Payton Williams
Assistant Editor
@youresovanya
We need to talk about President Donald Trump’s connection to InfoWars.
In an interview with popular right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Trump spoke highly about perpetually red faced pundit in glowing terms.
“Your reputation is amazing,” Trump said of and to Jones. “I will not let you down.”
Jones is the proprietor and face of the right-wing conspiracy dispensary InfoWars. For readers unfamiliar with his name, Jones is essentially what might happen if Rush Limbaugh were a WWE character. He has gained the dubious honor of becoming an Internet meme of sorts for his outlandish, feverishly angry rants.
Jones is also a man with a sincere following. He has been described as America’s leading conspiracy theorist for his inflammatory remarks about innumerable national tragedies. He popularly and disgustingly labeled the mass shootings at San Bernadino and Sandy Hook as “false flags,” or government-perpetrated faked events with hired “crisis actors” as a ploy to ban guns.
For Trump to throw even faint praise on such a person is certainly cause for alarm. But there is another factor at work here that is even more deeply unsettling.
Donald Trump has cited InfoWars as a credible source in the past. One of the more egregious examples of this action was his tweeting that “thousands and thousands” of Muslims publicly celebrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks, directly citing InfoWars. His claims of denial over the drought in California last year used language almost directly lifted from the website.
This trend is deeply unsettling. Jones has been a lightning rod for mockery in this country for many years, mostly playful, sometimes angry. But never has he appeared to be a legitimate figure in the political sphere – until now.
Now Jones has, to some extent, the president’s ear, and this fact, combined with Trump’s penchant for ignoring news sources he does not care for, sets a terrifying precedent.
This time is not the first when Trump has cited a less-than-credible source, certainly. He cites the likes of Breitbart and the Drudge Report on a fairly consistent basis, lobbing uniform praise at any number of dubious right-wing sources.
But InfoWars is not like any of these sources. It is altogether something more grotesque. It is, to avoid mincing words, an openly conspiratorial dispensary of fearmongering hogwash with a perpetually shouting psychopath at the helm – a man who has been, and should be, roundly mocked by anyone with a rational mind.
A person with a rational mind would react with disgust at the suggestion that a mass shooting or a terrorist attack was a ploy to take away guns. That person might even be filled with righteous anger at the open contempt Jones has shown for the families of shooting victims by endlessly insisting, with no proof, that they do not exist.
And anyone with a rational mind would understand that someone who routinely shouts such phrases as, “Hollywood is owned by the Arabs,” or, “I don’t like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the frigging frogs gay,” might not be a credible source of information.
But the man with the highest office in our nation does not see it that way. In fact, he would seem to be more than happy to put such a deranged character on a pedestal while openly ignoring a large portion established news sources.
Americans cannot stand for this activity. It is more than laughable: it is idiotic and destructive. It is an insult to the very idea of factual information and sources, and it should be grounds for anger.
It should be grounds for change.