So if we could promise to finish out this month without killing anyone, that would be great. " Questions about insurrections and QAnon have become the norm in Sequim, as its residents grapple with becoming what appears to be the first American town to have an open QAnon supporter as mayor. Now, with Armacost and his allies carrying out what critics have described as a QAnon coup of the town government, the fight over QAnon in Sequim has come to a head. QAnon, a sprawling anti-Semitic conspiracy theory premised on anonymous posts from a figure named "Q" posits that the Democratic Party is run by a cabal of Satanic cannibal-pedophiles who will someday be arrested and executed by Donald Trump. QAnon supporters have gained a foothold in the GOP, with dozens of believers running for office in 2020 and two of them, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), winning House seats. Now Sequim finds itself as the latest flashpoint in QAnon's rise. Armacost, a salon owner and Sequim councilmember, was selected by other councilmembers in January 2020 to serve as the town's next mayor.
Because the meeting that led to Bush's ouster was closed to the public, it's not clear why the council voted to fire him. Armacost said that Bush had not been fired for doing anything illegal, saying instead that the firing was caused by "a combination of things over quite a while. " Matthew Randazzo V, an author and former Sequim resident, declared that Bush's ouster amounted to a city government "overthrown by QAnon mayor. " Maguire claimed that Armacost's faction on the council was emboldened to move against Bush the Capitol riot days earlier. "I think that the events of January 6 have kind of emboldened them, " she said. Bush's ouster has inspired more opposition to Armacost, with a petition calling for the city to retain Bush garnering more than 1, 200 signatures — roughly a seventh of Sequim's entire population—as of this writing. Bush's supporters have formed a group called the Sequim Good Governance League, with plans to rally for Bush to keep his job despite Armacost's efforts to get him fired.