Supporters of then-President Donald Trump fly a U.S. flag with a symbol from the QAnon conspiracy theory as they gather outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, ahead of the insurrection.
The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was predictable if you were following message boards on shadowy corners of the internet.
"Yeah, I thought Jan. 6 was going to be really bad," Cullen Hoback, director of the documentary
Q: Into the Storm, told NPR in a recent interview. "I got hardly any sleep the two nights before it. I was very anxious going into that day."
Hoback followed the growth of the QAnon movement for three years and unravels the twisted knots of the conspiracy theory in a six-part series on HBO. He focuses on the interpersonal drama between those behind the website 8chan (later 8kun), where an enigmatic "Q" posted false conspiracy theories that convinced millions there were nefarious Democratic actors involved in child-trafficking rings.