Former US president Donald Trump has announced another tilt at the presidency.
In his speech on Wednesday declaring his plans to run in the 2024 election, Mr Trump declared he wanted to make the country 'great and glorious' again.
But how will this development influence the cult-like QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims a worldwide ring of Satan-worshipping pedophiles plotted to derail Mr Trump's presidency last time around?
The conspiracy theory has spread widely online and people associated with QAnon featured in the 6 January 2021 Capitol riots, in which Trump supporters stormed the Washington DC home of the US Congress in a bid to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, which Mr Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Mario Peucker is a Victoria University senior research fellow who specialises in extremism. He told The Feed that although the QAnon movement has diminished, it has not disappeared.
"Trump is still a messiah-like figure [for QAnon believers]," Mr Peucker said.
"It will be interesting to see if the internal Republican race for nomination will further polarise or aggravate the political discourse," he said.
Mr Peucker said the QAnon movement may still reemerge in a forceful way, but he admitted it is smaller than a few years ago.
"Ultimately it is not so much about the size of such movements, but rather about their capacity to influence the public discourse, " he said.
In his speech this week, Mr Trump said his movement has brought together youth, elderly, the African American community, Hispanic and Asian people.
"What we have built together over the past six years is the greatest movement in history," Mr Trump said.
"It is not about politics, it's about our love for this great country, America," he said.
"We will defeat the radical left Democrats that are trying to destroy our country."
The former president played a role in the recent US midterm elections, actively recruiting and promoting candidates.
They then repeated false claims about the 2020 election result being stolen from Mr Trump.
Mr Trump has said repeatedly that he lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud and that it was stolen from him by the Democratic party.
The battle for control for the House of Representatives remains uncertain but the Republicans are on track to win a majority.
How will Mr Trump's candidacy play out?
Digital and social media lecturer Francesco Bailo, from the University of Technology, Sydney, told The Feed that before the midterms, Mr Trump was the uncontested leader of the Republican party with no opposition.
Jacob Chansley, known as the QAnon Shaman, was one of hundreds of people who stormed the US Capitol building on 6 January, 2021 in a bid to overturn the 2020 US Presidential election. Source: Getty / Win McNamee
Mr Bailo said it's unclear how this candidacy development will play out in US politics.
"This might push Trump even more towards the extreme or the fringe and the conspiratorial kind of environment," he said.
This might push Trump even more towards the extreme or the fringe...Franscisco Bailo
He said the Make America Great Again movement has become more fringe in US politics.
"Trump represents the MAGA movement that has been closely as associated since 2020 and the assault on the Capitol to the more fringe section of the Republican party."
"Especially again associated with a bunch of conspiracy theories and of course, there is a strong QAnon component," he said.
Social media presence
Mr Bailo will be waiting to see whether Twitter's owner Elon Musk will allow Donald Trump back on the platform.
"We cannot say whether it was fundamental but it was definitely important for shaping his campaign," he said of his past presidential race.
"He was often governing through tweets and social media, so waiting for, doing something on social media and waiting for the reaction," Dr Bailo said.
Dr Bailo said Mr Trump uses social media to appeal to his base and trigger a reaction from the mainstream media.
"That will basically allow him to in some sense control the agenda and the political debate," he said.
Mr Trump appears to be embracing QAnon online.
In September, Mr Trump reposted an image on his social media platform Truth Social referring to QAnon.
The message Donald Trump re-posted on his Truth Social platform. Source: The Washington Post
QAnon followers refer to 'the Storm', or 'the Event' as a time when Mr Trump would regain power, arrest the members of the pedophile ring and potentially execute them on live television.
The spread of QAnon in Australia
Mr Bailo has researched QAnon accounts in Australia.
"We know Twitter has been quite strong in disabling or deleting these accounts," he said.
But he said the social media network Facebook has been less proactive.
"A few of these users stayed on social media on the mainstream social media and adapted probably the vocabulary so avoided key terms that probably would have triggered a shadow ban from the platform or specific flagging from the algorithm," he said.
He said other users move to more underground social media where policies are more relaxed and there is less intervention.
"In some sense they need to exist in both environments if they want to expand the base," he said on QAnon's membership tactics.
A QAnon sign Source: AP
And Mr Peucker expects the 76-year-old's intention to run for president again will direct the spotlight more brightly towards Mr Trump.
"His declared intention to run for presidency again is likely to give him additional public attention and an even bigger platform for his assault on democratic norms and principles," he said.
The Republican nominee still needs to be formally selected in 2024.
