QAnon Says Dec. 5 Will Be Banner Day for Conspiracy Theory, 'The Storm' Has yet to Arrive

The Storm. The Great Awakening. An Avalanche of Truth. There are many names QAnon conspiracy theorists ascribe to the day of reckoning they believe, perpetually and without any substantiation, to be imminent.

Unless Wednesday is finally the day.

Believers in the elaborate conspiracy theory QAnon have placed a special significance on Wednesday, December 5, often presented as #D5.

Using movement hashtags like #WWG1WGA ("Where we go one we go all"), QAnon conspiracists claim December 5 will bring unspecified justice against their political enemies, finally validating the theory propagated online since October 2017, when the anonymous Q—a reference to the high-level "Q clearance" required for government officials to access certain types of Top Secret data—began posting to 4chan, an image-board site popular with gamers, otaku and far-right meme makers.

Memorials to the death of George H.W. Bush have especially energized followers of Q. They argue that President Donald Trump's shutdown of executive departments, combined with the closure of the stock exchanges, aren't a tribute to the former president, but instead a prelude to mass arrests meant to head off stock market chaos.

Will Sommer of The Daily Beast has further documented how the day's events are already providing fodder for QAnon devotees.

A "D" and a "5" on a bus window at the funeral for Bush might just indicate a prison transport bus, waiting to scoop up anti-Trump politicians and whisk them away to Guantanamo.

This is far from the only way the senior Bush's death has been absorbed by the conspiracy worldview, with several Q believers arguing the 94-year-old former president was assassinated, possibly on the orders of John F. Kennedy Jr., who they claim faked his own death and teamed up with Trump.

"POTUS & JFK JR. Relationship. Plane crash 1999. HRC Senate 2000. The 'Start." Enjoy the show. Q," one typically obscure Q 4chan missive reads.

QAnon first gained traction as an evolution of the Pizzagate conspiracy, which baselessly claimed the existence of a child sex trafficking ring implicating Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, James Comey, George Soros and more. As that movement sputtered, adherents latched on to cryptic 4chan missives from Q, believed on faith to be a source directly pipe-lining secret plans from the Trump administration to the public. QAnon theorists hold that a hidden war against their political enemies is afoot, with Donald Trump and his administration spearheading secret tribunals.

"They are gathered. They have been drawn to the flame. The gangs are all there. Latch the doors. Bar them with ironwood. Extinguish the lights. Let the bell toll. Marines on the ready Gitmo at the ready Patriots at the ready [sic]," one commenter posted to Voat—a Reddit knockoff flooded with Trump fans and the far right after the Great Awakening subreddit was banned—in anticipation of the #D5 events.

So far, Q's predictions have failed to come true or comport with reality. The rumored 25,000 sealed indictments against sex trafficking politicians loathed by Q conspiracists have yet to materialize. No ex-presidents have been arrested. In Q's second-ever "drop," the anonymous account claimed Hillary Clinton was about to extradited and tried for her "crimes." Mass civil unrest, which never materialized, was predicted for Oct. 30.

The list of failed predictions goes on. One of the biggest failures came in November 2017, when Q announced, "My fellow Americans, the Storm is upon us," later posting that Friday Nov. 3 and Saturday Nov. 4 "will deliver on the MAGA promise."

"Over the course of the next several days you will undoubtedly realize that we are taking back our great country," Q posted, following up with descriptions of (apparently desirable) tyrannical horrors, like military rule and the mass arrest of journalists.

False flag attacks and a "suicide weekend" for the president's enemies, were announced for December. 10, 2017, and February 1, then February 10. Q even got the date of Trump's military parade wrong, originally claiming it for November 11. (It now looks likely to never happen at all.)

Q has been so consistently wrong in predictions that QAnon conspiracy theorists have begun claiming his failures as part of the grand design, misleading the public until the Storm finally breaks out when we least expect it.

Expect December 5 to be yet another paradoxical "victory," with Q having once again tricked the non-believers with a false prophecy—all part of the plan.