The new right-wing outrage is that "pink-haired liberals" have supposedly ruined New York pizza forever.
How? By asking pizzerias to use devices like air filters in their coal- or wood-fired ovens to curb emissions.
According to conservatives like Republican Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, pro-Trump activist Scott LoBaido and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, the proposed new air quality rule constitutes a ban on pizza in New York City.
This is patently absurd for many reasons, chief among them that the new law hasn't even passed yet and even if it does, it does not ban coal- or wood-fired ovens.
But a string of conservative news outlets have claimed it will, and that's good enough for fact-averse right-wingers.
So people like Portnoy have taken to social media to whine about this supposed pizzapocalypse they think liberals are imposing upon them.
In his nearly three-minute long video rant—an astonishing amount of time to spend kvetching about something that hasn't even happened—Portnoy complained:
"Some f***ing little liberal arts, Ivy-League, pink-haired, crazy liberal who’s never worked one day in the real world is trying to get rid of coal oven pizzerias in New York City."
That's pretty big talk for someone who grew up in one of the most affluent parts of the Boston area and attended one of the most elite public universities in the country, the University of Michigan.
The fact no one is trying to get rid of coal oven pizzerias hasn't stopped right wingers like Blackburn from echoing similar fallacious claims.
And then there's far-right Trump-activist Scott LoBaido, who is so mad about this entirely made-up controversy that he brought a bunch of pizzas to New York's City hall and... threw them at the building? For some reason?
Nothing is funnier than LoBaido misspelling his profanity. Not even him throwing pizza at a building.
Anyway, pizzeria owners in New York City are furious about the proposed rule too, saying that it will be expensive for them to follow and will ruin all their pizza.
That latter one is a valid concern for a business owner of course, but how filtered exhaust ruins pizza is anyone's guess. Exhaust is not known to be an ingredient in pizza, and in any case Italy--you know, where pizza literally comes from--has similar rules about its pizza ovens and its pizza industry is alive and thriving.
As you might guess, lots of people on Twitter thought this whole thing was really, really ridiculous.
Well, guess we can add this pizza uproar to the official list of bogus right-wing conspiracy theories. Hey, at least it's not QAnon.
@jaketapoer/Bluesky
@BillAckman/Twitter