“I have spent a lot of time this year trying to imagine the mind of a person who finds the Pizzagate conspiracy compelling. What would it feel like to hear a ludicrously tawdry tale about a celebrity you despise, and be so taken with its fairy-tale depiction of evil that you become obsessed? You can’t get it out of your mind; you feel compelled to investigate further, to discuss it with strangers, to build websites analyzing every version of the story that you’ve heard? Today, I get it. Donald Trump’s pee party is, in a manner of speaking, my Pizzagate. Obviously I’m not going to storm the Moscow Ritz-Carlton to investigate furnishings in the bedroom of its presidential suite. That would be crazy. What I mean is that, when it comes to probable falsehoods you just can’t quit, no one — on the left or the right, Real American or New Yorker — is immune.”