Right-wing school board candidate in damage control mode after her 'QAnon pledge' is exposed

According to the Tampa Bay Times, Dawn Peters, a right-wing candidate for school board in Pinellas County, Florida, has released a statement disavowing a number of conspiracy theories after social media posts of hers surfaced exposing her as a QAnon adherent.

"Peters posted her statement after the Tampa Bay Times reported her critics were circulating 2-year-old screenshots from her social media accounts. The images showed her appearing to join others in a QAnon pledge and retweeting an item that called the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the moon landing and the coronavirus pandemic 'hoaxes,'" said the report. Initially, "When asked about the posts for that article, Peters confirmed they were real but said she could not recall what she was thinking when she shared them. She said she had 'no idea' whether the three historic events were hoaxes, and that people should 'think for themselves.'"

"'I am not a conspiracy theorist," Peters told the Tampa Bay Times. "I am a mother, an active volunteer and just want to get back to discussing the issues with our school system and our children."

Peters also told the publication that she did not "know what a QAnon oath is" even though she posted a photo of her partner, David Will, taking what she described as "the oath" while also posting the hashtag "QArmy."

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"That came one day after she posted a photo of Michael Flynn, the controversial former national security adviser, with the phrase 'WWG1WGA, God Bless America.' The phrase refers to the line 'Where we go one, we go all,' which has been considered a QAnon oath or pledge," the report continued.

QAnon is a conspiracy theory cult which believes America is controlled by Satanic sex traffickers who consume the blood of children to stay eternally youthful — often with the addition that former President Donald Trump, along with the deceased John F. Kennedy Jr., will seize power, declare martial law and conduct mass arrests to wipe out the evildoers.

Some experts have warned QAnon is a rebranded version of the same centuries-old anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on which Adolf Hitler founded the Nazi movement, and the FBI has identified it as a source of domestic terrorism, with some of its believers committing violence against their families and even political assassinations.

Conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks and moon landing have circulated for decades. In reality, it would have been technologically impossible to fake either event.

Right-wing candidates have flooded school board elections around the country over the last two years, spurred by moral panics about "critical race theory" — which has become a catch-all for any mention of race in school lessons — and the presence of LGBTQ staff or affirmation in schools.