Note that with just pihole you would still be affected by this, since pihole needs an upstream dns server to get it's data from.
But if you set up pihole with unbound you will be OK, since unbound then will do the job of getting data from the root servers without another upstream dns.
I my experience it is also faster.
In this case (according to the donation page), he is part of the reason they are in this mess, as his mom is unable to find employment since everyone thinks she drove him to the protest where he shot those people.