Law and order in the Ozarks (Part CXXVII): A local branch of "Save the Children"? QAnon or the real deal

I've been intrigued--or maybe puzzled is a better word--for some time by the strange association that seems to exist between "Save the Children" and QAnon.  Here's a report on the topic from the New York Times' Kevin Roose back in September, under the headline, "How ‘Save the Children’ Is Keeping QAnon Alive."  I've always known Save the Children as an international charity aimed at helping underprivileged children around the world, and I see it is one with a good ranking.  I've therefore been puzzled at how it has come to be associated with QAnon.  Turns out, the "Save the Children" associated with Q Anon is not the charity, whose name is protected by trademark, I see.  

Roose, the Times tech journalist who made the amazing Rabbithole podcast last summer, explains that QAnon is associated with the slogan "Save the Children," but that's different from the charity:  

Adopting “Save the Children” as a mantra helped save QAnon in several other ways. It created a kind of “QAnon Lite” on-ramp — an issue QAnon believers could talk about openly without scaring off potential recruits with bizarre claims about Hillary Clinton eating babies, and one that could pass nearly unnoticed in groups devoted to parenting, natural health and other nonpolitical topics.

Typical of the new, understated QAnon style are Facebook videos in which parents sound the alarm about pedophiles brainwashing and preying on children. These videos, wrote Annie Kelly, a researcher who wrote a Times op-ed about QAnon’s appeal to women this month, make for “compelling and dramatic content” that is “easily shared in other parenting groups with little indication of their far-right origins.”

Since stopping child exploitation is an issue that has broad and bipartisan sympathy, QAnon’s anti-trafficking rebranding has also allowed politicians to appeal to QAnon supporters without explicitly mentioning the theory. And seeding misinformation about child sex trafficking on platforms like Instagram and TikTok has allowed QAnon to tap into a younger and less explicitly pro-Trump demographic.

Roose quotes Marc-André Argentino, a doctoral student at Concordia University who studies QAnon:

It’s bringing down the average age of a QAnon follower.  In 2019, this was mainly a boomer movement. Now we’re seeing millennials and Gen Z getting on board.

And that brings me to a story I saw in my hometown newspaper last fall.  The headline is "Jasper school literacy event touts 'Early Steps' program," and it reports on the "first annual Parables in the Park held on Sept. 29 at Bradley Park in Jasper.  It is described as a "drive thru literacy event" that served 80 individuals from 60 families and included 8 vendors providing resources, and 20 event volunteers.  "The story chosen for this year's Parables in the Park was 'Harold and the Purple Crayon' by Crockett Johnson."  So far, it sounds innocent enough, but then it mentions that the one of the items distributed was "hand soap from Save the Children's first Gift in Kind donation to the community."  I looked up "gift in kind" on the Save the Children charity website and found no results.  Also, there is a caption that reads "Save the Children Program Coordinator Kelsey Engle and Jasper Elementary student Henry Martin distribute resources to families driving through the Parables in the Park event." 

All of this has me wondering:  Is the "Save the Children" reference one that locals in my home community have taken on, probably because they are QAnon followers?  or did the well established and reputable charity actually provide swag (soap!) to this event in Jasper?  I'm guessing it's the former, which is pretty depressing because it means even more people will be hoodwinked by the dodgy conspiracy theory's association with an otherwise reputable community event.

In addition, I'm thinking the Save the Children charity must be going nuts at having its trademarked name appropriated by a conspiracy theory--especially since QAnon is anonymous and there's no one the charity can easily sue for trademark infringement--or defamation.