Neo-Nazis Dub Papa John’s ‘Official Pizza Of The Alt-Right’

By Sam Kestenbaum November 5, 2017

A major neo-Nazi website has dubbed Papa John’s the “official pizza of the ‘alt-right,’” in apparent praise of the company’s criticism of the ongoing NFL national anthem protests.

“So Papa John is a major, long-standing sponsor of the NFL. And yet even they’re panicked about what’s going on,” a blogger for the Daily Stormer wrote in a recent piece. “It’s starting to make economic sense to be pro-White, even for these kiked, evil corporations.”

The article included a photo of a pizza, with pepperoni slices forming the shape of a swastika and the caption: “Papa John: Official pizza of the alt-right?”

The pizza chain’s CEO, John Schnatter, laid the blame for his company’s poor third-quarter earnings Tuesday on the NFL’s failure to regulate players’ protests against police brutality.

The website’s endorsement of Papa John’s pizza is just the latest in a line of half-joking praise that Anglin and others on the “alt-right” have doled out to companies that they view as allies in a culture war. Figures on the “alt-right,” for example, held up New Balance as the “official shoe” of their movement, despite the company’s disavowal.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

Sam Kestenbaum is a contributing editor and former staff writer for the Forward. Before this, he worked for The New York Times and newsrooms in Sana, Ramallah and Beijing. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO