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Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo /EFE
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What's behind the threats to assault the Capitol this March 4

The House was forced to cancel its Thursday session today because of a "possible collusion," the Capitol Police announced. Why does QAnon believe this March 4…

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Just two months after a horde of Trump loyalist extremists stormed the Capitol, causing hundreds of injuries and five deaths, Intelligence alerted police that QAnon supporters intend to return to the charge this Thursday, March 4.

As reported by NYT, today's House session was moved to Wednesday so that senior Representatives could leave the city as a security measure, and police cordoned off the perimeter,

Now, what's real about all these plotting ideas that expect and announce that Trump will be "back in power" in a matter of hours and have even led church pastors to fight back in their sermons against the scourge of Internet conspiracies?

The Day of Donald Trump

In a normal world - if the word "normal" still has meaning - the 2024 election is the ideal time for a government takeover. But in times of conspiracies, reason gives way to superstition. 

As in messianic announcements, some QAnon factions are convinced that Trump will become president again today under cover of an old body of law that they have interpreted as they please. 

According to the BBC reporter Shayan Sardarizadeh, followers of this movement believe that the United States went from being a country to a conspiracy after the passage in 1871 of the Organic Act of the District of Columbia district became a municipal corporation.

This "imaginative" theory was concocted by the sovereign citizens' movement, a faction of the extremist group that opposes federal laws and even currency, arguing that they are a curb on individual rights. 

Thus, supporters claim that all laws, amendments, and even presidents inaugurated after 1871 are illegitimate - including, of course, Biden himself. 

So what about March 4?

Digging into the past, free associations of ideas are served. When the 20th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1933, the president and Congress's swearing-in came to be held in January, but before that, all inaugurations took place on March 4. 

So after the failed attempt to storm the Capitol, believers that Donald is waging a secret war against an elite of pedophiles and Satanists expected January 20 to be "the day of truth," but it didn't happen. So they looked to this new date for a glimmer of hope to their right-wing messianism. 

"The real POTUS can't get back in office fast enough. March 4 at the latest... Please God" prayed a comment on a Qanon channel on Telegram.

As the message spread, influencers of all stripes came up with their own theories, going so far as to suggest other clues in the Organic Act of 1871.

Among them, that the digits of the law add up to 17, a symbolic number for Q-Anon - the "Q" being the seventeenth letter of the English alphabet. 

Of course, there have also been other surprising interpretations that seem like "reverse psychology."

Some QAnon influencers have called for their supporters to stay home, claiming that the media and that so-called "deep state" are cheatingly encouraging them to violence. 

"Stay home, stay safe," they warned on a QAnon forum to their followers.

Although experts say it seems unlikely that these threats will come to fruition, followers continue to squeeze the calendar in search of "D-Day." End of March? April? The next election?

The Power of Confusion

Texas Rep. Michael McCaul told CNN Wednesday that "President Trump has a responsibility to tell them (the plotters) to stand down. This threat is credible. It's real. It's a right-wing militia group."

Actually, there was no explicit "threat" about a militia group planning to storm Washington this March 4. Still, given QAnon's tracking of conversations on forums and networks, the possibility of an isolated group of extremists making another new interpretation and taking matters into their own hands was becoming increasingly real. 

Fake news, mere precaution, or superstition that by dint of believing it to be true becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, the truth is that today fear has sung victory, although conspiracies, like lies, have very short legs. 

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