I will be very curious to see if this becomes a thing at Trump rallies. His use of the tune wasn’t accidental.Someone has decided they need to signal the QAnon people and I could easily see the rest of the Trump cult adopting it even if they don’t sign on to Q:
On Saturday night, as former President Donald Trump was wrapping up a political rally in Youngstown, Ohio, one section of the crowd all raised their arms in the air and extended one finger.
The strange salute came as Trump was once again spreading lies and disinformation about the 2020 election and the FBI search on his Mar-a-Lago home. The signal was immediately compared to the “Sieg Heil” salute used by Nazi party members to greet Hitler. Some also said it was in reference to Trump’s “America First” motto.
However, for QAnon followers, the one-finger salute was taken as yet another signal from Trump that he is in their corner.
Some in the wider QAnon community also claimed the one-finger salute was a reference to the phrase “Where we go one, we go all,” though again with no evidence to back up the claims.
One offshoot of the cult even claimed credit for starting the salute: “Trump ended his speech with the song “wwg1wga” by Richard Feelgood, which is a blatant Q reference,” Michael Protzman, the QAnon cult leader who predicted that JFK would be resurrected, wrote in his Telegram channel. “During the song, we had a powerful moment where our group held up one finger. A call for unity. Acknowledgement of our one GOD. Wwg1wga. And more. It was magical and completely unplanned as many in the crowd joined us in this gesture. A gesture to say to this beautiful man, ‘We’re with you.’”
Protzman and his group were at the rally, but there’s no evidence that it was they who initiated this salute. Like many incidents, QAnon adherents will quickly claim credit for something happening in the real world after the fact and fit it around their narrative that Trump is waging a secret war to unseat the deep state.
The song Protzman referenced is one that Trump has played on several occasions, and included in a campaign-style video last month that he posted to Truth Social. However, according to Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich, the song is “Mirrors,” by Will Van De Crommert.
QAnon supporters believe it’s a song called “WWG1WGA” by an artist named Richard Feelgood. Audio analysis by media watchdog Media Matters For America suggests that the songs are virtually identical.
Trump is not doing any of this by accident. He’s feeding his base, which is what he does. QAnon is a MAGA constituency.