The acting sergeant at arms for the House of Representatives, Timothy Blodgett,\u00a0informed<\/a>\u00a0members of Congress Tuesday of the increased security measures.<\/p>\n The extra security is being promised two months\u00a0after the Jan.\u00a06\u00a0insurrection<\/a>\u00a0at the Capitol building that saw rioters attack police and threaten to kill members of Congress and former Vice President Mike Pence.\u00a0Several<\/a>\u00a0followers<\/a>\u00a0of the violent conspiracy theory movement QAnon have been\u00a0arrested in connection to the riot, which was\u00a0organized and carried out by largely white conservative Americans looking to restore Trump to power after his election loss in November by 7 million votes.<\/p>\n What is QAnon?<\/a><\/p>\n It’s unclear how many QAnon supporters support the March 4 inauguration theory and whether there will be any violence that day in Washington, D.C., or across the country in opposition to President Joe Biden’s election victory.<\/p>\n Blodgett noted \u201cthe significance of this date has reportedly declined amongst various groups in recent days,\u201d and that there was no indication that groups would be traveling to the capital. And experts on QAnon said leaders and influencers in the movement have dismissed, or at least downplayed, the importance of March 4 and have warned their followers not to attend any protests on that date.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most prominent and most vocal QAnon promoters are not on board with the March 4 date,\u201d said Travis View, a QAnon researcher and host of the QAnon Anonymous\u00a0podcast<\/a>. \u201cSetting up big for big events and flagging that something big is going to happen, and then nothing happens, is a years-long QAnon tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n At least 13 of the 266 arrested so far in connection with the Capitol attack have subscribed to QAnon theories, according to a USA TODAY analysis of court documents.<\/p>\n The March 4 theory began gaining traction after Biden’s\u00a0inauguration on Jan.\u00a020, QAnon experts said. When Trump left office\u00a0on that day, and when the military tribunals and mass arrests of Democrats predicted by QAnon followers didn\u2019t happen, some adherents gave up on their unfounded theories. But others began pushing a new narrative: That Trump would\u00a0rise again<\/a> on the nation’s original inauguration date, which was changed by the 20th Amendment.<\/p>\n The theory posits that no American president has been officially inaugurated since Ulysses S. Grant in 1869.\u00a0The conspiracy theorists claim\u00a0a law was passed in 1871 that secretly turned the United States into a corporation, making all presidents after Grant illegitimate.<\/p>\n The unfounded theory has its roots in the “sovereign citizen<\/a>” movement,\u00a0a separate but overlapping class of conspiracy theorists that claims\u00a0among other things, that the federal government is illegitimate, sovereign citizens shouldn\u2019t have to pay taxes, and that\u00a0sheriffs represent the highest legal power in every county.<\/p>\n That some in the QAnon community have grasped\u00a0onto this new theory isn’t unusual, View said, what is strange this time is that so many of the group’s\u00a0leaders have rejected the significance of the March 4 date.<\/p>\n \u201cQAnon is generally a pretty\u00a0big tent conspiracy theory, where they\u2019re not eager to shoot down the theories of their fellow believers,\u201d View said. “But occasionally there are things that cross the line.\u201d<\/p>\n March 4 is one such dividing line, View said. QAnon promoters don\u2019t want the embarrassment of another failed prediction, he said. And they also don\u2019t want to be associated with any criminal activity that might happen in Washington, D.C., or elsewhere on that date.<\/p>\n The QAnon movement began in 2017 with the discredited conspiracy theory that a cabal of powerful, Satan-worshipping Democrats, celebrities and bankers run a pedophile ring and kill and eat children to obtain a life-giving chemical called adrenochrome. The original theory claimed that Trump was chosen by military generals to run for president to confront this cabal and throwits members in prison in a cleanup known as \u201cThe Storm.\u201d<\/p>\n The genesis of the\u00a0theory, which\u00a0borrows heavily<\/a>\u00a0from white supremacist and anti-Semitic propaganda, was a series of posts written\u00a0by a user or users on anonymous internet message boards. The author, or authors, of the posts, which were usually written in semi-sensical riddles, signed off their screeds with a \u201cQ,\u201d a reference to a top-secret security clearance used by the federal government.<\/p>\n There haven’t been any internet postings credited to Q since December. Trump is no longer president. QAnon followers have been banned from\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0Instagram<\/a>\u00a0and YouTube and there are signs that the movement is\u00a0struggling<\/a>, though it’s impossible to say how many people still believe in the theory.<\/p>\n Still,\u00a0Marilyn Mayo, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League\u2019s Center on Extremism\u00a0in New York, said it would be wrong to think that the QAnon community has given up.<\/p>\n Mayo said she saw a flare-up of hope\u00a0and attention on online message boards\u00a0and social media accounts linked to the community after Trump\u2019s speech Sunday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.\u00a0Trump\u00a0reignited the claim\u00a0that the election was rigged and hinted that he will run for president in four years.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s renewed hope,\u201d Mayo said. \u201cA lot of people believe, without talking about a specific date, that Trump will be president, and that the military will somehow be involved.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2021\/01\/12\/USAT\/05bdddd3-5626-4bdc-95e7-2a1586cb67cd-Jacob_Anthony_Chansley.JPG?width=660&height=463&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp\")
<\/p>\nA new conspiracy theory gains traction<\/h2>\n
![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/presto\/2021\/02\/04\/USAT\/39f348ce-b24b-4ba9-b2f5-ae3516c443e2-AP_QAnon_Recovery.jpg?width=660&height=441&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp\")
<\/p>\nQAnon community not giving up hope<\/h2>\n