Pizzagate Will Never Die: Here's Why the Conspiracy Theory Has New Life

Like a villain in a bad horror movie, Pizzagate, the conspiracy theory that went mainstream, refuses to die. Just when you think the final nail is in the coffin, and Pizzagate has been vanquished to the depths of hell, it once again rears its ugly head like it did this past week.

On Saturday true believers attended a Pizzagate protest in Washington, D.C.'s Lafayette Park and attended by a "couple dozen people," Hill writer Will Sommer reported. For the uninitiated, Pizzagate is a conspiracy theory borne out of emails obtained by Wikileaks from Hillary Clinton's campaign chair, John Podesta. Some conspiracy theorists claimed that Podesta's emails contained code for child sex trafficking. For example, they claim "cheese pizza" is code for child pornography. They surmise that this alleged trafficking took place at popular D.C. pizza joint Comet Ping Pong, because the venue was also mentioned in Podesta's correspondence.

In the run up to the election and after, Pizzagate became so prevalent that one believer Edgar Maddison Welch, disturbed by the allegations and believing they were true, drove to Comet from North Carolina armed with a 9mm AR-15 rifle and .38-caliber revolver and fired shots inside the restaurant in December 2016. No one was injured, but Welch was arrested and pled guilty to gun and assault charges; Welch's plea was finalized in court Friday, March 24. But this did not put an end to the conspiracy theories. In fact, they may be gaining in popularity.

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Also on Friday, radio host Alex Jones, who perpetuated the Pizzagate rumors for months, issued an apology to his fans for his accusations against the owner of Comet Ping Pong, James Alefantis: "I made comments about Mr. Alefantis that in hindsight I regret, and for which I apologize to him," Jones said in a protracted statement he read on air. True believers, however, point to Jones's apology as proof that Pizzagate is real. His denial only strengthens their belief.

Over the months, Pizzagate has evolved into what believers call Pedogate. They claim the Pedogate conspiracy encompass all of government, which is part of the New World Order and teeming with pedophiles. This movement has been boosted on social media by Michael Flynn Jr., the son of General Michael Flynn who recently resigned as Donald Trump's national security advisor, and David Seaman, a former Jezebel intern and unpaid Huffington Post contributor turned conspiracy theorist.

From what I can glean from conspiracy blogs and Seaman's YouTube channel, which has more than 150,000 subscribers, Pedogate believers think there is a "satanic cabal of elites" engaged in a vast government conspiracy to rape small children and sell them into sex trafficking. They cite as evidence any cases of lawmakers caught with child porn or accused of molesting children and claim that these are not isolated incidents. Rather, they believe that a "satanic cabal of elites" in government run international child sex trafficking rings. Some even link 22 African American teenage girls who have been reported missing in 2017 in D.C. as evidence of the conspiracy. Donald Trump, according to Seaman, is not involved because he called the crimes "horrific" in a speech.

On his YouTube channel, Seaman has claimed that many prominent figures are part of Pedogate including Jake Tapper and Stephen Colbert along with John Podesta and his brother Tony, as well as Media Matters founder David Brock. They also believe Anthony Weiner, the disgraced congressman under investigation for sexting with a 15-year-old girl, proves their theories to be true. "With prosecutions of some of these people, public faith will be restored in institutions," Seaman claimed.

Except, those prosecutions will likely never occur, except for Anthony Weiner's. And as long as there are creeps out there like Weiner who happen to be linked to the government, Pizzagate will never die. Not as long as there are gullible people in the world.