The right is ginning up some bizarre accounts of Tafari Campbell’s death, based on little more than their fevered imaginations.
Ian Miles Cheong, known for his role in GamerGate and for promoting truly deranged policy proposals (like capital punishment for all shoplifters), tweeted that Campbell’s death was “strange.”
“What do you think really happened?” he asked of his nearly 700,000 followers.
Liz Crokin, a Trump supporter and QAnon follower, implied that Campbell met an untimely end because he was “employed at the White House for Obama’s private party where they flew in $65K worth of hotdogs and pizza.”
Without getting too into conspiracy theory weeds, this argument, naturally, is not just about hot dogs and pizza—rather, it is yet anotherpopular right-wing theory loosely rooted in the “Pizzagate” conspiracy of yesteryear.
“No matter what the government or media reports about Obama’s chef who died on his property—I won’t believe a word of it,” said the right-wing internet troll Catturd to his nearly two million followers. “Why would they start telling the truth now?”
Again, these right-wing accounts have not actually surfaced any evidence to back up their odd claims about Campbell’s death.
Obama has been the subject of countless conspiracy theories, most prominently that his birth certificate was fake, he was really born in Kenya, and he’s actually a practicing Muslim. Donald Trump, the front-runner in the Republican Party, helped push this birther movement for years, including well into his presidency.