Tuesday, August 25, 2020 / The News L O C A L N E W S /J U M P S / A3

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Vol. 123, Issue 81

Legal Notice

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Superintendente de las Escuelas Dr. Mark Porterie.

West: Texas GOP’s slogan not connected to QAnonBy Patrick SvitekSpecial to The News

Shortly after Allen West took over as the Texas GOP chair last month, he gave the party a new slogan — “We are the storm” — and plastered it everywhere: fundraising emails, social media accounts, even on T-shirts and hats for sale.

West, a former Florida con-gressman, indicated he drew inspiration for the slogan from an unattributed quote that he likes: “The devil whispers to the warrior slyly can it withstand the coming storm. The warrior responds, ‘I am the storm.’”

Others, however, saw some-thing more nefarious: a dog whistle to the QAnon conspiracy movement — the one that Pres-ident Donald Trump notably declined to denounce last week, saying he did not know much about it while also speaking fa-vorably of its followers.

So what’s going on at the state party?

On Thursday, The New York Times published a story that prom-inently featured the Texas GOP slogan, calling it an “unusually visible example of the Republican Party’s dalliance with QAnon.”

The party pushed back on the story — pointing to the anony-mous quote as the “provenance” of the slogan — and said it was never contacted for comment. Democrats, meanwhile, called on state GOP leaders to disavow the slogan, which West indicated he would not do.

The QAnon movement ad-heres to an unfounded theory that a mysterious government official named “Q” is exposing a plot against Trump by “deep-state” actors involving satanism and child sex trafficking.

Some believers have been ac-cused of plotting or carrying out violent crimes, including killing a New York mob boss. In April, an Illinois woman was arrested after she traveled to New York with illegal knives and wrote on Facebook that Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden need to be “taken out.”

Last year, the FBI identified the movement as a domestic ter-

rorism threat. It is getting more attention than ever after Mar-jorie Taylor Greene, a GOP con-gressional candidate who openly supports the movement, won her primary runoff last week in Georgia — and after Trump’s comments Wednesday.

The concept of “the storm” is a significant part of QAnon ver-nacular, said Mark Fenster, a law professor at the University of Florida who studies conspira-cy theories.

“The storm has been one of the metaphors that Q and his followers have used to describe the coming upheaval in which Donald Trump reveals himself to have been working heroical-ly behind the scenes to expose and punish those who have been engaged in this horrible satan-ic child sex cult,” Fenster said. “Storms are longstanding met-aphors going back to biblical [times] of how it is you cleanse what has otherwise been a sinful humanity.”

While it may not be entirely clear how the Texas GOP slogan plays into that metaphor, Fen-ster noted that QAnon followers are constantly trying to “seek out the breadcrumbs” in statements by public figures to discern soli-darity with them.

“They view it as just part of the game,” Fenster said. “The classic QAnon move ... is to take isolated anomalous sentences of Trump’s Twitter feed or press conferences and say, ‘See, this demonstrates that this is gonna come true.’”

Before the uproar over the New York Times story, West was asked about the slogan’s nexus to QAnon during an interview earlier this month with KX-AN-TV in Austin and denied a connection. West pointed to the quote beginning with “the dev-il whispers” and said, “I don’t know about anybody else and I’m not into internet conspiracy theories.”

While the quote’s origin is unknown, West has used it pre-viously, including in speeches while campaigning for state party chair. In one speech up-loaded to YouTube on July 11, West calls it “one of my favorite quotes,” recites it in full and says

the “Republican Party of Texas — and each and every one of you — we’re gonna be the storm that the progressive socialist left has never seen.”

On Friday, the Texas GOP blasted the New York Times sto-ry, saying the newspaper never “reached out for a comment or clarification.”

“The we are the storm poem is one of Chairman West’s fa-vorite quotes to use in speech-es,” the statement said. “He and the entire Texas GOP will not be bullied by partisan leftists in the media into ceding powerful phrases with biblical roots — taken from Psalm 29 — to Inter-net conspiracy groups. The New York Times should be ashamed of themselves, and we look for-ward to their correction, apology, and retraction.”

On Friday evening, a New York Times spokesperson, Ari Isaacman Bevacqua, said the newspaper “reached out to the Republican Party of Texas and did not hear back” before pub-lishing the story. The party’s spokesperson, Luke Twombly, said he received no such corre-spondence. The story did not in-clude any mention of an effort to reach the party.

The Texas Tribune is a nonpar-tisan, nonprofit media organiza-tion that informs Texans — and engages with them – about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. This story has been edited for length.

Marjorie Kamys Cotera/The Texas Tribune

Texas GOP Chair Allen West says the party’s new “We are the storm” slogan is from a favorite quote of his, not a subtle reference to an online conspiracy theory.

DEATHSThelma “Lipp” Luke, 85, of

Beaumont, died Sunday, August 23, 2020. Broussard’s, 2000 Mc-Faddin Avenue, Beaumont.

Helen Ruth Broussard, 86, of LaBelle, died Friday, August 21, 2020. Broussard’s, 505 North 12th Street, Nederland.

Deanna “DeeDee” Tau-bert, 82, of Port Neches, Texas died Friday, August 21, 2020. Services are pending with Lev-ingston Funeral Home in Port

Neches.James Charles Gary, Sr.,

74, of Port Neches, Texas passed away August 21, 2020. Services are under the direction of Mel-ancon’s Funeral Home in Ned-erland.

Maccie Lasha Rodrigues, 27, of Port Neches, Texas passed away August 18, 2020. Services are under the direction of Mel-ancon’s Funeral Home in Ned-erland.

Nancy Jean Odom, 84, of Groves, Texas passed away Au-gust 23, 2020. Services are un-der the direction of Melancon’s Funeral Home in Nederland.

SERVICES

Thelma “Lipp” Luke – 10:00 a.m. Tuesday, August 25, 2020 at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Beaumont.