I once sold Kanye West a $275,000 Hermès handbag so you didn’t have to. That alone should probably disqualify me from mocking anyone else’s life choices. But here we are, watching Kim Kardashian declare the 1969 Moon landing was faked—and realizing she’s only the latest to monetize doubt itself.

Whatever her motives—publicity, curiosity, or some vague rebellion against “the narrative”—she’s playing a familiar tune. We now live in an era of performative skepticism, a world in which feigned curiosity and selective disbelief have become entertainment genres. Kardashian isn’t rejecting NASA; she’s embracing engagement metrics.

We are apparently meant to believe that nearly half a million engineers, contractors, and politicians—plus the Soviets tracking every launch—have all kept the same secret for fifty-six years. Congress approved more than $25 billion—over $260 billion in today’s dollars—to fund the Apollo missions. Someone would have leaked a hoax before the ink dried. But sure, Kim, let’s turn on the autopen and make it real.

Of course, the absurdity is the point. In 2025, disbelief itself has become a lifestyle accessory. The way we used to collect handbags or sneakers, we now collect doubts. “The Moon landing was fake” is just the latest limited-edition drop in America’s marketplace of conspiracies. And Kardashian, whether she knows it or not, is modeling the look.

Performance as a Business Model

When I watched Kanye’s anti-semitism metastasize on social media and elsewhere, I knew exactly where the sale proceeds had to go: to TruthTells, my non-profit fighting anti-semitism. Diverting those assets became my answer to the sickness—the moment I began to see this broader phenomenon take shape.

Only a week after October 7, a reporter from a legacy outlet called for comment, and I said what I still believe: “Anti-semitism has become the new black—apparently all the cool kids are doing it.” It was dark humor, but it turned out to be depressingly accurate. Within months, that same performative contrarianism migrated from podcast fringes to protest marches, where rage became a kind of performance art—chants and keffiyehs as props in a morality cosplay.

The protesting isn’t about justice anymore; it’s about virality. And the obsession has become so total that no one can explain why the marches haven’t stopped, even after a cease-fire, because the cause was never the point; the anti-semitism and the performance were.

“I’m Just Asking Questions”: America’s New Hobby

“I’m just asking questions” used to be what journalists said before finding answers. Now it’s what grifters say before selling merch. It’s the rhetorical Kevlar of the conspiracist class—a way to dodge accountability while still implying that everything’s corrupt.

That safe irony is what makes modern conspiracism so corrosive. It turns skepticism—a useful democratic instinct—into nihilism disguised as wit. And when anti-semitism, anti-Israel rhetoric, or election denial hides behind the same tone, it borrows that shield of deniability. The result is a culture fluent in suspicion and allergic to evidence.

Golda Meir once said, “Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.” Today, I’d put it this way: if these so-called patriots loved America as much as they claim, the evidence suggests they still hate Israel more than they love this country. You can hear it in the podcasts, the panels, the timelines—Tucker Carlson handing Nick Fuentes a microphone, Dave Smith recycling the same script. Every segment, every smirk, every “just asking questions” is another rehearsal for Zohran Mamdani’s rise—the slow mainstreaming of anti-Israel grievance until it sounds like American virtue.

My fellow New Yorkers, the day after Election Day—and let’s hope it isn’t Doomsday—we’ll see whether performance has finally replaced principle.

Zohran Mamdani’s campaign isn’t the contagion—it’s the detonation. The moment anti-semitic performance graduates from timelines to ballots, from podcasts to podiums, the infection becomes self-sustaining. What began as moral posturing has metastasized into political reality.

To be clear, I’m not saying Kim Kardashian and New York’s Zohran Mamdani are ideological twins. Quite the opposite. She is unabashedly pro-family, openly religious, and a capitalist success story almost without peer—quite literally everything Mamdani is not, likely never will be, nor probably ever aspired to emulate.

Despite his family wealth, he lives in a rent-controlled apartment—the dictionary illustration of “rules for thee but not for me.” For all his bluster, he has accomplished little beyond turning protest into posture. It’s a curious pairing, perhaps, but in an America where Kanye West can spend $275,000 on a Hermès bag and still style himself a populist, absurdity has become our shared lingua franca.

Anti-semitism doesn’t have to start with a slur. It often starts with a shrug.

The same mental shortcut that doubts the Moon landing can be trained to doubt the Holocaust or “the influence of global financiers.” Once you decide that everything official is suspect, ancient hatreds find fresh soil.

This isn’t about Kim Kardashian anymore. The day after Election Day, the country—far beyond New York City—may have to live with the consequences of turning skepticism into creed.