TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Amid the "Trump 2020" placards, the "Women for Trump" signs and the "CNN SUCKS" T-shirts, the most inscrutable message that came out of Donald Trump's Tampa rally on Tuesday evening was a letter. 
 
 Q. 
 
 People wore T-shirts with the letter emblazoned on the front. Others carried signs containing the letter: "Q WWG1WGA Trump 2020 Keep America Great! MSM is the enemy." Another held a dog-eared and slightly crumpled piece of paper in the air. It said, simply, "We are Q." 
 
 Q who? 
 
 The entire, loose movement has been called everything from "a deranged conspiracy cult" (The Washington Post) to a grassroots movement "about the covert battles being waged between the deep state and President Trump" (according to Tyler, a guy at the Tampa rally who held a metal coin emblazoned with the letter and showed it to WPLG, a TV station from Miami). 
 
 Here's a look at the trend that's sweeping certain dark corners of the Internet: 
 
 WHO IS Q? 
 
 In late October 2017, an anonymous user posted on 4chan, a shadowy site known for, among other things, cruel hoaxes and political extremism. Under the title "The Calm Before the Storm," the poster claimed to have a high-level government security clearance — Q clearance to be exact — and referred to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, George Soros, political parties and former President Barack Obama. 
 
 Q gives readers "breadcrumbs" so they can ferret out details on their own. There's other lingo as well. Bakers are amateur sleuths who follow the crumbs. Anyone who tries to debunk Q is "a clown." (This includes CIA agents, shadowy operatives and most likely reporters, although there's separate terminology for them). 
 
 Like Tyler, the man at the Tuesday rally in Tampa, many believe the mainstream media is lying to them. 
 
 Other 4chan users have pointed out that "Q'' uses the plural "we." 
 
 Keep in mind, users can, and often do, post anonymously on 4chan. 
 
 ___ 
 
 EVERYBODY ON THE INTERWEBS TALKS ABOUT TRUMP, CLINTON, OBAMA AND SOROS. WHAT MAKES Q DIFFERENT? 
 
 Many on 4chan seemed to enjoy discussing the cryptic posts and the clues, and Q spread like wildfire. Terminology was born. Inside jokes and theories blossomed. Q subreddits swelled to 30,000 followers. Q's Twitter account has 80,000 followers. 
 
 A YouTube video posted by "prayingmedic" on July 28, titled, "Something Big is About to Drop," has 275,000 views. It is an hour and eight minutes long. 
 
 It is unclear if anything actually dropped. 
 
 Joseph Uscinski, a University of Miami professor who co-authored the book, "American Conspiracy Theories," said Q "is just hitting the right audience at the right time given the right circumstance." 
 
 Q's topics appeal to many who already are inclined to believe conspiracy theories, Uscinski said. Those conspiracy-minded folks have always been around in the country. 
 
 "There is no way to know if it's an embedded deep state operative or if it's a prankster," he added. 
 
 ___ 
 
 WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH ROSEANNE BARR? 
 
 The actress has tweeted about Q and retweeted posts from the "QAnon" account. In Nov. 2017, she tweeted "Who is Q?" and reportedly asked Q to direct message her. In May, Barr posted a racist tweet about former White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, who figures in some QAnon conspiracy theories. In response, ABC cancelled her hit TV show. 
 
 ___ 
 
 WHAT DOES Q BELIEVE? 
 
 Uscinski, who has studied Q over the last month, says the user's posts are often about the "deep state" battling Donald Trump, using bureaucratic inertia. Which isn't that farfetched, he said, given that many in federal government didn't likely vote for Trump. 
 
 Q and the QAnon supporters refer to "The Storm" often, which is a reference to an October 2017 meeting between Trump and military leaders during which Trump said, "the calm before the storm." 
 
 But then, things get nutty. 
 
 Q has posted that Special Counsel Robert Mueller isn't investigating Trump at all — he's really investigating Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and Barack Obama. Other theories involve familiar players in conspiracy theories such as the Freemasons and the Illuminati, while others mention The Titanic, pedophile rings in Hollywood, and the possibility that former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin wears an ankle monitor. Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, the Rothschild family and Satan also make appearances in discussions. 
 
 Sometimes the posts are cryptic, throwing the bakers into a frenzy of riddle solving, such as: 
 
 —27-1_yes_USA94-2 
 
 —27-1_yes_USA58-A 
 
 —27-1_yes_USA04 
 
 —Conf_BECZ_y056-(3)_y 
 
 The_Castle_Runs_RED_yes 
 
 Godspeed. 
 
 ___ 
 
 HOW LONG DO EXPERTS THINK Q WILL CONTINUE POSTING? 
 
 Said Uscinski: "Very few conspiracies have the staying power of a JFK." ||||| Plotters in the deep state tried to shoot down Air Force One and foil President Trump’s North Korea summit. A cabal of global elites, including top figures in Hollywood, the Democratic Party, and the intelligence agencies, are responsible for nearly all the evil in the world. And now Trump is going to fix it all with thousands of sealed indictments, sending the likes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama straight to Guantanamo Bay. 
 
 Or at least that’s how the world is going for the believers of QAnon, the complex pro-Trump conspiracy theory that’s starting to having unpredictable effects in real life. The real news can be bad for Trump, but in QAnon-world, the president and his supporters really are getting sick of winning. 
 
 Who Is “Q”? 
 
 QAnon springs from a series of cryptic clues that started to be posted online in October 2017. Starting on 4Chan before migrating to the even more fringe 8Chan, the anonymous person behind the clues goes by “Q,” a reference to a high-level government security clearance. The “Anon” in “QAnon” refers to both Q himself, and to Q’s nameless supporters, the “anons.” 
 
 Q is supposed to be revealing this top-secret information via the clues, which QAnon fans have dubbed “breadcrumbs.” They’re written in a short bursts, in a reference-heavy style that’s part poem, part ransom note. Here’s one example from June: 
 
 Think SC vote to confirm (coming). No Name action. Every dog has its day. Enjoy the show. Q 
 
 “No Name” is Q’s nickname for John McCain, and “SC” is obviously the Supreme Court. As for “every dog has its day” — that’s the kind of cryptic Q remark that has spawned a cottage industry of PDFs and 24/7 livestreams analyzing the crumbs. 
 
 Since Q could be anyone with internet access and a working knowledge of conspiracy theories, there’s no reason to think that Q is a member of the Trump administration rather than, say, a troll or YouTube huckster. But incredibly, lots of people believe it. 
 
 In April, hundreds of QAnon believers staged a march in downtown Washington, D.C. with a vague demand for “transparency” from the Justice Department. “Q” shirts have become frequent sites at Trump rallies, with one QAnon believer scoring VIP access. In June, an armed man in an homemade armored truck shut down a highway near the Hoover Dam and held up signs referencing QAnon. And celebrities like comedian Roseanne Barr and former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling have signed on. 
 
 QAnon is unusual, according to University of Miami professor Joseph Uscinski, because it offers Republicans an alternate view of the world when they already control nearly the entire government. Usually, “conspiracy theories are for losers,” Uscinski said, 
 
 “Normally you don’t expect the winning party to use them, except when they’re in trouble,” Uscinski said. 
 
 The Origin Story 
 
 Since Q’s “breadcrumbs” are so vague, it’s impossible to nail down exactly what the storyline is supposed to be. But the general story, outlined in a pro-QAnon video endorsed by Schilling, is that every president before Trump was a “criminal president” in league with all the nefarious groups of conspiracy theories past: the global banking elite, death squads operating on orders from Hillary Clinton, deep-state intelligence operatives, and Pizzagate-style pedophile rings. In an effort to break this cabal’s grip, according to Q, the military convinced Trump to run for president. 
 
 Now Trump and his allies in the military are poised to arrest all these wrongdoers, shipping many of them off to Guantanamo Bay. That coming purge has been dubbed “The Storm” by QAnon fans, who claim Trump referenced it when he referenced “the calm before the storm” in October. 
 
 While the Storm is at the center of the QAnon narrative, it’s also flexible enough to fold in just anything that makes the news. Q is fond of hinting that each mass shooting is a false-flag attack organized by the cabal, and he used a blurry webcam picture of a flash of light near the Puget Sound to claim that the deep state had tried to shoot down Trump’s plane. 
 
 QAnon fans are obsessed with finding proof that whoever is behind Q is actually connected to the Trump administration. During one Trump trip to Asia, Q posted some pictures of islands, which supporters seized on as proof that Q was on Air Force One. Q is also fond of predicting Trump tweets that, in retrospect, don’t exactly require top-secret clearance — that Trump will tweet “Saturday” on Small Business Saturday, or “Juneteenth” on June 19th. 
 
 Fans also point to Trump using phrases “predicted” by Q as proof of the story’s legitimacy. After one supporter requested that Trump used the phrase “tip top” in the State of the Union Address, While Trump never said “tip top” in that speech, QAnon supporters felt vindicated three months later when Trump said it instead at the White House Easter Egg Roll. QAnon supporters have even claimed Trump uses his hands to make a “Q” sign as a signal to them. 
 
 QAnon supporters love to speculate about Q’s identity, predicting that it’s either a highly placed White House staffer or even Trump himself. Other, more mundane theories about Q’s identity abound, but there’s not much compelling evidence pointing in any direction. 
 
 Even when Q’s predictions disappoint, the QAnon community keeps going. Q hyped up the release of the Justice Department’s inspector general report on the FBI’s Hillary Clinton email investigation, for example, promising that it would contain the promised “Storm” of revelations about top Democrats and the deep state. When the report fizzled, however, Q promised that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a frequent target of QAnon jabs, had tampered with the report. Trump had the real report, Q claimed, and that report’s release would solve everything. 
 
 Decoding It All 
 
 While QAnon has been the breakout conspiracy theory of the Trump era, not everyone on the right is on board. The farcical nature of QAnon’s clues has tended to alienate many younger, more internet-savvy people on the right, including members of the alt-right. QAnon also alienated a swathe of the right-wing conspiracy theory internet after Q denounced other internet personalities who had been speculating about the clues, accusing them of trying to profit off the movement. But QAnon has been a hit with older Trump supporters, leading to tech-illiterate baby boomers looking to spread the QAnon gospel asking for help in internet forums on “how to meme.” 
 
 Nine months after it started, QAnon world has accumulated an internal language of its own. The moderators of the QAnon forums and the interpreters of the clues call themselves “bakers,” a reference to the “breadcrumbs.” QAnon followers are fixated on which public officials are “white hats” or “black hats,” meaning whether they’re really working for Trump or are agents of the cabal. They urge one another to “follow the white rabbit,” which made Trump delivering his “tip top” speech next to the Easter Bunny all the more portentous. 
 
 QAnon believers even have a slogan, “Where we go one, we go all,” which they often abbreviate to “WWG1WGA.” It’s become a rallying cry for QAnon fans that Q has attributed to President John F. Kennedy, although it actually appears to come from the 1996 action movie White Squall. 
 
 That community of people deciphering the clues seems to be as important to QAnon believers as Q’s message itself. On QAnon forums, believers talk about the idea that the cabal they believe is responsible for most of the trouble in the United States will soon be swept away has given them hope. Despite obviously being fake, then, it doesn’t look like QAnon is going to go away anytime soon. ||||| What Is QAnon? The Conspiracy Theory Tiptoeing Into Trump World 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Zack Wittman/Bloomberg via Getty Images Zack Wittman/Bloomberg via Getty Images 
 
 As the cameras rolled on President Trump's campaign rally for GOP Rep. Ron DeSantis in Florida on Tuesday night, a peculiar sign appeared in view. 
 
 "We are Q." 
 
 Journalists at the event noted multiple attendees carrying signs and wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the name "QAnon." 
 
 The shirts and signs are references to a conspiracy theory growing increasingly popular among those on the far-right — and a conspiracy theory about which the White House fielded a question from the media on Wednesday. 
 
 What is QAnon? 
 
 The conspiracy theory centers on a mysterious and anonymous online figure — "Q." According to The Daily Beast, "Q" began posting on anonymous Internet message boards in October 2017. The person or persons behind the "Q" persona claim to possess a top-level security clearance and evidence of a worldwide criminal conspiracy. 
 
 What's the conspiracy theory? 
 
 It goes like this: Special counsel Robert Mueller isn't actually investigating Trump and his 2016 campaign for their possible ties to Russia, and he's not really looking into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. 
 
 Rather, Mueller was appointed by Trump to investigate Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and other top Democrats, like former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. According to posts written by "Q" — dubbed "breadcrumbs" by the theory's followers — even Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is a target of Mueller's so-called investigation. 
 
 What are these foes of Trump being "investigated" for? There are numerous accusations floating around the QAnon world. Some suggest Clinton and Obama are in cahoots with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Others suggest they, along with Hollywood figures and other world leaders, are participants in a global pedophile ring. 
 
 "Q" suggests all these figures are secretly wearing location-tracking ankle monitors, so their whereabouts can be monitored at all times, and that they'll all be sent to prison very soon in an event the theory's followers call "the storm." 
 
 That's a reference to Trump's remarks last year, where he warned of "the calm before the storm" during a meeting with military leaders. (The military is also involved in the QAnon theory — according to "Q," the military persuaded Trump to run for president in order to clean up the vast criminal network.) 
 
 "Q" has dropped "breadcrumbs" about coming events in the supposed investigation on a regular basis. The hints reference current political events, including the release of the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General report in June. 
 
 It should be noted that no part of the QAnon conspiracy theory has proved to be true, and multiple media outlets have debunked the theory's allegations. 
 
 Who believes in the conspiracy theory? 
 
 For a while, QAnon posts were mostly limited to anonymous Internet message boards, like 4chan and 8chan. But over the past year, "Q" has gained a host of new believers and followers. A popular YouTube video explaining QAnon has racked up nearly 200,000 views, and according to NBC News, a mobile phone application related to the conspiracy theory climbed near the top of the Apple App Store rankings earlier this year. 
 
 "Q" also counts several celebrities as followers and fans. Roseanne Barr has frequently tweeted about QAnon and has expressed a desire to meet "Q." And in June, the sitcom star took to Twitter to share a phrase common among QAnon supporters — "wwg1wga," short for "where we go one, we go all." 
 
 Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has also tweeted about the conspiracy theory and has shared QAnon videos on his Facebook page, according to The Daily Beast. 
 
 Why does it matter? 
 
 QAnon may seem on its face like a fringe Internet conspiracy theory, but its explosion in popularity has led to several real-world incidents. 
 
 In April, a group of QAnon believers took to the streets in Washington, D.C., in support of "Q" and demanding answers from the Justice Department. 
 
 And in June, a man driving an armored vehicle and carrying two firearms shut down a highway near the Hoover Dam while holding a sign reading "Release the OIG report." 
 
 That appeared to be a reference to the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General report that criticized the actions of former FBI Director James Comey for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. "Q" has hinted to followers on multiple occasions that Trump possesses a second IG report that would detail the criminal activities undertaken by Democrats. 
 
 The man, Matthew Wright, was arrested after the incident and now faces terrorism charges. Last month, it was revealed that Wright penned letters to Trump and other government officials from jail bearing the "where we go one, we go all" slogan. 
 
 Even Michael Avenatti, the lawyer representing adult film actress Stormy Daniels, made an appearance in a series of QAnon posts earlier this week, which included images of his office building followed by an image of a man reportedly standing outside Avenatti's office. "Q" later posted that a "message" had been sent to Avenatti. 
 
 In a tweet Wednesday, Avenatti appeared to respond, writing: "The more conspiracy theorists attack me, the more confident I become. It shows they see me as a significant threat to Mr. Trump and his continuation in office." 
 
 And following Trump's rally in Florida, QAnon made its way into the White House briefing room Wednesday, when a reporter asked White House press secretary Sarah Sanders if Trump "encouraged the support" of rallygoers wearing "Q" shirts. 
 
 "The president condemns and denounces any group that would incite violence against another individual and certainly doesn't support groups that would promote that type of behavior," Sanders said. 
 
 QAnon isn't the first conspiracy theory to make the jump from the Internet to the real world. In December 2016, a man fired a rifle inside Washington, D.C.'s Comet Ping Pong pizzeria, citing the baseless "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory that maintains that the restaurant is the center of a child sex ring involving top Democrats, including Clinton and Podesta. 
 
 The "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory originated on fringe Internet sites before emerging in the mainstream. With the ever-increasing appearances of "Q"-branded gear at Trump rallies, QAnon may be following the same path. ||||| Dozens of Donald Trump supporters championed the bizarre "QAnon" conspiracy theory at Tuesday's Tampa rally, a fact that instantly drew national media attention. 
 
 The Washington Post called "QAnon" a "deranged conspiracy cult" in a Wednesday news story that shot to the top of its "most read" category. Reason, the libertarian magazine, called Tuesday a "coming out party" for believers in the conspiracy. 
 
 QAnon supporters believe that at least one government insider, "Q," is using various platforms to feed "anons" — Q's followers — information about…well, all sorts of things. As the Guardian noted in this excellent explainer, it can be difficult to pin down what exactly proponents of QAnon take the consequences of Q's dispatches to be. But many have extrapolated the breadcrumbs supposedly left behind by the deep state agent (or agents) to mean that Hollywood celebrities are engaged in a widespread pedophilia ring; that bad actors once tried to shoot down Air Force One with Trump aboard — and other evidence-free notions. 
 
 RELATED COVERAGE: Conspiracy theorist QAnon promoted, then deleted, by Hillsborough County GOP 
 
 Yet on Tuesday, QAnon was regarded as legitimate by rally goers. 
 
 Jamie and Jennifer Buteau of Ocala wore T-shirts and made signs promoting Q's cause at Trump's rally Tuesday. Jamie, who voted for Obama in 2012, said in an interview after the rally ended that he got turned onto Trump because of his "magnetic personality." He said he views Q's dispatches as a research guide. 
 
 "The media has already written it off as this bad thing, but it's all positive," Buteau said of QAnon. 
 
 The Buteaus said there are hidden messages all around Trump's presidency, and Q is helping his supporters decode them. When Trump misspells in a tweet, that's a sign, Jamie said. When the lights turned out during a press conference in which Trump walked back comments about Russia's 2016 interference in America's elections, Q was sending a message, Jennifer said. 
 
 The lights went out on Trump as he was delivering a statement to the press. 
 
 
 
 Good reminder that Trump’s White House is probably more like Veep than House Of Cards. pic.twitter.com/z5NN6MZOlW — Nathan H. Rubin (@NathanHRubin) July 17, 2018 
 
 Even things Q has gotten wrong can be seen by its supporters as evidence of his power. Jamie said that some of Q's intel "drops" are "misinformation" designed to throw deep state actors off the scent. 
 
 If any of that sounds far-fetched, that's because it is. But Joseph Uscinski, a professor at the University of Miami who researches conspiracy theories, said it makes sense that QAnon supporters showed up at the Trump rally because polls show that Trump supporters are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. 
 
 "Simply not trusting the media doesn't lead to QAnon," Uscinski said. "It's a very specific set of people who are going to buy into it. So largely, what you're dealing with is the dispositions that allow people to pick up these beliefs, rather than anything really convincing about the theory itself." 
 
 Uscinski noted that although QAnon, which cropped up on 4chan message boards in October of 2017, has shown some staying power — in part because of support from conservative celebrities like Roseanne Barr — most conspiracy theories have a short shelf life. He added that we shouldn't judge conspiracy theorists too harshly because we're all prone to believing in tall tales from time to time. 
 
 "We shouldn't treat our fellow Americans like zoo animals," the professor said. 
 
 Of course, the wild nonsense spread by QAnon's supporters can also be dangerous. Buzzfeed reported that a man was arrested in June after he drove to the Hoover Dam in an armored truck to demand that the government release "the OIG report," a calling card of QAnon supporters. 
 
 But for his part, Buteau isn't worried he's gone too far down the conspiracy rabbit hole — although he admitted QAnon research can be "addicting." 
 
 "This is the counterbalance to the fake news," Buteau said. ||||| (CNN) If you watched any of President Donald Trump's campaign rally in Tampa, Florida on Tuesday night, you likely caught a glimpse of people holding up signs with "Q" or "QAnon" printed on them. Those people are adherents of a broad-scale conspiracy theory that pits President Trump against a global elite seeking to murder him. 
 
 Yes, you read that right. 
 
 With QAnon moving from the fringes of Internet thought into something much closer to the mainstream, I reached out to the Daily Beast's Will Sommer, who has been writing and thinking smartly about QAnon since its inception. (Read his full explanation of QAnon here .) Our conversation, conducted via email and lightly edited for flow, is below. 
 
 Cillizza: Let's start simple: Where the heck did QAnon come from? And do we have any sense how many "members" it has or whether it is growing? 
 
 : QAnon started last October, when an anonymous person or group of people called Q started posting cryptic clues on 4Chan . Trump supporters eventually found these clues, which they call "breadcrumbs," and spun them into a whole counter-narrative that's contrary to just about everything that's actually happening in the world. 
 
 So, for example, Robert Mueller isn't investigating the Trump campaign -- QAnon believers think he's actually working with Trump to get Hillary Clinton. 
 
 It's hard to gauge the extent of QAnon believers, but I'd say that it's pretty wide-reaching among really hardcore Trump supporters. In April, QAnon believers marched in DC and they numbered something like 200 people, and it's only grown since then. 
 
 The other thing is that a lot of tenets of QAnon, especially the part about a "deep state" plot, aren't that different from what's on Fox [News Channel] or talk radio every day. So when a person already prone to support Trump hears about QAnon, they've been primed to believe this stuff by the rest of conservative media. 
 
 Cillizza: Is this just another garden-variety conspiracy along the lines of, say, Obama wasn't born in the US? Why has this become such a, well, thing? 
 
 Sommer: Unlike something like birtherism or : Unlike something like birtherism or Pizzagate , QAnon is a kind of mega-conspiracy theory that sucks in just about every conspiracy theory you can think of. Pizzagate is part of it, birtherism is part of it -- but so is the JFK assassination conspiracy theory, the idea that all these mass shootings have been deep-state false flags , and much more. The vague nature of the Q clues also means that you can sort of imprint whatever your personal issue is onto it. 
 
 The other strange thing about QAnon is that it's fundamentally a story being told by the side that's already in power. Normally, conspiracy theories, like the idea that George W. Bush stole the 2004 election or that Barack Obama was an illegitimate president because he was born in Kenya, are coming from a group that's trying to explain why they're out of power. 
 
 Instead, QAnon believers got the guy they wanted elected in the White House, but they didn't get everything they wanted or were promised. For example: they chanted "lock her up," but Hillary Clinton was never locked up. So they retreat to a fantasy world where Hillary Clinton will soon be sent to Guantanamo Bay. 
 
 Cillizza: "Q" him or herself seems to be a major source of interest. Is there ANY sense of who this person is? Whether it's a person or persons? Whether they have any ties to Trump? 
 
 Sommer: There are a lot of theories about who Q is. QAnon people believe in fanciful ideas like, maybe it's Trump or Dan Scavino or Michael Flynn. They're always on the hunt for clues or acknowledgments from the administration. For example, Trump said "17" a lot in his speech Tuesday night, which they took to be an acknowledgment of Q -- the 17th letter of the alphabet! 
 
 That's also why they've been bugging White House reporters to ask Sarah Sanders about Q. [Editor's note: White House press secretary Sanders was asked about QAnon in Wednesday's briefing: "The President condemns and denounces any group that would incite violence against any individual," she said.] 
 
 QAnon critics, on the other hand, tend to focus on various hucksters promoting QAnon. Lots of conspiracy theorists on the right have become alienated from QAnon after Q accused them of trying to profit from the movement, so it's become kind of a circling firing squad of people accusing each other of being Q. 
 
 I think Q is just some random person or group of people who started a troll that has gotten way out of hand. Or maybe, as with so many things these days, it's a Russian psy-op! 
 
 Cillizza: Why, suddenly, were there so many Q signs/supporters at the Trump rally last night? Coordinated effort? Coordinated how? 
 
 Sommer: There's actually been increasing Q believer activity all over this year -- billboards popping up, more attention from conservative celebrities [Editor's note: Like : There's actually been increasing Q believer activity all over this year -- billboards popping up, more attention from conservative celebrities [Editor's note: Like Roseanne and Curt Schilling ], people appearing at Trump rallies. I think the stuff last night was big for a couple reasons: 1) pictures of the ralliers in Q gear started circulating before the event and 2) because people with QAnon gear and signs were in advantageous positions to get in front of the cameras during the rally. So suddenly all these political and media people are watching Trump give his speech, and this QAnon sign with Seth Rich references gets in front of the camera. 
 
 Cillizza: Finish this sentence: "QAnon's impact on politics -- and Trumpworld -- is _________________." Now, explain. 
 
 Sommer: "QAnon's impact on politics -- and Trumpworld -- is dangerous." 
 
 I think what we've learned from the Pizzagate gunman is that people actually believe this stuff, and some percentage of these people are going to be willing to take action. The idea of global pedophile conspiracies, for example, is a huge part of QAnon, and that's exactly the kind of thing that appears to motivate people to commit these bizarre violent incidents. 
 
 In the broader perspective, I think it's just really bad for American politics to have a segment of the population becoming increasingly unmoored from reality. For example, a big tenet of QAnon is that the deep state tried to shoot down Air Force One with a missile. That's nuts! But if you're a QAnon believer, you think that actually happened. 
 
 I'd also say QAnon probably benefits Trump, because it helps the base ignore actual bad news about his administration. It also dramatizes the campaign to elect Republicans -- it's one thing if you're voting for the GOP or Trump because you want boring legislative stuff like lower capital gains taxes. But if you believe in QAnon, you think Trump and the Republicans are literally fighting a worldwide battle against a nefarious cabal. That makes politics more engaging.
– "Q WWG1WGA Trump 2020 Keep America Great! MSM is the enemy," read the sign spotted by the AP at President Trump's rally in Tampa on Tuesday night. There are plenty of letters on it, but one stands out: Q. NPR reports that other signs and T-shirts read "QAnon," a reference to a conspiracy theory that's picking up steam on the far-right and beginning to garner enough attention that it came up during the White House press briefing Wednesday. What you need to know: There actually is a Q: "Q" began posting to 4Chan in October 2017 and then shifted to "the even more fringe" 8Chan as well, per the Daily Beast. "Q" happens to be a type of high-level government security clearance, which Q claims to have. The "Anon" part is apparently a reference to both the anonymous Q (who uses the plural "we") and doubles as a reference to Q's fans: the Anons. The lingo doesn't stop there: Q is purportedly disseminating top-secret info via "breadcrumbs," which the Daily Beast characterizes as "part poem, part ransom note"; "bakers" follow the crumbs. "No name" is John McCain, "clowns" are those who try to undermine Q. A breadcrumb: The Beast gives this example, posted in June: "Think SC vote to confirm (coming). / No Name action. / Every dog has its day. / Enjoy the show. / Q" The conspiracy theory: Thanks to that government clearance, Q claims to know about a "worldwide criminal conspiracy," which NPR reports revolves around Robert Mueller—who, per Q, isn't investigating Trump's campaign or the 2016 election at all. Rather, he was put in place by Trump to investigate Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and other Democrats, with some (like Huma Abedin) supposedly being tracked via secret wearable location devices in advance of the coming "storm": when they'll all go to prison for crimes Q followers believe could be anything from participating in a pedophile ring to having a secret pact with Vladimir Putin. The conspiracy theory, II: To show how wide-ranging things get, the AP writes, "filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, the Rothschild family, and Satan also make appearances in discussions." Another element: the belief that JP Morgan was behind the sinking of the Titanic. The Tampa Bay Times cites one Q proponent as saying Trump's misspellings in his tweets are clues. CNN adds that the fact that Trump used the number "17" on a number of occasions in his speech Tuesday night fired up clue-seeking Anons, who noted Q is the alphabet's 17th letter. Background on "the storm": In an October 2017 meeting between Trump and military leaders (who, per QAnon thinking, urged Trump to run for president in order to go after the aforementioned criminals), Trump made reference to "the calm before the storm." The high-profile follower: Roseanne Barr is an "Anon," just not an anonymous one: She's tweeted about QAnon a number of times, including this in late June: "we r the army of truth-wwg1wga." The "wwg1wga," stands for "where we go one, we go all." (Side note from the AP: Valerie Jarrett, the subject of Barr's now infamous tweet, plays a role in some QAnon theories.) Why QAnon is getting more press this week: The Washington Post says Tuesday's Tampa event highlighted the fact that QAnon isn't just relegated to the corners of the internet at this point. The White House response: CNN reports QAnons have been pushing for the press to ask Sarah Sanders about Q, which apparently happened Wednesday. Her reply: "The president condemns and denounces any group that would incite violence against any individual."