Member-only story
Santa, coffee and QAnon in Buffalo, NY
Protests are all the rage of late, so the placard-gripping gathering out front Spot Coffee in Buffalo, NY last week seemed as normal as outdoor seating. Nothing I couldn't navigate through to get a cup of coffee. Spot Coffee is a liberal business in a fairly liberal city, so I assumed this was a liberal protest as well. But as I got close enough to see the signs and hear the chants, I realized that something was different.
THE REAL PANDEMIC IS CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING, read one sign.
NO MORE PIZZA PLOT POLITICIANS, written on another.
#pizzagate, #adrenachrome, one sign referring to Tom Hanks… I couldn’t believe it: this was QAnon.
I was shocked, and I couldn’t help feeling more than a bit giddy to be experience my first up-close encounter with QAnon. What a crowd it was: college students, families with babies, some normies, some creeps, a few varieties of eccentrics and even Santa and Mrs Claus were present. I was overwhelmed, I wanted to just stand there and take it all in, but my feet kept moving.
I went inside to get the coffee I came for, I asked the woman who took my order about the gathering outside, “Is this really a pizzagate thing?”