US House passes resolution condemning far-right QAnon conspiracy theory
Measure against movement, which claims Trump is crusading against a government pedophile ring, notes it has many followers who 'express anti-Semitic views'
The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly condemned the QAnon conspiracy theory, citing among other reasons its anti-Semitism.
The non-binding resolution passed 371-18, with all but one of the no votes by Republicans. The other was Rep. Justin Amash, Illinois-Michigan, who routinely votes against declarative resolutions.
Reps. Tom Malinowski, Democrat-New Jersey, and Denver Riggleman, Richmond-Virginia, sponsored the measure, which “condemns QAnon and rejects the conspiracy theories it promotes.” Its preamble says that “many QAnon followers express anti-Semitic views, and the Anti-Defamation League has said that the movement’s central conspiracy theory includes anti-Semitic elements.”
Conspiracy theories “have been a central driver of anti-Semitism for centuries,” the preamble adds, “and QAnon conspiracy theories are fanning the flames as anti-Semitism is on the rise in the United States and around the world.”
QAnon advances a baseless theory that US President Donald Trump is seeking to take down a network of pedophiles deep inside the government. Trump has not denounced the theory. Following the announcement Friday of Trump’s diagnosis with COVID-19, thousands of QAnon followers reportedly shared on social media a claim that the president is going into quarantine while mass arrests of high-profile politicians like former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton are carried out.
Malinowski has been targeted for death threats by QAnon followers based in part on a false claim that he once advocated for pedophiles. An ad by the National Republican Congressional Committee made the false claim.
Riggleman, a moderate Republican, was ousted this summer in a primary by a conservative challenger who made an issue of Riggleman’s support for gay rights. The passage of this resolution will be one of his final acts in his two years in Congress.
A number of Republican congressional nominees have been identified with the theory and one, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, is guaranteed election in her deeply conservative district.
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