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Long before Jacob Chansley painted his face, donned a horned fur headdress, and stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was making signs. This handmade protest poster, created with markers on poster board, previewed the belief system that would eventually lead him to become one of the most recognizable faces of that day—immortalized in news coverage worldwide as the “QAnon Shaman.”
The signs capture something essential about a strand of conservative grassroots activism in today’s America: its DIY aesthetic, its mixing of multiple conspiracy theories, and its ability to blend fringe health claims with apocalyptic political rhetoric. One side screams a simple campaign message twisted through QAnon’s lens. The other presents a manifesto linking industrial hemp, alternative medicine, and miracle cures.
Visual Strategy and Design Language
These signs embrace the raw, unpolished aesthetic of self-organized protest. Made with basic materials—poster board, markers in black, red/pink, and blue—they lack the professional polish of organized movement graphics. The handwriting is large, urgent, and uneven. Words are underlined multiple times for emphasis. There’s no logo, no website, no organizational branding. This is the visual language of someone who feels compelled to speak out.
The color choices serve an organizing function. On the first sign, “PEDO-JOE” appears in pink/red to make the accusation pop, while “TRUMP 2020” gets patriotic blue. The second sign uses color-coding more extensively: black for hemp advocacy, red for industrial applications, and blue for medical claims.
The signs work through accumulation rather than clarity. Instead of one focused message, they pile on multiple claims, as if the sheer volume of assertions might overwhelm skepticism. This is protest art as information dump, assuming viewers will connect the dots themselves.
Symbolic Elements and Messages
The first side hijacks “Just Say No”—the famous slogan from Nancy Reagan’s 1980s anti-drug campaign—and redirects it toward Joe Biden with the “pedo” accusation central to QAnon mythology. QAnon believers claimed that a cabal of Democratic politicians and Hollywood elites ran child trafficking rings, and that Trump was secretly working to expose and destroy them. Calling Biden “Pedo-Joe” wasn’t just name-calling; within QAnon circles, it signaled allegiance to this entire worldview.
The second reveals Chansley’s broader ideological mix. The hemp advocacy points to libertarian or countercultural environmental concerns—legitimate policy positions about industrial hemp’s potential uses. But it quickly veers into pseudoscience territory with “DR. RIFE’S MACHINE,” a reference to Royal Rife, whose 1930s claims about frequency-based disease cures have been thoroughly debunked but remain popular in alternative medicine circles.
The “MEDICAL CURES” section claims that AIDS, COVID-19, cancer, and strokes all have hidden cures being suppressed—a common conspiracy theory thread that existing medical establishments deliberately withhold treatments to maintain power and profit. This kind of thinking bridges New Age wellness culture with right-wing anti-establishment politics.
Political and Cultural Context
These signs emerged during the 2020 presidential election, when QAnon moved from internet forums into physical protests and then into mainstream Republican politics. Trump’s campaign period saw growing street presence for Q believers, who showed up at rallies wearing Q shirts and carrying signs like these.
Chansley himself had been a visible figure at Arizona protests before January 6th, often shirtless and in his distinctive costume. He represented a particular type of QAnon follower: someone who mixed conspiracy theories with spiritual seeking, environmentalism with Trump support, alternative medicine with political extremism. This wasn’t unusual—QAnon attracted people from across the political spectrum who shared distrust of institutions and a hunger for hidden knowledge.
The COVID-19 pandemic supercharged these beliefs. People seeking alternative explanations for the virus and treatments outside mainstream medicine found common cause with those who already believed in deep state conspiracies. The sign’s reference to COVID-19 cures shows this convergence in real time.
Legacy and Impact
This sign matters most because of what its maker would do next. Chansley’s journey from street corner protester to Capitol invader illustrates how online radicalization can translate into offline action. The signs document an earlier stage—when the beliefs were still mainly expressed through traditional protest, not insurrection.
They also show how QAnon functioned as an ideological blender, mixing genuine policy concerns (hemp legalization), fringe health movements (Rife machines), and dangerous conspiracy theories (Democrats as pedophiles) into an incoherent but emotionally compelling package. This mixing made QAnon adaptable and hard to counter—it offered something for wellness seekers, environmentalists, Trump supporters, and anti-establishment rebels all at once.
After January 6th, Chansley became one of the most prosecuted participants, eventually sentenced to 41 months in prison. His image—horned headdress, face paint, bare chest, carrying a spear—became the visual shorthand for the riot itself. This earlier sign reminds us that the spectacle had roots. It grew from years of escalating beliefs, expressed first in marker on cardboard, later in violence at the Capitol.
For historians of American extremism, this crude sign is an important artifact. It captures the aesthetic and ideology of QAnon in its street protest phase, before it became synonymous with insurrection. It shows us what homegrown radicalization looks like in its mundane form: someone standing somewhere with a handmade sign, convinced they’re revealing hidden truths the rest of us are too blind to see.
Special thanks to the USC Digital Imaging Lab for their support in digitizing this item.
