- Some
QAnon followers flew from California to DC in the hopes of watching Trump's return to power. - QAnon devotees believed March 4 marked the day Trump would be sworn in for a second term in office.
- One couple said they'd taken time off work to fly to DC and had been waiting for something to transpire.
A small group of QAnon followers flew all the way from California to
March 4 had become a highly anticipated date for followers of the QAnon conspiracy theorists, who believed it was the date Trump would be sworn in for a second term in office. Until 1933, March 4 was the date of the presidential inauguration.
The Capitol was on high alert on Thursday and throughout the week amid fears that more far-right violence would occur following the January 6 insurrection, which resulted in the deaths of five people.
But while thousands of National Security Guards patrolled Capitol grounds and the House of Representatives canceled their session, only a small number of Trump supporters actually showed up.
Among them was a group of QAnon followers, who had flown all the way from California to watch Trump's return to power. Couple Karyn and John Carson had taken time off work to make the trip and spent the week in the city waiting for something to happen.
"Every day that we're here, we'll probably come out around noon and see if anything transpires," Karyn, 52, told Reuters. "If it doesn't happen, we'll obviously be sad 'cause it didn't happen while we were here, but we believe that it will happen. It just hasn't happened yet."
The couple believes the 2020 election - won by President Joe Biden - was fraudulent and that the military will restore Trump to power by the end of March.
However, the Carsons told Reuters they condemned the deadly attack on the Capitol in January and that they had no intention of using violence to restore Trump to power.
"It may seem foolish to some people that we came all this way to see something that may or may not happen, but we don't care," Karyn told Reuters.
—corinne_perkins (@corinne_perkins) March 4, 2021
Earlier in the week, security forces had warned of a potential attack by militants to mark Thursday's date and had put the entire area on high alert.
But the day passed without major incident.
But with swaths of America's far-right refusing to accept Biden as legitimate president and a hardcore of extremists determined to provoke a violent insurrection, it's a threat security officials believe is unlikely to recede any time soon.
The belief that Trump will be sworn in on March 4 is rooted in theories promoted by the obscure sovereign citizen movement.
With the passing of March 4, experts predict that QAnon will continue to invent new dates to look forward to in an effort to perpetuate mind games.
"Reality doesn't really matter," Nick Backovic, a contributing editor at the fact-checking website Logically, told Insider this week. "Whether QAnon can survive another great disappointment, there's no question - it can."