[ad_1]<\/p>\n
A QAnon leader whose followers believe she\u2019s the \u201cQueen of Canada\u201d has now set her sights on the United States, urging her followers to enforce her dangerous \u201cdecrees\u201d in America.<\/p>\n
For people outside of the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory, Romana Didulo is just another Canadian citizen. But for her supporters, she\u2019s a monarch ordained by Q and the American military to rule over Canada and, ultimately, the world. After being endorsed by other QAnon promoters, Didulo managed to amass a following, and is currently touring Canada in a fleet of RVs<\/a> to meet with her supporters.<\/p>\n Now, though, Didulo\u2019s ambitions seem to have grown. In July, she started telling her more than 60,000 followers on the messaging app Telegram about the establishment of the \u201cKingdom of America,\u201d handing out royal \u201ctitles\u201d to Americans who promised to promote her reign there and appointing a new United States \u201ccommander-in-chief,\u201d a man named David Carlson.<\/p>\n While Didulo\u2019s ideas are ridiculous, they\u2019ve already had a real-world effect on Canada. When Didulo told her fans that she had abolished Canada\u2019s income tax, some stopped paying taxes to the Canadian government. Because Didulo issued a \u201cdecree\u201d announcing that her supporters could now pay their utility bills with \u201cIOUs\u201d backed by her bogus government, her supporters have started losing electricity and water in their homes.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re literally in the dark,\u201d said Christine Sarteschi, a Chatham University associate professor of social work and criminology who has studied Didulo\u2019s group.<\/p>\n The Daily Beast couldn\u2019t reach Didulo or Carlson for comment.<\/p>\n More seriously, Didulo\u2019s claims that she operates a parallel government to the real Canadian one have put her followers at odds with law enforcement. Last year, she urged<\/a> her followers to \u201cshoot to kill\u201d COVID-19 vaccine workers. One of Didulo\u2019s followers was arrested after allegedly threatening to shoot up a school where children were receiving vaccines.<\/p>\n Others have followed Didulo\u2019s orders to deliver bogus cease-and-desist notices to Canadian police demanding that they stop enforcing pandemic mandates.<\/p>\n Like the anti-government sovereign citizens movement, which Didulo has borrowed some tactics from, Didulo\u2019s fans seem to think they\u2019re above the law. One follower in Canada tried to avoid being arrested for outstanding warrants by serving a police officer with one of the cease-and-desist notices, only to be immediately arrested. Didulo herself was briefly detained<\/a> for a mental health evaluation last year.<\/p>\n Even many QAnon observers are puzzled so far about Didulo\u2019s attempts to extend her \u201ckingdom\u201d into the United States. Still, according to Sarteschi, the purported citizens of the \u201cKingdom of America\u201d and Carlson, a little-known Didulo devotee, both seem to be under her sway.<\/p>\n \u201cThey defer to her as the leader and they ask her permission to do anything,\u201d Sarteschi said. \u201cShe\u2019ll post about him and talk about him in speeches, but it sounds like he defers to her all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Didulo\u2019s followers have already started to contact genuine officials in the country, warning them that her reign is about to begin. One of Didulo\u2019s loyal subjects sent a letter to Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, later posted on Telegram, asking her to bring the state in line with Didulo and Carlson\u2019s new government.<\/p>\n Didulo\u2019s fake \u201cdecrees,\u201d which promise to abolish taxes, debts, and mortgages, are key to her popularity with her fans. Some are odd but harmless, including a measure meant to lower speed limits on some streets to improve the popularity of back-alley rollerblading. But others are sinister and potentially violent. Along with her death penalty for vaccine administrators, Didulo has decreed capital punishment for \u201coffenses\u201d such as the distribution of pro-vaccination podcasts. The self-styled queen has also called for a 30-year prison term for reporters who criticize her.<\/p>\n Now Didulo\u2019s American adherents are set on trying to carry out her orders outside of Canada, starting in the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want to replicate that movement in the USA, and they want to use her decrees as law,\u201d Sarteschi said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n