Well, the book closed on Alex Jones' and InfoWars when The Onion purchased it at auction. I lived blissfully unaware of Alex Jones and InfoWars until our old pal Kent here introduced me to him through this website, then offered to actually introduce me to him because apparently back then he was in regular contact with Jones. This is not a post to dunk on Kent now that he has passed, but really my perspective of Jones and what he did was formed by Kent and this website.
Kent was always pushing me to read, listen to, and watch things from Jones. He had much praise for InfoWars, suggested I subscribe and thought I should directly speak with Alex. I would read and listen to some of the stuff Kent pointed me at. I wasn't the only one, he was also sending things to Andrea, and her and I would occasionally chat about them. She sent me a book Kent sent to her because she wanted my thoughts on it. Not because she bought into it but rather, she wanted my take on exactly how wacky it was. Honestly, I could not get through the thing. I told her this and I told her where I stood on Kent.
I thought Kent was a well-meaning guy, that he did honestly care deeply about all of us here, but that based on stories he told me, he was horribly injured when he was struck by a car when out walking his dog for one, that he had experienced so much serious trauma in his life that he had developed some ideas that were not really...well...healthy.
I remember how the guys that were on the Republican side of things here basically made fun of Kent for his Jones fixation, which honestly did not surprise me at all. I mean back then Jones was off on tangents about shapeshifting lizard people, and bloodlines of presidential candidates which guaranteed they would get their turn in the oval office.
Alex Jones was a North Star for Kent. I spent many of my conversations with him trying to convince him Jones was a conman, no surprise Donald Trump loved him he loves other conmen, some of which Kent would listen to, some Kent would dismiss out of hand. In some ways I see those conversations as precursors to later conversations I would have with Trump supporters. It was always confounding, and I know it was to others here who had dealings with Kent, that someone would buy into such nonsense at such a deep level.
It was an alarming shift I thought when, Kent no longer with us at this point, Jones became a major player in the world of Republican politics and was a favorite, of course, of one Donald John Trump. I mean, I got Trump's love of the man, he really enjoyed seeing people get bullshitted, the more crazy and ridiculous the bullshit the better.
So, the moment I was having a conversation with our old Republican buddy, Marc, here and he said to me "Alex Jones is right about some things." after having mocked Jones when Kent was with us, I knew we had entered some new realm of weirdness that probably was not going to be good.
Sure enough, it wasn't.
Jones was pushing the idea that the government was staging "false flag operations" which is what we all know he harassed the families of Sandy Hook victims with...over and over and put their lives in danger. Hard to believe that someone would be sick enough to harass people that lost their children in a horrible tragedy with something like this but people bought into it. Trump himself loved this, that you could attack suffering people, people who were dealing with the deaths of their children, and make them suffer even more. That you could get part of the public to attack people that had their children murdered. It was one of the most glorious feats of bullshit Trump had ever seen and he became a huge fan of Alex Jones because of it. Trump was so excited that you could draw this kind of cruelty out of people, because if there was one thing Trump loved as much as suffering it was cruelty, and he has been on the bandwagon ever since.
The Q movement grew out of Jones being able to easily con so many people and all of these people of course became MAGA with Donald pushing the Jones and Q stuff and trying to see how many suckers he could pull in. These would be useful suckers because not only would they vote for you, these nuts may actually kill for you. They certainly would believe anything you told them...anything.
My understanding of these movements would likely not be what it is had Kent not introduced me to Jones way back when on this website. I'd probably be more confused about how we got here than I am right now if I did not grasp the lure of Jones, Q, and Trump, as he knew a good thing when he saw it.
Trump did not invent this stuff, like Elon Musk did not come up with any of the stuff his companies deal in, he just bought in when he saw something he thought worked.
Well, Kent is gone, and now InfoWars is gone, purchased by The Onion, a comedy website which seems sort of appropriate. The stuff people like Jones, Q, Trump, and Musk sell to people would be funny except that...well...about 75 million people in this country take this nonsense seriously. Deadly seriously.
It's why I have said before, you can basically track reading the history of this website how this country shifted and you can see what that dynamic was. From a time not long ago that a guy like Alex Jones was seen by most of us as a bad joke, both the Democrats and Republicans that were here, to a time when Jones became a figure praised by an American president.
Dan put this site together back in 1997 and since then the shift in this country toward total bullshit has been jaw dropping. Funny thing is, I think we had conversations on this site about how people had to develop better bullshit detectors. So much for that.
I think Kent would have turned on Alex Jones when he saw where he went. I mean, that's my feeling. Kent did love us, he did want to do good in the world. He was aggravating to deal with at times, no doubt, but I don't think he would have went for the ride with Jones when he started harassing the families of murdered children. It takes a special kind of vile human being to enjoy that, a guy like Trump, but Kent, I think he would have walked away. I'm glad he introduced me to Jones and I think knowing about him helped me better understand the world we have now but do I wish we did not have guys like Jones and Trump that will prey on others with their bullshit.
We could have done without them. InfoWars will now be a joke, the joke it always should have been but before we got to that punchline, a lot of damage was done. We have to live with it now and find a way to repair it. It will probably be a slow process.
