While the unimaginative “Doughnutgate” conspiracy theory has been refuted by Portland police, local press outlets, and most everyone affected by the conspiracy theory-slash-smear-campaign, people (who are angry Hillary Clinton won the popular vote against Donald Trump by 2,864,974 votes two years ago) are still harassing Voodoo Doughnuts employees over Voodoo’s alleged connection to the 1,000 percent discredited Pizzagate conspiracy theory.
The journalism watchdog blog Media Matters for America broke the Doughnutgate story in early August, with Willamette Week and the Oregonian reporting locally on case developments. Doughnutgate proponents, mostly relying on a profound misunderstanding about how the Shanghai Tunnels work, believe the owners of Voodoo Doughnuts and Dante’s are connected to an absolutely non-existent child trafficking ring.
Other remarkably flimsy evidence—from the people who think kids were trapped in a D.C. pizza shop’s non-existent basement—includes both businesses’ respective voodoo and hell-themed logos, Voodoo’s pastry-stuffed baby coffins, and the fact that Dante’s hosted Macaulay Culkin’s band, The Pizza Underground, five years ago.
This isn’t even the first dumbass right-wing non-troversy to be called #doughnutgate.
If you try to unpack Doughnutgate, you’ll see a mix of racist dog-whistle fears about voodoo—an umbrella term for Black and POC folk faiths including, but not limited to, santería and candomblé. You’ll also see a resurgence of the long-refuted Satanic Panic from the 1980s, which still lives on in some fundamentalist Christian circles.
Dante’s has been long-targeted by conservatives, who believe trafficking takes place at the nearly 20-year-running Sinferno Cabaret; Sinferno’s resident DJ Patrick Buckmaster is featured prominently in certain Pizzagate videos (that, at over 70,000 clicks, don’t need any cross-traffic from us).
But as NBC reports, Voodoo and Dante’s aren’t alone in their targeted harassment, backed in part by right-wing media outlets and online conspiracy posters including Qanon followers. Sweet Jesus, a Toronto-based ice cream chain also received recent harassment based on its cheeky religious branding and use of kids’ images in its marketing. At this point, we are working with Noid logic.
Especially in a climate where the president of the United States is engaging divisive conspiracy theorists over critical constituents, spouting white nationalist talking points and dragging social media & Google into his petty assault on the free press, we need to be honest with one another with where and how we get our news.
Contextless memes are the ruling source of internet humor (for now), but we need to remember now more than ever that facts are facts, and truth is truth, and we have to keep calm and remember the gross former posterboy for 9/11 can’t change that. While no Doughnutgate reports have yet been filed with Portland police, we can only hope online douchebags don’t try hack vigilantism, risking the safety of real kids and their parents on SW 3rd Ave for obviously imaginary ones.
P.S. Looking for a trustworthy news source? Look no further.