Egotistical Godfathers Fall Out

Alex Jones interview: Viewer discretion advised

 

The above video is a short clip of professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones foul-mouthing-off about Donald Trump, of whom he is "so sick". It's not surprising then that the video starts with this warning:

Warning: This video contains explicit langauge

The video goes on to tell us that:

Infowars Alex Jones has made millions of dollars by courting Trump's base.

In January of 2019, Jones told an interviewer that he was "sick" of Donald Trump.

On February 20, 2021, the Washington Post reported that federal investigators were probing the degree to which Jones and other extremists may have influenced those who stormed the Capitol building in Trump's name.

We then hear from Alex himself:

Part of me - the selfish part - wishes I'd never met Donald Trump, wishes I'd never met Roger Stone. Because unlike previous things I'd done that were game-changing, those were just time-space continuum reflections of the third big change I was gonna be involved in. And that was bringing Donald John Trump  into [unintelligible]. Just let me say that again: that's an awesome - into office. Because this is - you guys asking really good questions -  this is gonna be a really good thing. But I'm going to say it again in a minute [unintelligible].  It's the truth - I'm just going to say it - that I wish I never would've fucking met Trump. I wish it never would have happened. And it's not that the attacks that I've been through. I'm so sick of fucking Donald Trump man. God, I'm fucking sick of him.  And I'm not doing this because it's like I'm kissing his fucking ass, you know, it's just like I'm sick of it.  

Do it in a minute.....[That is, do the interview?]

Here's my interpretation of the Trump-Jones relationship.

Both Donald and Alex stood to gain from a cordial meeting: Donald could secure the support of Alex' followers and Alex could derive kudos and plausibility from Donald; it may also  have helped Alex widen his own support base.

Notice that Alex is so convinced of how awesome is his work and egotistical enough to believe that it was him who help put Donald into office (That's what Alex means by "game changing"). Alex may or may not be right about that as far as my information goes: If you took away the Jones' vote I really don't know how it might have affected the 2016 election, an election that was after all a close run thing whatever Donald might claim. But whatever, Alex appears to believe that Donald owes him the presidency. 

However, in the power stakes Alex was by far the weaker partner in the mutual back scratching relationship.  Donald, once in power, had no further need of Alex and so he retuned no further favours and I guess largely ignored Alex. When Alex met Donald he gave something away, namely he sealed the approval of his support base for Trump and he wanted a pay back for what he perceived as helping to deliver the Trump presidency; but he didn't get satisfaction. Alex now regrets his meeting with Donald who he feels failed to return the compliment. 

It's likely that Trump has never believed the insane fantasy world that Jones' peddles (in fact does Jones himself believe it?) but what the hell, he had got from Jones what he wanted. Moreover, Trump also had the QAnon conspiracy theorists on his side. Their boundless flattery, their lionisation of him and the heroic role they gave Trump in their delusional world must have satisfied even the planet sized ego of Donald J Trump. For Trump Jones was a useful idiot, for a while. But Jones felt he had been dumped and he was angry, very angry by the look of it; so angry that he had to calm down before he could start the interview. Unless Trump deigns to toss Jones a few more crumbs Jones won't be "kissing [Trump's] fucking ass" any more! I don't suppose Donald will miss that given the number of his supporters who appear to be queuing up to "kiss his fucking ass"!

Note 1: I haven't yet heard that any conspiracy theorists are claiming the above video to be a deep fake!

Note 2: Relevant link:

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/alex-jones-leaked-video-trump_n_603eecd8c5b601179ec13706?ri18n=true

Note 3: Relevant link

‘Bye bye Q, I can’t talk to you any more’: What next for Alex Jones, America’s foremost conspiracy theorist? | The Independent

My FB contact with another Trump conspiracy theorist

The Christian Right’s Righteous Wrath

Golden Boy: When government degenerates into a personality cult.

On the 6^th January I succeeded in getting into conversation with another Trump supporting Christian conspiracy theorist, this time on the home page of a Facebook friend I shall call “Christine”. See here for my first conspiracy theorist encounter with someone I named “Steve Pastry”. Below I refer to my latest client as “Richard Sweet”.  As I sought to get information out of them both Pastry and Sweet were very guarded in their replies; they usually ignored or refused to answer the questions I put to them. This in itself is at once both understandable and informative; in fact it is to be expected of people who have fallen for the paranoid fantasies of conspiracy theorism. I should imagine that unless I came out unconditionally on their side they would be naturally very suspicious of me and by default assign me one of the roles on the dark-side of their fantasy world of good vs. evil. Moreover, the tactic of only releasing information sparingly works in their favour: The information black-out means that an outsider has to try and interpolate their views with all the risks of getting it wrong; admitting as little as possible means that the insider stays in control of the management of their identity.

What is very notable about the case in point is that before Sweet gave up on me he told me to “tap me on the shoulder” on the 20^th January (Biden’s inauguration day): Presumably he believed the prophecies of those charismatic prophets who prophesied that Trump would get a second term. Therefore, in order to preserve the integrity of these prophecies I guess that Christians like Sweet were expecting that there would be a turn of events before January 20^th which would reverse the election result and Trump would get his second term after all. Perhaps Sweet believed in the QAnon theory that Trump’s “Operation Storm” would be unleashed and those evil establishment figures, a mix of socialists, lefties, liberals, Democrats, academics, heretics etc would be rounded up and thrown in jail. (That would likely happen under a Trump dynastic dictatorship in any case!)

Well, on 21^st January I did tap Sweet on the shoulder and needless to say he ignored me. But I don’t suppose the failure of the 20^th to conform to his expectation put a dent in his faith: To a hardened conspiracy theorist there’s plenty of scope in their florid imaginings to multiply entities (contrary to Occam’s razor)  in order to fit the new data to an adjusted narrative, thus preserving the general thrust of the conspiracy theory – for example, I have heard rumour that some of them believe Trump is actually still the legal president in an undercover sort of way.

But whether gripped by the baroque fantasies of conspiracy theorism or not, the Christian right-wingers, in their righteous indignation, are foaming at the mouth in anger & fear. True, many of them may not accept full-blown conspiracy theorism but they all have a great tendency to see things in the very the black & white terms of an “us vs them” conflict. In spite of the fact that the Bible makes us all sinful shades of grey they are likely to see the world through a very polarised filter which places people into the “in group” of those for God (and therefore for their culture & Trump) or the many out-groups who are against God (and therefore against their culture & Trump); witness for example the Trump supporting Ken Ham’s character assassination of those who disagree with him; even of evangelical Christians (See here, here & here).

The Christian far right envisage America to be in the grip of a dark left wing plot to pervert society and persecute Christian fundamentalists. They make little distinction between true Marxists and mildly socialist reformers; for in the polarised lens of their worldview all those who don’t identify with their perspective are considered enemies of liberty and God. And of course, one can readily find examples of contrary-wise extremism on the left-wing and these examples are used selectively as evidence to justify the extremism of the Christian right-wing.

The Christian right’s angry fears particularly revolve round sexuality and gender. For them the XY chromosomes unambiguously entail a stereotypical “male” and XX chromosomes unambiguously entail a stereotypical “female”; this is more or less the extent of their gender pop-science. Among them there is little or no acknowledgment that XY and XX are just markers which are the starting trigger points for a complex process of biological and social development that in the majority of cases, but certainly not all, leads respectively to typical male and female genders & sexuality. But in some cases at least, biology and sociology may have other plans. For example, sometimes the XY combination is at the beginning of a process that fails to convert the default sex (female) into a typical male and the end result is a personality and physique more typically female than male. This is just one example of blended gender/sexuality. There are others.

Societal moves to try to cater for the fact that there is a minority of human beings who don’t necessarily have the typical binary gender/sexual traits are portrayed by fundamentalists as proof of a dark plot to persecute Christians. These fundamentalists will go so far as to call non-binary Christians like Vicky Beeching wicked and it is quite likely they will not accept them as true Christians. If legislation is put into place in an attempt to protect non-binaries from abuse and prejudice the Christian far-right will exploit this legislation as evidence of their own persecution. They are manoeuvring to engineer a confrontation with government on this issue and turn it into an either/or shibboleth. Like Islamic terrorists who try to stoke up conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims using terrorist violence, the extreme fundamentalists are effectively doing the same with their shibboleths; they are trying to shift society into the end-time apocalyptic conflict in which they feel they will play out their destiny as the children of light.

The polarised view of good vs evil leads fundamentalist Christians to believe the whole world is composed of “outgroups” who persecute them (perhaps the worst being heretic Christians like myself!). I call this imagined sense of persecution “proto conspiracy theorism”. It’s a feeling in the gut which can on occasion go on to develop into the mental complex of full blown conspiracy theorism with its fanciful byzantine narratives reminiscent of an Agatha Christie plot. A sufferer of proto-conspiracy theorism (as opposed to the full-blown version) is far-right Christian Ken Ham who as we've seen is very prepared to assassinate the characters of Christian evangelicals who don’t agree with him (As already linked to). He has shown evidence of a subliminal interest in conspiracy theorism.

The schismatic situation we see in the US has played into the hands of the (sociopathic?) egotist Donald Trump who has exploited and fanned the flames of division & fear in order to position himself as the true saviour of the right-wing Christian worldview. And yet he is a corrupt liar who has made positive noises toward the QAnon conspiracy theorists and the professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones; never mind that Alex Jones’ followers have persecuted the parents of the Sandy Hook massacre; Trump is after the conspiracy theorist’s votes. In the Facebook thread below we find more evidence of Trumpism’s inextricable connection with conspiracy theorism both in its proto and full blown forms.

c. Timothy V Reeves, March 2021

Foot note

*1 In Genesis 5:2 we read that God made them “male & female”. Through the polarising lens of the fundamentalist mindset this verse appears to clinch their argument that blended genders/sexuality doesn't or shouldn't exist. But of course “male & female” are natural language categories and like so many natural language categories the edges are fuzzy and not clearly defined.

(The full article can be found here)