Recently the vice president electrified a largely sparse audience in Georgia by suggesting that Pizzagate had returned to the administration’s agenda.
“Pizzagate” is a traditional Trumpist conspiracy theory and a precursor to QAnon.
It surfaced during the 2016 campaign as populists combed through the hacked John Podesta emails released by WikiLeaks, convincing themselves that the messages demonstrated the existence of a pedophile ring operated by prominent Democrats.
The proof? References in the emails to … pizza, allegedly serving as code for child sex abuse.
Those adherents even singled out a specific Washington-area pizzeria as the site where children were supposedly being held captive. Roughly a month after that year’s election, a man from North Carolina drove up with an AR-15 and fired at least one shot inside, hoping to rescue the young captives inside.
Pizzagate faded over time, displaced by somewhat less extreme conspiracy theories about rigged elections and the “deep state.” So it seemed noteworthy when J.D. Vance addressed a Turning Point USA crowd last Tuesday, noting that mentions of pizza and grape soda in some Jeffrey Epstein files had captured his attention. “I recall it sounding like the Pizzagate theory,” he marveled at the phrasing. “We should absolutely investigate.”
That observation was interesting for two reasons.
First, at a moment when swing voters and some “America First” postliberals are feeling buyer’s remorse, it served to remind the nation that Donald Trump’s movement has long relied on feverish fringe figures and grifting sociopaths eager to monetize their paranoia. A Trump/Vance vote in 2024 might not have signaled a war with Iran, but it did signal a vote for kakistocracy. No excuses.
I also found it notable that the vice president would seek solace in a pre-Trump conspiracy theory while his boss is enduring the toughest stretch of his political career.
The right-wing base spent his first term struggling to explain why their hero, now wielding the powers of the presidency, didn’t reveal America’s Satanic cabal of left-wing child molesters. Their answer was QAnon. Trump was working to expose the cabal, QAnoners insisted, but was following a secret, inscrutable plan designed to outflank the bad guys’ powerful deep-state guardians. Only by deciphering certain clues in his statements and other online messages could one discern the truth of what he was up to.
