 The year is almost over and 2021 has been wild when it comes to American politics, and this year, more so than any other years, put into perspective just how conspiratorial so many Americans are, and I knew that there was a sizable portion of the American population that was susceptible to really kooky ideas and conspiracy theories, but to know how many people believe outlandish things, it did shock me if I'm being honest. So, a Yuga of poll conducted in November of 2021 found that 28% of Republicans believed it was very likely or somewhat likely Trump would be reinstated by the end of 2021. Now, I mean, time's ticking, so if he's going to be reinstated, I'd imagine it's going to happen very soon, but it's not going to happen, obviously. Now, this conspiracy theory, it really originates from QAnon, and it's something that's believed not just by QAnon subscribers, but Q adjacent people. And one thing that I want to talk about here is all of the QAnon prophecies, for lack of a better word, that have failed to come true, because as we learn how conspiratorial so many people are, effectively, mostly Republicans, you know, my hope is that since we're seeing failed prophecy after failed prophecy, more and more people will wake up and realize that QAnon is false. And perhaps we need to have a better standard for how we evaluate predictions and evidence and how we view the world. So I want to go to a Rolling Stone article because Ryan Bort goes over all of the bold predictions that QAnon has made in 2021 that never ended up coming true. And I hope that if we talk about all of the failed things here, people will realize, OK, I was fooled, it's time to learn from this experience and move on. So the first one is January 20th. QAnon is based on the belief that the world is run by a cabal of sane worshipping pedophiles and that Trump in his capacity as president was going to bring all of these people to justice. The fact that he got trounced by Biden last November accelerated the timeline for this to happen. And once the election results were certified on January 6th, conspiracy theorists decided he was going to do it on Biden's inauguration day, while at the same time revealing a secret plan to remain in office. This did not happen. QAnon adherents were confused, but not deterred. In fact, they were more not deterred than anyone realized possible. On March 4th. Yeah, Biden was inaugurated on January 20th. So what? The real inauguration day is March 4th. Conspiracy theorists claimed. And it was on March 4th, 2021, that Trump would be sworn in for his second term. The theory hinged on the idea that in 1871, Congress turned the government into a corporation and that every president who has held office since is illegitimate. March 4th served as inauguration day prior to 1933, when the 20th Amendment was passed. And it would be on this day that Trump would be inaugurated as the 19th president or the first legitimate successor to Ulysses S. Grant. Don't think too hard about the logic here. It's not supposed to make sense. The theory became widespread enough that hashtags like March 4th and 19th president started to spread across social media. The Capitol Police even warned of a possible plot to breach the Capitol by an identified militia group on the date leading the House of Representatives to cancel plans for a session. On March 20th. Okay, nothing happened on March 4th. What about March 20th? It's basically the same thing, right? I mean, when you think about it, all that's differentiating the two dates are things like time and math, both of which are being forced to run us by liberal scientists. Can we just say he'll come back on the 20th instead? There were corners of QAnon that did indeed say this, citing the Presidential Enhancement Act signed into law in 2020. The act is designed to smooth the transition of power by in part, providing certain support to the president-elect's team for 60 days after the inauguration. Conspiracy theorists misinterpreted this to mean that Trump retained control of the freaking military for 60 days after inauguration and that the official transfer of power would not take place until March 20th. August 13th. All right, March was a bad month for conspiracy theorists. It was time to take a breather and really figure out when Trump was going to return to power. Mike Lindell announced on March 29th that it was happening in August, citing all of the evidence of election fraud. He was going to show the Supreme Court. November 25th. Nothing happened in August either. But that's OK. Lindell soon thereafter pegged Thanksgiving as the new day Trump would return to office based on his plan to deliver his historic election fraud complaint, which would be signed by state attorney general to the Supreme Court earlier this week. I talked to all the lawyers today he said in September, 100 percent we are getting this before the Supreme Court before Thanksgiving. That is locked in stone, everybody. Now, obviously, none of that happened. When one date came and once another one popped up and I'm not sure if most of them were unable to fight through the cognitive dissonance. I'm sure that some of them realized, OK, we're being duped here. We're being taken for a ride. And this is this is bullshit, but not all of them. And also, of course, I would be remiss to not point out the JFK event that took place in November where hundreds of QAnon supporters showed up to an event in Dallas where they expected the return of JFK Jr., who's been dead for decades, by the way. And with this return, he would not only shock the world showing that he's been alive all this time, but he would announce a joint 2024 presidential run with Donald Trump. And of course, Donald Trump was at the top of the ticket. Now, I don't know if this is a different branch of QAnon and if this defers with the reinstatement people. Perhaps, you know, there was a portion of QAnon that never expected him to be reinstated, but rather thought that he was going to announce a presidential run soon. I'm not necessarily sure, but here's what I do know. What seems like the dominant branch of QAnon is the group of people who believe that Trump will be reinstated. Now, the 28 percent of Republicans who believe that Trump will be reinstated in 2021, I'm not necessarily sure that all of them are strict adherence to QAnon. But one thing that I think is evident that people need to pay attention to is how Q messages get leaked and they end up affecting normies. So perhaps somebody might not be in the Q rabbit hole, but they see a QAnon post on Facebook where it says Trump is going to be reinstated and they fall for it. And so they might not necessarily follow QAnon as closely as Marjorie Taylor Greene did before she was elected to Congress. But they at least see it and that Q message gets to them, nonetheless. Now, one thing that I want to point out is that all of the dates that they came up with, they had this weird line of reasoning. Like they based it off of something. They didn't just pull it out of thin air. They based it off of, for example, what was it, the Presidential Enhancement Act? Is that what they cited as for the return on the 20th? Yeah. So basically, the Presidential Enhancement Act, they thought that because of that, because Trump retained control of the military, there is reason to believe that he returned on March 20th. And they had the 19th president thing. So they can pluck some random fact about history out of thin air and they'll base their conspiracy off of that. They won't just say, well, he's coming back on the 20th because he told me so. He's in my ear and I'm listening to him. They base it off of something and this is how they row people in because people who have a low standard of evidence, they don't realize, OK, that's not sufficient for me. They just think, OK, well, this is evidence. This is something and I'm inclined to believe it because I want to believe that Trump will be reinstated. Therefore, I'm not really going to question this. I'm just going to accept it. And that's a problem because the way that conspiratorial thinking people act is they'll see something and they'll hang on to it. And, you know, you you can't refute that. And one thing that I want to draw attention to is my fake conspiracy video that I put out in spring. It was about Kyle Kalinsky and whether or not he was being held up in a basement. Now, I would encourage all of you to watch that. Sure, we were having fun. But what I was trying to demonstrate with that video is how easy it is to concoct conspiracy theories and create, quote, evidence out of nothing, you know, make everything into a conspiracy, make it suspicious. And, you know, me and my Twitch audience had a lot of fun with that video. But I think that people, you know, the takeaway from that video is that it's really easy to fabricate conspiracy theories. It's really easy to do people. And I wasn't trying to do people with that. It was a joke. It was meant to be an exercise in showing you, you know, you can you can turn anything into a conspiracy theory. A link to that video down below, by the way, in case you want to see it. But the point is that we have to educate people on what is a sufficient standard of evidence. And especially we have to teach people that if they see something that was proven wrong and the individual who makes these claims or the group that makes these claims is consistently wrong again and again and again. At some point, the red flags have to go off. At some point, you have to suspect that maybe they don't know what they're talking about. Now, I would imagine that the number of QAnon adherence has gone down. I mean, we've seen some people speak out and talk about how it's a cult and they're no longer part of it. But still, there's enough people. If a November poll is still showing that 28 percent of Republicans think Trump is going to be reinstated by the end of 2021, that's a huge issue. People are still very conspiratorial and perhaps they're not subscribed to QAnon per se. But if they believe Trump's going to be reinstated, then there's some flaws in their thinking. They're not living in reality. They're following someone who presents these insane claims. And the fact that they don't automatically dismiss it and know it's insane is a problem that we have to address as a country. I don't know if we need to give people media literacy training. I don't know if we need to just teach people in general about evidence and how you prove a claim that you're making. Either way, this is an issue. And I think that it's only going to get worse, unfortunately, but we'll see what happens. Do yourself a favor and click the join button on YouTube to become a member. Because Mike's doing a great job getting to watch his videos before everyone else is tremendous. Many people are saying this. Join today, folks. You won't regret it.