A QAnon leader whose followers believe she’s the “Queen of Canada” has now set her sights on the United States, urging her followers to enforce her dangerous “decrees” in America.
For people outside of the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory, Romana Didulo is just another Canadian citizen. But for her supporters, she’s 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 to meet with her supporters.
Now, though, Didulo’s 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 “Kingdom of America,” handing out royal “titles” to Americans who promised to promote her reign there and appointing a new United States “commander-in-chief,” a man named David Carlson.
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While Didulo’s ideas are ridiculous, they’ve already had a real-world effect on Canada. When Didulo told her fans that she had abolished Canada’s income tax, some stopped paying taxes to the Canadian government. Because Didulo issued a “decree” announcing that her supporters could now pay their utility bills with “IOUs” backed by her bogus government, her supporters have started losing electricity and water in their homes.
“They’re literally in the dark,” said Christine Sarteschi, a Chatham University associate professor of social work and criminology who has studied Didulo’s group.
The Daily Beast couldn’t reach Didulo or Carlson for comment.
More seriously, Didulo’s 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 her followers to “shoot to kill” COVID-19 vaccine workers. One of Didulo’s followers was arrested after allegedly threatening to shoot up a school where children were receiving vaccines.
Others have followed Didulo’s orders to deliver bogus cease-and-desist notices to Canadian police demanding that they stop enforcing pandemic mandates.
Like the anti-government sovereign citizens movement, which Didulo has borrowed some tactics from, Didulo’s fans seem to think they’re 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 for a mental health evaluation last year.
Even many QAnon observers are puzzled so far about Didulo’s attempts to extend her “kingdom” into the United States. Still, according to Sarteschi, the purported citizens of the “Kingdom of America” and Carlson, a little-known Didulo devotee, both seem to be under her sway.
“They defer to her as the leader and they ask her permission to do anything,” Sarteschi said. “She’ll post about him and talk about him in speeches, but it sounds like he defers to her all the time.”
Didulo’s followers have already started to contact genuine officials in the country, warning them that her reign is about to begin. One of Didulo’s 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’s new government.
Didulo’s fake “decrees,” 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 “offenses” 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.
Now Didulo’s American adherents are set on trying to carry out her orders outside of Canada, starting in the United States.
“They want to replicate that movement in the USA, and they want to use her decrees as law,” Sarteschi said.
