'Extra creepy' Trump rally highlights GOP's QAnon ties: columnist

On Monday, writing for MSNBC's Maddowblog, columnist Steve Benen broke down the significance of former President Donald Trump's latest rally in Ohio, which was loaded with explicit references to the QAnon conspiracy theory, including a song that referenced their slogans and a mass QAnon salute from the crowd.

Trump has been more and more directly courting the far-right movement, which holds that America is ruled by a shadowy class of pedophile cannibals and Trump will lead an event called "The Storm" to declare martial law and purge the nation of these enemies with mass arrests. The movement has been identified as a domestic terror threat by the FBI and has been linked to acts of violence and murder.

In recent days, the former president has promoted QAnon memes on his Truth Social network. The events of the rally in Youngstown, however, represent a new escalation, Benen argued.

"Trump generally tried to strike a balance with QAnon devotees — the Times referenced 'a winking relationship' — in which he would neither denounce nor explicitly embrace the lunacy," wrote Benen. "It was about two years ago when the then-president, speaking from behind a White House podium, said he didn’t know much about the deranged theory or its followers, 'other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate.' Two years later, he’s dispensed with the subtleties."

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"As things stand, Trump’s embrace of the madness has become increasingly overt in ways that should spark a larger conversation in Republican politics," concluded Benen. "Indeed, there’s no reason GOP candidates shouldn’t comment on the latest evidence of their party leader’s extremism."

Trump is not alone among Republicans in pursuing a more direct relationship with QAnon believers. Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, has been similarly courting QAnon followers at their own events.

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