Former QAnon follower explains why she left movement

‘For me, it started out with being disillusioned with the Democratic party’

A former follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory has explained how she came to believe in, and subsequently left, the bizarre fringe movement.

Lenka Perron explained to CNN that she became disillusioned with the Democratic Party, accusing them of “rigging” the 2016 primary against Bernie Sanders.  

“For me, it started out with being disillusioned with the Democratic party,” she said in an interview with  Don Lemon on Monday.

“We found ourselves connected on social media, if the democratic party was capable of rigging an election, what else were they capable of?”

Ms Perron explained that as she and others were researching online that “some outside conspiracy forces sort of came into our news feeds and sort of dropped information.”

“We don’t really know who they are but it was as if we were being bated,” she said, adding: “At some point Q comes along.”

QAnon is a vast conspiracy theory that largely rests on the belief that the president is secretly working to save the world from a satanic cult of paedophiles and cannibals.

The theory is run by a mysterious 4chan user named Q that posts cryptic messages for followers to figure out that make reference to the vast conspiracy theory.

The name appears to be a reference to the fact that the person claims to have “Q” clearance, a designation in the US Department of Energy.

“It brought up concerns, until at least for me it got to the point where it just... it was very obvious to me it was getting… it couldn’t possibly be true,” Ms Perron said, explaining her decision to leave.

“For me, there were a number of things,” she said. “It became obvious to me that they were really targeting the Democratic party and accusing them of many things that I already knew that the Republican party was involved with as well.

“So that was a big question, why are they just targeting the Democratic party?"

Q appears to be a Donald Trump supporter, and many of the posts complain about the fact the “deep state” is blighting his work against a secretive and evil global cabal.

“When they painted Mr Trump as some kind of saviour to come in and fix corruption and address the child sex trafficking issue, well I was watching him do the same thing that I opposed on the Democratic side,” Ms Perron said.

She added: “I was watching him appoint corporatists into his administration. I was watching him speak. I was looking at his history with the different controversies he was involved with."

In August 2020, when asked to comment on the theory, Mr Trump said he didn’t know much about it but that he would be willing to help them "save the world".

Ahead of the election in October, polling from HOPE not hate found that roughly one in 10 Americans are engaged with QAnon beliefs, with 4.6 per cent of respondents explicitly identifying as “strong supporters”.  

“It just absolutely did not add up for me,” Ms Perron concluded. “I can understand how people kind of get lost in it."

The conspiracy theory has once again come into the spotlight following recent controversies surrounding Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has previously expressed support for the theory.

Rep Greene has since tried to distance herself from the group saying it does not represent her current views.