Bill Mitchell, the flagship host at YourVoice America and a staunch defender of President Trump, has woven together the dystopian alternate reality of the “QAnon” universe and a conspiracy theory he cooked up earlier this year about the existence of a secret plan he dubbed “#SlowWalker.”
Mitchell proposed early this year that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was stalling an epic takedown of the “deep state” until just before the midterms so that he can unleash it at a time to create maximum political havoc. Yesterday, Mitchell declared, “SlowWalker is here!”
YourVoice America’s programming presents a pro-Trump version of unreality that it presents to viewers as legitimate news commentary. In the worldview purveyed by YourVoice America hosts, one is lead to Trump is a quasi-secret agent working behind the scenes to destroy his foes. In this narrative, Trump’s colleagues are helping him wield the levers of power within the judicial system to dismantle the “deep state” in order to help secure the midterms for Republicans (which would be, um, illegal).
On Twitter, Mitchell boasts about 375,000 followers and uses his show to host figures from Fox News Business like Mark Serrano (who called Mitchell’s show the “MAGA movement headquarters” and Mitchell the “field commander”), former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka, ex-Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson, failed U.S. Senate candidate Kelli Ward, and Trump confidant Roger Stone. He recently scored an interview with Lara Trump.
In Mitchell’s “SlowWalker” theory, he supposes that Trump and Sessions have teamed up to prepare a series of actions that will untangle the deep state. Mitchell first tweeted that Sessions was a “slow walker” in Trump’s administration in February, writing that in Trump’s “slow walk” to dismantle the deep state, Sessions is Trump’s own “slow walker,” carrying out what will be the “biggest and best sting ever.”
So, in Trump’s “slow walk” to take out #DeepState, Sessions is his slow walker.
It’s all part of the plan folks. Biggest and best sting ever.
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) February 14, 2018
WHAT IS #SLOWWALKER:#SlowWalker is a “sting” operation devised by President Trump and AG Sessions early-on to use #RussiaGate as a Trojan Horse to “get inside the #DeepState enemy walls and destroy them from within – timed to “activate” just prior to the midterms.
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) September 18, 2018
Just got back from the doctor. Nothing wrong just checking on this swelling of my head. He said I’ve got a bad case of being right. #SlowWalker #McCabe
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) April 19, 2018
This premise of Mitchell’s conspiracy theory is remarkably similar to “QAnon,” which alleges that Trump is secretly working with Special Counsel Robert Mueller to expose supposed deep state involvement in a global satanic pedophile ring that involves high-ranking world leaders and politicians. However, Mitchell claims that neither he nor his colleagues at YourVoice America are responsible for the postings of “Q.” He claims that, rather, his “#SlowWalker” idea came to him from “the Holmesian method of deduction” and that any resemblance to the QAnon theories is a coincidence.
As I get this question a few times a day I will reiterate it here.
I am not Q.
YVA is not Q.
We don’t know who Q is.#SlowWalker was developed using the Holmesian method of deduction – “when you remove the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be true.”— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) September 16, 2018
YourVoice America, and Mitchell in particular, have come around to embrace the QAnon conspiracy theory since its believers thrust themselves into the mainstream political discourse for a news cycle back in August, resulting in mainstream publications writing articles explaining and debunking the phenomenon that Mitchell interpreted as evidence that the theory must be correct. Tracy Beanz, a prominent QAnon truther since the early days of the conspiracy theory, has appeared as a co-host at YourVoice America. The network also often features Brenden Dilley, a podcaster who claims he “pissed off a Trump” family member when he doubted the authenticity of QAnon.
During yesterday’s episode of Mitchell’s show, he brought on Dave Hayes (known online as “Praying Medic”) who declared himself a “Q Expert” who spends hours every day trying to make sense of the nonsensical riddles “Q” has posted to 8chan. During the interview, Hayes, co-host Ann Vandersteel, and Mitchell discussed Mitchell’s SlowWalker theory and speculated which alleged deep state figure would be the first to be toppled. Hayes described it as a “controlled demolition.”
Mitchell said that he hadn’t read any QAnon posts until “two weeks ago” and was amazed that he had reached the same conclusion about the future of the country as the people who dedicate themselves to QAnon. Vandersteel and Mitchell praised the QAnon phenomenon for making large groups of people ask “good questions.”
“We’re not talking about the Easter Bunny, folks. Q is clearly real,” Mitchell said.
If Bill Mitchell is wrong about #SlowWalker, we’ll have much bigger problems than Bill Mitchell being wrong.
Bill Mitchell isn’t wrong about #SlowWalker.
— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) August 23, 2018
Last week, Mitchell prayed that Hurricane Florence would be gentle on the U.S. so that the “SlowWalker” operation isn’t stalled.
