Conspiracy theory nation
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What recent events have reignited interest in the Pizzagate conspiracy?
More and more of Jeffrey Epstein's elite circle are finally suffering consequences. This week, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers resigned from his position at Harvard. And Hillary and Bill Clinton are testifying on The Hill today and tomorrow about their relationships with Epstein. They're going to have due process, but we have a lot of questions. But one unexpected side effect of the release of the Epstein files that no one saw coming? The return of the Pizzagate conspiracy. QAnon was an op to hide this shit in plain sight and make anyone who said anything about it sound like a lunatic. Isn't it weird having your suspicions proven right? With the Epstein Files, conspiracy theorists who believed in Pizzagate or QAnon see evidence that they were right all along.
But were they? On Today Explained from Vox, separating Epstein fact and fiction and how American political life is built on conspiracy.
Megan Rapinoe here. This week on A Touch More, we've got something for everyone. We're talking about the U.S. women Olympians taking home more medals than the men, the U.S. women's national team roster heading into the She Believes Cup, and the latest on the WNBA-CBA negotiations. Check out the latest episode of A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
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How did the Epstein files contribute to the resurgence of Pizzagate?
you're listening to today explained
I'm Dan Brooks. I'm a freelance writer. I try to never write about anything important. I mostly write about culture and the experience of culture, what it feels like to read the news and get scared. One of the latest things that's been scaring Dan Brooks is how the latest release of the Epstein files is giving new online life to the Pizzagate conspiracy, which is literally from a decade ago. Pizza appears in those files close to 900 times. By comparison, the word hamburger appears 100 and some times, and the phrase sex with children only appears about 20 times. So the speculation is that pizza is some sort of code word for Jeffrey Epstein's various illegal and immoral activities. And the pizza thing is especially resonant
because of the 2016 pizza gate conspiracy theory a bogus news story suggesting that bill and hillary clinton were running a sex ring out of a washington dc pizza parlor the hashtag pizzagate was born and by november 16th people started showing up at the restaurant to investigate for themselves
The original Pizzagate conspiracy was based on emails from John Podesta and other people in the Hillary for America campaign leaked by WikiLeaks. And people poured over those emails and sort of convinced one another that references to pizza and cheese pizza were actually references to children who were being trafficked for sex by Hillary Clinton and other powerful Democrats.
the online world out of whole cloth make up this story that John Podesta and I are running a child trafficking ring in the basement of the Comet Pizza parlor.
Yeah, I remember Pizzagate as, you know, one of the big kind of conspiracies of the time. And obviously it culminated with a person coming to a pizza shop here in Washington, D.C. And if I remember correctly, like weapon, gun, right? Yeah, he brought a rifle to see the children whom he believed were held in the basement. Comet Pizza has no basement. The man fired a couple of shots into a supply closet and then surrendered to police. And the person actually going to Comet Pizza and finding no children was, at the time, seen as like a final refutation of this conspiracy theory. And we all laughed at the people who believed it, but we also all kind of took a lesson from that. Like, you should go with simple explanations of what you know and not spit out these wild theories.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What recent events have reignited interest in the Pizzagate conspiracy?
0:01–1:57
2
How did the Epstein files contribute to the resurgence of Pizzagate?
1:57–5:37
3
What evidence do conspiracy theorists cite regarding Epstein and Pizzagate?
5:37–9:50
4
What are the historical roots of conspiracy theories in American culture?
9:50–11:56
5
How have conspiracy theories evolved in American politics over time?
11:56–15:15
6
What role does social media play in the spread of conspiracy theories?
15:15–16:00
7
What lessons can we learn from the history of conspiracy theories in the U.S.?
16:00–17:05
8
How do conspiracy theories affect public perception of elites?
17:05–28:03