News

QAnon Thinks Biden Helped China Create the Texas Energy Crisis

As if Texans didn’t have enough to deal with right now.
Crowds gather outside the U.S. Capitol for the "Stop the Steal" rally on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Crowds gather outside the U.S. Capitol for the "Stop the Steal" rally on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)
Logo_Disinfo Dispatch Padding
Unraveling viral disinformation and explaining where it came from, the harm it's causing, and what we should do about it.

As if Texans didn’t have enough to deal with between energy blackouts, broken water pipes, food shortages, and their elected officials lying about Cancún holidays in the middle of the crisis, QAnon followers are now actively trying to claim that the winter storm was orchestrated by the Biden administration with the help of China.

When QAnon followers jump on any major global incident and try to interpret it through their unique worldview, there are usually several conspiracies in play. But one appears to be dominating the forums and channels, thanks mainly to a major Q influencer who goes by the name InevatibleET.

Advertisement

The basic outline of the theory is that President Joe Biden allowed China access to the U.S. power grid when he signed the Keystone Pipeline Executive Order, and by doing so somehow allowed China to hack the U.S. power grid and cause the blackouts that Texas has suffered over the last week.  

Of course, this theory, which has no basis in fact, fails to mention that Texas’ power grid is operated and maintained by Texas, and not part of the two major federally-controlled power grids that service every other state in the country.

But such facts mattered little on Telegram, Gab, and the QAnon forum GreatAwakenings.win, where people shared the conspiracy, with comments like “I believe it” and “Solid research.”

Over on the QAnon Casualties thread on Reddit, which offers advice and help to people whose family and friends have been indoctrinated into QAnon, multiple users in Texas reported that loved ones had begun to share the specific Biden theory while they all suffered through freezing temperatures and water shortages.

“I am in the currently frozen state of Texas. My Q people have now decided (based on a questionable article they have cited) that our polar storm this week is a result of some kind of weather warfare set in motion by the current administration,” one user wrote.

But although the Biden-China conspiracy has dominated the message boards, it’s not the only Texas conspiracy out there. Others reported that the QAnon people in their lives had been sharing a baseless claim that the snow that had fallen in Texas was somehow not real snow.

Advertisement

Others are pushing the idea that the Texas blackout may be “the storm” that Q has been referring to since the beginning — an event that will finally unmask the cabal of Democratic pedophiles, and allow Trump to ascend to the presidency once again.

On GreatAwakenings.win, one user, pointed out that pro-Trump QAnon- supporting lawyer Lin Wood — who has huge influence within the QAnon community — warned about a coming storm before the inauguration and told followers to stock up on supplies because there would be power outages. 

But, while his Q supporters are lauding him for his foresight, Wood himself, who is facing an investigation into his professional conduct as a lawyer in Georgia, has denounced QAnon — sort of.

On his Telegram channel, which has over 800,000 followers, Wood wrote on Thursday night: 

“I have been repeatedly accused of being a ‘QAnon conspiracy theorist’ by the enemy. I have never exactly understood why the propaganda media decided to make that accusation against me.”

Wood quickly followed that statement by outlining just one of the many reasons why he has been correctly labeled a QAnon booster, referencing, WWG1WGA, which is one of the best-known terms used by QAnon supporters to identify themselves.

“On Twitter, I did have on my profile WWG1WGA. I proudly adopted that statement, “Where we go one, we go all.” To me, it conveyed UNITY. I posted it after I saw Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn and his family take that pledge. I love and admire General Flynn. He loves liberty and God. So do I.”

QAnon isn’t the only group spreading disinformation about the Texas winter storm. Earlier this week Republican lawmakers did their best to lay the blame for the energy blackouts on renewable energy — by using a seven-year-old picture of frozen wind turbines taken in Sweden.

Unsurprisingly, among the lawmakers spreading this disinformation were Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Both have a history of boosting QAnon.