Jacob Chansley, better known as the “QAnon Shaman,” was sentenced to 41 months in prison Wednesday afternoon for his role in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.
A former actor, Chansley knew how to grab the spotlight by showing up in a costume of a horned helmet, fur pelts draped across his bare chest and his face painted red, white and blue. In one hand he carried a spear fashioned out of a flagpole. In the other, a bullhorn.
Once inside the Capitol, Chansley shouted the command to fellow insurrectionists to hunt down members of Congress.
As one of the first intruders in the Senate chamber, Chansley lounged in the seat that Mike Pence had vacated only minutes earlier, leaving the vice president a note that said, “It’s only a matter of time. Justice is coming!”
Chansley was well-rehearsed. In the year leading up to the Capitol riot, he was a regular at pro-Trump events and amassed a large following on social media.
After President Donald Trump lost his bid for re-election, Chansley joined “stop the steal” rallies, and posted messages for people to help him “identify traitors.”
“We shall have no real hope to survive the enemies arrayed against us until we hang the traitors lurking among us,” reads one of his posts.
Ever since his arrest 10 months ago, Chansley has been eager to distance himself from his role as the QAnon Shaman. Chansley now repudiates the QAnon movement, which cast the former president as a lone warrior fighting a cabal of Satan-worshiping, child sex trafficking cannibals.
According to Chansley’s attorney, Albert Watkins, Chansley, a Navy veteran, was “horrendously smitten” by Trump and believed that Trump had called him to march on the Capitol.
The luster dimmed when Trump refused to grant him a pardon for his role in the insurrection.
Had he not accepted a plea deal for his role in obstructing Congress’ counting of the 2020 Electoral College results, his sentence could have been up to 20 years and a $1 million fine.
While it’s easy to write off such lunatics, we do so at society’s peril. Because if we’ve learned anything these past four years, it’s that words matter.
Say “Satan-worshiping, child sex trafficking cannibals” often enough, and people actually start to believe the bunk.
Conspiracy theories aren’t new, from cell phones causing cancer to alien invasions to anti-vaxxer falsehoods. Most are harmless.
But others, not so, including those that foment innate distrust in government.
To sew suspicion in the 2020 Election results had only one goal: To serve one man. As if that weren’t bad enough, the result has been to spread doubt in our government’s purpose across the land.
