The Storm is Upon Us

The definitive story of QAnon from an expert on cult and fringe culture: how it started, what it is, and how it is so effective at destabilizing society and promoting conspiracy.

On October 5th, 2017, President Trump made a cryptic remark in the State Dining Room at a gathering of military officials. He said it felt like "the calm before the storm"--then refused to elaborate as puzzled journalists asked him to explain. But on the infamous message boards of 4chan, a mysterious poster going by "Q Clearance Patriot," who claimed to be in "military intelligence," began the elaboration on their own.

In the days that followed, Q's wild yarn explaining Trump's remarks began to rival the sinister intricacies of a Tom Clancy novel, while satisfying the deepest desires of MAGA-America. Did any of what Q predicted come to pass? No. Did that stop people from clinging to every word they were reading, expanding its mythology, and promoting it wider and wider? No.

In The Storm Is Upon Us, conspiracy theory researcher, Mike Rothschild, takes readers from the background conspiracies and cults that fed the Q phenomenon, to its embrace by right-wing media and Donald Trump, through the rending of families as loved ones became addicted to Q's increasingly violent rhetoric. He also makes a compelling case that mocking the seeming madness of QAnon will get us nowhere. Rather, his impassioned reportage makes clear that it's critical to figure out what QAnon really is -- because QAnon and its relentlessly dark theory of everything isn't done yet.