QAnon in Latin America

For us Americans, we tend to consider somethings to stay within our homeland.

Be it pizza, hamburgers with extra bacon, hot white Iowan gals with pepperoni nipples, the Hawkeyes, the 4^th of July, etc.

But, from time to time, us living abroad do get a sense of how sometimes things from home are transferred down here.

Well, unfortunately, I haven’t seen any hot white Iowan girls down here…

But I have seen bars down here in touristy areas celebrate “4^th of July!”

Granted, not that many but it has happened outside of America.

A bit funny when you see it.

I can’t imagine us celebrating Bolivia’s independence day in America but we do celebrate Cinco de Mayo!

OK, that’s not Mexico’s independence day but it’s close enough to us Americans!

And May is a better month to get wasted than September.

Summer and all that.

Anyhow, one other thing that I was surprised that has “transferred” down to Latin America was QAnon!

Now, to be honest, I don’t know shit about QAnon.

I just know that they have made the news a shit ton in the last few years.

Even an old friend of mine from Ohio is obsessed with them!

Well, he’s not a “QAnon follower” but just curious about the shit they believe and all.

So I always thought it was just an American thing – only us Americans know anything about it?

Of course, shit that happens in the US – be it a school shooting or whatever – does make the local newspapers down here in Latin America also.

Anything big that happens in the US does tend to make the news elsewhere.

No surprise there.

But, after scrolling through the internet, I found this bit here.

In which, not only is QAnon known in Latin America, but supposedly they have followers in some Latin countries like Costa Rica?

Who knew?!

I sure didn’t.

And you probably didn’t either.

So that’s why I decided to write this article – to give some brief introduction to “QAnon in Latin America” to the internet.

In English of course.

You got some articles to help me understand this in Spanish but not many English sources that I can find.

So here’s what I could find briefly on the presence of QAnon in Latin America.

If you have any information yourself on this topic, drop it below in the comment section.

I’m learning with you.

So let’s get started.

QAnon in Costa Rica?

So it seems to me, from a novice perspective, that QAnon is more popular in Costa Rica than quite a few Latin countries?

That’s been my impression based on my brief research so far.

We got this article here in Spanish that looks into the growing following of QAnon in Costa rica.

Which, though they wanted to put a wall on only paying members to see it, I got past it!

So screw you Nacion!

Anyhow, I read the bit that happened to be about “QAnon in Costa Rica.”

And it basically goes on about how there is a Facebook page for a “QAnon” group for Costa Ricans.

Where they would usually post about 9 posts a day more or less but then grew substantially to around 76 posts a day.

Initially, the page was about supporting Donald trump and vilifying American democrat politicians like Obama or Hillary Clinton.

But then it changed to talking shit about the Costa Rican president Carlos Alvarado by throwing insults at him and criticizing his policies on Covid 19.

On that note, from my understanding, they even brought together a protest against the guy on August 20^th to bring pressure for his resignation.

However, according to that same resource, the protest only got like 8 protesters that protested for just a few hours in front of the presidential house.

Outside of that, the same Facebook page goes on spreading its own sources about Covid 19 and Bill Gates.

At any rate, that’s the Costa Rica example of QAnon.

Which, as a side point, it seems to me based on my brief time looking into this that Costa Rica seemingly has more QAnon support than other countries in Latin America?

Well, it seems more notable anyhow based on what I have seen briefly.

But let’s look at what else we can find before getting to the more interesting points I have about all of this in the end of this article.

QAnon in Uruguay

Now, we have QAnon in Uruguay.

Interestingly, I couldn’t find any QAnon articles for those in Argentina but I could for Uruguay.

Anyhow, this article here goes on about a Uruguayan named Ignazio Vario that is the administrator of a Telegram group that is “QAnon” and mostly focuses on anti-Covid information.

From my understanding, it straight up denies that any Covid pandemic is happening.

For those curious who can read in Spanish, you can better understand what is going on with this group here.

And, funny enough, there’s another article that focuses on QAnon in Uruguay.

For those curious, here’s the article that touches on it briefly (the first one is more revealing though).

QAnon in Other Latin American Countries?

Next, we have a BBC piece that took notice of what the previous article took notice of about there being a QAnon group in Costa Rica.

As I said, it is curious, no?

How does this political influence transfer to other countries down here?

As I’ll go into briefly, my brief research into this does make me think it transfers because of shared anger about any government policies against Covid.

Or at least that seems to be the commonality based on my very brief look into this.

Anyhow, as I said, we have this BBC piece into “QAnon” in Latin America.

In this case, the August 28, 2020 BBC article mentioned how there are also Facebook QAnon groups for citizens of Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Brazil and Uruguay at the very least.

There is also a “QAnon Latinoamerica” group that has over 4,000 members.

Similarly, according to the BBC, many of the talking points in these groups seems to be, from my understanding, related to anti-Covid information and also information related to climate change.

So Covid and climate change.

At any rate, much of the remaining article seems to be focused on QAnon in the US and explaining it to Latino readers.

Other Examples of QAnon in Latin America

Again, based on my brief research, it really seems much of the QAnon interest in Latin America seems to hover around the topic of Covid.

Here’s an article discussing QAnon and Mexico in regards to the antagonism to using masks.

And, in regards to Mexico, you got this article here about the “QAnon in Mexico.”

Anyhow, I tried looking up any social media groups for QAnon in Latin America but, at the moment, they seem deleted. 

But let’s get to my thoughts now as to what I find interesting about all of this.

Final Thoughts

There’s a few things that come to mind…

First, it’s interesting to see how the politics of back home transfers to the politics down here.

The political influence my own country has in other countries.

That’s even more interesting when you consider how some Latinos have this knee jerk reaction to “Yankee” influence given our history of intervening in their countries.

But yet, on the other hand, some of our own movements and ideologies that come from the “yankees” are widely accepted by some folks down here.

Second, we shouldn’t oversell the influence of QAnon in Latin America.

Like in the Costa Rica example, only 8 folks actually went to the protest.

I’d say that, from my brief observations, you have the beginnings of something that could become bigger down here.

But, at the same time, given how news in the US sells as I inferred before, we should recognize how the local media down here in Latin America might try to overplay the influence of QAnon for clicks.

For example, in the Costa Rica example, they simply cited a basic Facebook group page for the Costa Rican followrs of QAnon.

It wasn’t much of an investigative piece.

In the same way that, to be fair, this article you are reading now isn’t too investigative.

In part because there isn’t much to investigate yet given the relative low influence QAnon has on the Latin American population.

Still, I do see how the seeds of QAnon could grow into something bigger down here eventually.

In the same way that the supporters and ideologies of those who eventually took on QAnon in the US were much smaller in influence in my country beforehand.

I see it more as a bunch of small seeds that could grow into something bigger.

And that’s not unusual….

Third, it’s not unusual that something of political or ideological significance influences politics or ideologies down here.

Latin America has countless examples of that.

Though it’s a long story, you could look into the ideological influences of the ZLN (soon to be EZLN) of Chiapas, Mexico.

Something I used to look into quite a bit a few years ago.

Or, how as I was taught, you could look into the influences of the American Revolution on revolutions for independence in Latin America as you can read here.

And speaking of revolutions…

You could look into the influence of the Cuban Revolution on leftist movements in Latin America as you can read here.

The point is the same – ideologies spread like wildfire across the globe.

Even more so today with the internet.

And, in my opinion, the spreading of QAnon into Latin America is another example of that.

As I said in the beginning of the article, this isn’t something you would necessarily expect to spread into Latin America as an American.

We Americans tend to think that QAnon is largely an American thing.

Or at least I think so.

So it was to my surprise to see it spread, even so briefly, down here.

And will that seed grow into something bigger down here?

Maybe….

Fourth, it could grow!

Based on my brief research, it does seem that, at least in part, the influences for some folks down here to follow QAnon has to do with the stresses caused by the situation surrounding Covid 19.

If the world continues to change rapidly with large stress events like Covid in the future, then I cold see a world in which QAnon or underground movements and ideologies take more influence on more people in Latin America.

And other parts of the world also.

It’s a small prediction but not a crazy one.

Something to consider in the decades to come.

Fifth, it’s also not a crazy idea that these ideas can transfer from the US to the rest of the Americas.

In part because, in my experience living down here, you don’t have that much of a cultural gap between Latin America and the US.

At least compared to the US and, say, the Muslim world.

But, on top of that, it also comes down to respect for authority.

Which, in Latin America, there is a common sense that the “authorities” don’t mean shit.

Due to all of the corruption and all.

Consequently, as I think about it, I  can see how that would influence the relative popularity of QAnon in Latin America.

Anyhow, that’s all I got to say.

Drop any comments below in the comment section.

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And thanks for reading.

Best regards,

Matt