Trust the Plan: The Rise of QAnon and the Conspiracy That Unhinged America

by Will Sommer

The world was introduced to QAnon violence in the summer of 2018, when a thirty-year-old Nevada car mechanic named Matthew Wright decided he was sick of waiting for the Storm. Facing post-traumatic stress disorder, a possible case of bipolar disorder, and $20,000 in unpaid medical bills, Wright had just one thing to look forward to: the June 2018 release of a Justice Department report on the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Wright had lived on the margins of society since being discharged from the military for undisclosed medical reasons. Using his mechanic skills and equipment, he had turned his truck into an improvised armored vehicle straight out of Mad Max, stocked with an AR-15 rifle, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and gun slots he could use to aim out through the defenses. Later, police described the vehicle as “armored like a Brinks truck.”