in with the followers of QAnon.
0:42.9	Boom, what's up guys?
0:45.9	Welcome to another show.
0:47.2	We're here on Monday morning, January 18th, only a couple of days left until a inauguration
0:51.3	day or whatever the heck might actually happen on that day.
0:54.8	Basically, people who believe in this QAnon conspiracy theory had locked into that date, January
1:00.8	20th.
1:01.8	We're all waiting in anxious anticipation to see what this week might bring, aren't we?
1:06.1	Which they saw as kind of the final deadline, the true culmination of all these beliefs
1:12.2	and predictions they've been talking about for the last three years.
1:15.6	I don't know, I feel like my god, this one is going to happen and we go from there.
1:22.5	They were promised that Joe Biden would not actually be inaugurated that day.
1:27.1	Trump can call Marshall Law even up to five minutes before Biden's inauguration, if he
1:32.9	has to, wait that long.
	...

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