Dear god, the dude allegedly behind QAnon is running for Congress

Here are two seemingly contradictory, yet simultaneous truths:

1) The perpetually mutating goulash of warmed-over conspiracy theories and antisemitic tropes known as QAnon is so laughably bogus that the fact anyone actually believes it’s real is a testament to the human spirit’s bottomless depths of desperation and gullibility.

2) Someone is ultimately responsible for promulgating the QAnon mythos through the invented persona of the eponymous “Q,” and that someone is increasingly believed to be Ron Watkins, the former message board administrator for 8kun, the site through which Q communicated.

Depressingly, these two vectors seem bound for a collision after Watkins officially filed the requisite paperwork to run for congress as a Republican in Arizona on Sunday. Forget mere Q adherents like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Green (Ga.) and Lauren Boebert (Colo.) repping the “cabal of Democratic satanists who eat children's’ brains” crowd in Congress — we now live in a world where it is distinctly possible that “Q” himself could take over as lunatic conductor of that particularly crazy train.

Watkins’s filing comes just days after he released an amateurish campaign announcement declaring his candidacy, attributing the decision to inspiration from far-right wing pastor Jeff Durbin, who has previously called for women who terminate pregnancies to be executed.

“I have decided to double down with God as my compass to take this fight to the swamp of Washington, D.C.,” Watkins declared, calling potential electoral opponent (and former Republican) Tom O’Halleran “the dirtiest Democrat” in Congress.

While there is some question as to whether or not Watkins actually lies in the Maricopa County district he is running to represent (he claimed to Vice that he was a resident without offering any corroborating proof), he has been spending a considerable amount of time in the area lately. That includes a recent photo op alongside Kari Lake, former President Donald Trump’s pick to become Arizona’s next governor. Watkins has also been instrumental in pushing Trump’s wildly discredited election fraud theories in the state.

Should Watkins actually make it to Congress, he will likely find himself in good company with the growing number of QAnon adherents already stalking the country’s halls of power — although it’s entirely possible that his reputation as allegedly being the trickster source of their warped worldview could serve to alienate him from true believers like Greene and Boebert.

Just days before his official filing, Watkins denied being the fabled Q, and even the existence of the eponymous conspiracy cult itself, writing, “The fake news media continues to insist that I am part of some QAnon conspiracy.”

“As we all know, there is no QAnon,” he continued. “What does exist are the many hardworking, God-fearing people who are breaking tyranny’s grasp over our country.”

Sounds like the sort of thing Q might say!