Michael Flynn Jr. and Pizzagate

I've been doing a ton of Pizzagate research, but haven't the time to discuss my findings in any detail right now. In truth, I'm thinking of writing a small book about this episode -- a case study in how the conspiratorial underground devolves into madness.

For now, let's briefly note that Michael Flynn Jr., son of the Lt. General who will be Trump's National Security Adviser, is a huge fan of right-wing conspiracy theories and a big Pizzagator. He also plays a substantial role in the transition -- a fact denied by Mike Pence, but a fact nonetheless.

Actually, they are now claiming that Flynn the younger no longer plays a role. Ah, yes. Where have we heard that before? This is a typical Trump trick: You may recall how the Donald's campaign at various times claimed to have severed relations with Roger Stone, Corey Lewandowski and Paul Manafort. All such claims came perfumed by a scent which the French call la connerie.

Flynn the younger uses Gab, the neo-Nazi alternative to Twitter -- and he wants Flynn the elder to use the same platform. Maybe Trump himself will make the switch?

By the way, modern-day hipsters-for-Hitler also have their own version of Reddit, called Voat, which is an intentional -- and allegedly humorous -- misspelling of the word "vote." 

Here's a story I missed a couple of weeks ago: Apparently, Pizzagate has been huge news in Turkey.

In the last week, all Turkish pro-government papers, including mainstream publications like Sabah, A Haber, Yeni Şafak, Akşam and Star, ran similar stories about the PizzaGate, using the very same images and claims from a (now banned) subreddit to convince their readers on how serious and deep-rooted the scandal was. Columnists penned articles that the PizzaGate is a part of the globalist conspiracy against Turkey, and one article even remarked that the “Teenage” in pizza-eating Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles now makes sense as a pedophilia reference after PizzaGate.

And all of this is very, very popular on Turkish Twitter. A video that claimed to show Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C., purportedly delivering children to politicians and business people (which is not true) went viral in Turkey, just like the video of Vice President Biden on the swearing-in ceremony of Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del) was re-narrated in Turkey to claim that Biden was abusing Coons’ daughter in public (which, also, is not true).

As always, the question is: How much of this is intentional deception, and how much is the misguided conclusion-hopping of conspiratards anxious to pull the wool over their own eyes?

I don't think that a guy like (say) Ed Opperman -- a private investigator and an alleged socialist who has pushed Pizzagate on his show -- is a deliberate liar. In fact, I've quite enjoyed some of his less-nutty shows, like the one he did on Scientology. However, he seems to be emotionally wedded to the insane idea that everyone worth more than a million bucks wants to rape a child while shouting "Hail Satan!"

Who's the white private dick that's a lie machine to all the cranks?
Op!
You're damn right.
Who is the man that lies like hell 'bout the Clinton clan?
Op!
Can ya dig it?
Who's the cat who won't make sense
and helped the guy who ran with Pence?
Op!
Right on.
You see, this cat Op is one dumb mother...
Shut your mouth
Hey, just talkin' 'bout Op
He's a complicated man
But no one understands him 'cause he's cray-cray.
Ed Op.

I'll cackle uproariously when he accuses me of being paid by the Great Clinton Conspiracy to come up with that bit of filking.

For the most part, though, I think that the right-wingers who invented Pizzagate are deliberately engaging in psychowar. They are lying and they know it.

On a related note: I've been trying to get my head around the adversarial relationship between Alex Jones and the growing number of avowed, unrepentant fans of the Third Reich. "Out" Nazis all claim to hate AJ. Yet on some level, they seem to understand that he is kin. AJ has linked up with Milo "post-fact"  Yiannopoulos, who is also hated by the acolytes of Adolf, even though most of us feel comfortable classifying Milo himself as, at the very least, a fascist.

It's a little difficult for those on the outside to keep track of who-hates-whom within the far right. This situation reminds me of the old days, when Milton "Bill" Cooper asked his audience of addled UFO dimwits to read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. As soon as the Protocols entered his spiel, most outside observers assumed that Cooper had to be a secret Nazi -- after all, Coop was the guy who claimed that the "evil aliens" who had gained control of the world's banks could be recognized by their big noses. I was a little surprised to learn that actual swastika-bedecked Hitler-heilers hated Cooper. Why? Because despite the obviousness of his coded language, Coop refused to come right out and say "It's the Jews!"

(He may have taken that final step into overt anti-Semitism late in his ill-starred career; I stopped following his antics after a certain point.)

I guess that's the main split within the far, far right: The J-word. Those who state their bigotries plainly resent those who maintain a certain respectability by employing euphemisms. Coop could always claim: Hey, I'm not talking about Jews -- I'm talking about aliens! Jones can always claim: Hey, I'm not talking about Jews -- I'm talking about the Illuminati! The most successful American conspiracists offer up every slice of the Nazi sausage except for that really evil bit at the end.