Kari Lake offers up the mother lode of COVID-19 conspiracy theories

It’s finally happened.

Arizona Republicans’ presumptive pick for the United States Senate has gone full-on, flat-out fruit loop.

Lake on Thursday offered up the mother lode of conspiracy theories, revealing that “they” unleashed COVID-19 in order to stop Donald Trump from getting reelected.

Sadly, Lake didn’t disclose who “they” are. The Jews? The Chinese? Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer? Lizard people? Heck, maybe they’re all in on it.

But she made it clear that there is only one person who can save us.

Lake has moved on … back to conspiracy

“These are some of the most corrupt, disgusting evil people in the world,” she said, during an interview on Real America’s Voice, a news site that caters to the MAGA nation.

“They’re pushing this globalist agenda and they don’t care who they destroy in the process. They’ve got to win and get that globalist agenda moved forward and the one man that’s most dangerous to that globalist agenda — which by the way, will be the end of America, the globalist agenda — the one man standing in their way is the man you just saw on your screen, President Donald J. Trump.

“And that is why they unleased viruses, they’ve tried to destroy economies, they’ve tried to shut down the country — to stop him.”

Kari Lake is in trouble:After judge’s latest ruling

Me? I’m wondering how it’s going with Lake’s plan to court moderates.

You may recall that national Republicans, hoping to regain a foothold in Arizona, have advised Lake to move on from the election conspiracy theories that have become her signature grievance.

She’s moved on all right, to a New World Order conspiracy, where a secretive cabal of elites (read: “they”) are plotting world domination and there is only one man — one messiah — who can stop them.

This, from Arizona’s would-be next senator?

Perhaps it’s not so surprising that she would go there, spouting conspiracies that once were the purview of antisemites and other assorted whackadoos. But we are now living in conspiratorial times — a time in which it’s perfectly acceptable to spread chaos and fear in order to hang onto — or grab onto — power.

A time in which Hillary Clinton runs a child sex-trafficking ring from the basement of a pizza parlor that has no basement and COVID-19 is a deep-state plot aimed at unseating Trump and controlling our every move.

We are up to our eyeballs in fantastical intrigue about shadowy left-wing boogeymen (usually pedophiles, almost always Democrats) who are secretly trying to take over the world (usually while engaging in child sex trafficking).

But to hear it coming from the woman Republicans hope to send to the U.S. Senate?

This would be a killer skit for Saturday Night Live.

Unfortunately, it’s everyday Arizona, where our next senator could be …

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @LaurieRoberts or on Threads at @laurierobertsaz.

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