Why Donald Trump can’t be ‘reinstated’ as president by August
- The notion that Trump will be ‘reinstated’ before Labour Day is gaining traction among QAnon followers
- The former president has reportedly talked about it with confidants, claiming he’ll be reinstated
The latest conspiracy theory sweeping the extended QAnon world claims that the US Supreme Court will reinstate former president Donald Trump before the Labour Day weekend, despite the fact that he lost a fair election nearly seven months ago and has been unsuccessful in dozens of court challenges since.
While the origin of the August-reinstatement theory remains unclear – it certainly did not come from constitutional-law scholarship – the first mention of it to gain significant traction came from Mike Lindell, the founder and CEO of MyPillow and a staunch Trump ally.
Lindell has been mired in legal trouble over his false claims about Dominion voting machines. But he has continued to push lies about the 2020 election and appears largely responsible for this latest conspiracy theory's spread across MAGA-friendly media outlets.
Lindell first predicted that Trump would be reinstated by August on Steve Bannon's “War Room” podcast in March.
“What I'm talking about, Steve, is what I have been doing since January 9. All of the evidence I have, everything that is going to go before the Supreme Court, and the election of 2020 is going bye-bye,” Lindell said, adding that other countries and “communism coming in” had stolen the election.
Lindell's prediction relies on an assumption that the Supreme Court would be so impressed by his purported evidence of fraud that it would somehow issue a ruling saying Biden won illegitimately and setting a new inauguration date.
