Peter Thiel lickspittle promotes another conspiracy theory

Yalie venture capitalist J.D. Vance continues to MAGA as hard as he can:

Retweeting Chris Buskirk, editor of openly racist blog America Greatness, Vance shared with his followers Buskirk’s posted screenshot of what is supposedly the official WhiteHouse.gov website announcing that the Biden administration plans to restrict travel across state lines, propose new booster requirements, and also open up “Quarantine Centers.” 

This unsourced screenshot raises some red flags. It’s easy to modify webpages if you’re good at computers, all it takes is a basic knowledge of HTML and Microsoft Paint (or Photoshop, if you’re fancy.) Are “America’s New Quarantine Centers” really a thing?

Well. Kind of? Google “America’s New Quarantine Centers” and you get three results. One is a tweet from an anti-vaxx Trump-loving Twitter rando. (Or bot. Who can say.) The second is from the shitposting board 4Chan. The third is from the site GreatAwakening.win, which is the QAnon version of Reddit.

So maybe this “screenshot” from WhiteHouse.gov isn’t on the level?

[…]

And in case you thought that maybe this was all a big coincidence, I asked the White House about America’s New Quarantine Centers and the supposed WhiteHouse.gov screenshot. Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates wrote back: “That’s a complete lie.” 

You wouldn’t necessarily expect the editor of American Greatness to be able to tell the difference between the truth and some QAdjacent bro getting some lulz. (Even if he is an official “contributor” to the New York Times!)

It is both pathetic and hilarious that “also-ran to Josh Mandel” remains the most likely outcome here. But as Buskirk’s presence in the NYT opinion section indicates, at least he’s likely to get a golden parachute from some legacy media outlet to rail against cosmopolitan urban elites from Manhattan Ubers.