Another Colorado Republican state legislative candidate has joined the ranks of public QAnon supporters.
Over the summer Lynn Gerber, who is running for a senate seat in Jefferson County, posted a pair of conspiracy videos, one of which is QAnon-branded propaganda.
QAnon conspiracist groups have grown so rapidly and promote such extreme disinformation that last year the FBI labeled them a domestic terror threat.
Several other Colorado Republican candidates have shared QAnon-linked conspiracies on social media, most prominently Lauren Boebert who is running for the 3rd Congressional District, but also Gerber’s fellow statehouse candidates Samantha Koch and Vanessa DeMott.
On June 30, Gerber shared a QAnon video titled “COVID 911: The DEEP STATE Insurgency,” which compiles a myriad of conspiracies.
“This is the perfect tool to clear up any doubt as to those who still don’t ‘trust the plan,'” reads the post. “POTUS has been ten steps ahead of all the DEEP STATE actors and their attempt to throw the world into chaos and bring in their dream of the NEW WORLD ORDER. They can’t stop what’s coming. Q. Patriots Are IN control. #WWG1WGA #QAnonArmy.”
The breadth of the disinformation contained in the video is staggering. It claims the COVID-19 pandemic, which at the time had killed 130,000 Americans, is both a hoax and yet also a man-made biological weapon created at the orders of former President Obama and the Democrats in order to sway the election. It goes on to assert that Democrats orchestrated George Floyd’s murder in order to launch nationwide protests, inverting the actual timeline of events- a classic conspiracy feature.
Facebook fact-checkers flagged the post as false information, linking to a thorough debunking memo by the Lead Stories FactChecker site.
“Is the COVID-19 pandemic a conspiracy manufactured by ‘Deep State Democrats’ and the ‘mass media’ to disrupt, even rig, the upcoming presidential election in a bid to topple Donald Trump?” states the memo. “And did the coronavirus provide the perfect cover for the mass racial justice protests since the death of George Floyd after being knelt on for nearly nine minutes by a Minneapolis police officer? No, there is no evidence to support any of this.”
Gerber shared the post on June 30. Facebook’s fact-checkers debunked it less than 48 hours later. Nevertheless, it remained on Gerber’s page for more than five weeks; it wasn’t removed until sometime after Sept 11.
In July, Gerber shared another QAnon video as a comment on the “Reopen Colorado” page, in response to a post about Larimer County mask laws. Hollywood claimed County officials “overturned” a mandatory mask law in response to overwhelming popular objection, which isn’t exactly accurate. The complete timeline of Larimer County’s public health ordinances is available online, but essentially the county relaxed some aspects of the regulation in late May, and a county-wide mask ordinance is still in place.
In a comment on the post, Gerber shared a video from the “Patriotiq Gang” Youtube channel, featuring conspiracy theorist Jeremy Elliot, an actor whose alt-right monologue proposes that global corporations faked the coronavirus pandemic as a ruse for training Artificial Intelligence facial recognition.
“…there was no tuberculosis pandemic any more than there’s a coronavirus pandemic. What you’re really participating in is a beta test for AI systems and facial recognition. See these cameras work best when people are distanced apart. Now they are actually testing through machine-learning how to recognize a face that’s partially covered. It’s also a way to easily determine who’s compliant and who’s not. Who does the propaganda work on and who it doesn’t.”
The monologue originated on Elliot’s own podcast, which while it doesn’t mention QAnon directly, covers most of the same false narratives and is widely promoted by QAnon-branded pages and channels.
The Iconic Podcast describes itself as a outlet where “no subject is off limits and we talk about everything from conspiracy to reality.” The podcast claims that its main project is a dramatization of popular American conspiracies.
“America, LLC, our flagship original series where we demonstrate, in theatrical form, how the global power elite and the international bankers, through various secret societies, control the world,” states the podcast. “So, get your tin-foil hats ready and join us as we “‘imagine a universe where all the conspiracies are true.'”
As of publication, Gerber’s comment sharing the link remains online.
The campaign did not return a call requesting comment. This article will be updated with any response received.
