How Trump brought conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones into the mainstream

The US president-elect has helped to legitimise fringe media whose followers, in turn, just might have helped him win the election.

In the past month, Alex Jones’s YouTube channel has racked up 80 million views, with nearly 15 million views on election day and the day after. Photo courtesy Alex Jones

Alex Jones believes the September 11 attacks were an inside job. He also believes the American government and a cabal of global elites put fluoride in water to drug the masses, and send subliminal messages through television to control minds and force individuals to perpetrate acts of violence.

Unlike some of his contemporaries, he does not go so far as to suggest that subterranean, shape-shifting lizard people run the world, or that the Earth is flat – but his ideas come pretty close.

Alongside these conspiracy theories, Mr Jones has spent more than a year sending another message to the legions that listen to his radio programmes and watch his online video channel: support Donald Trump.

While the US president-elect frequently denigrates some of the most respected journalists in America as dishonest, unbalanced liars, he has a different take on Mr Jones. To Mr Trump, Mr Jones’s reputation is “amazing”.

Mr Trump’s shock election has provided the United States and the world with a number of revelations about American society and politics. Among these is that conspiracy theorists and other fringe elements have now become mainstream.

This is reflected in Mr Trump’s choice of Stephen Bannon – who took charge of the tycoon’s election campaign in August – as his chief strategist and senior counsellor. Mr Bannon is the chief executive of Breitbart News (though he is currently on leave from the role), a far-right news website whose headlines have included “Would you rather your child had feminism or cancer?” and “Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy”.

Thanks to Mr Trump, the causes championed by websites such as Breitbart – described by the New York Times as "once a curiosity of the fringe right-wing" – and people like Mr Jones have entered the mainstream.

Mr Trump helped to legitimise Mr Jones – who believes that citizens of the US may be destined for a Matrix-like existence of subjugation or extermination in concentration camps if the so-called "global elite" have their way – by appearing on his show and praising him and his audience. Not only do Mr Jones's supporters back the president-elect, they now feel he is in their corner, affirming their beliefs as truths.

On Thursday, Roger Stone, a close Trump adviser, appeared on Mr Jones's online show, Infowars, to thank viewers for supporting the Republican candidate.

"Let me just say that he [Mr Trump] is, first of all, very grateful to the infowars.com audience," said Mr Stone, a frequent guest on Mr Jones's shows. "He knows you are the centrepiece of the resistance. He knows that he has got better treatment here than from anyone in the mainstream media and he is very grateful and very thankful for your support and the support of your audience."

Mr Jones said on Thursday that Mr Trump personally thanked him following the election and that the president-elect would appear on the show again in the coming weeks.

Mr Trump is right to thank Mr Jones and his viewers: they just might have helped win him the election. In the past month, Mr Jones’s YouTube channel has racked up 80 million views, with nearly 15 million views on election day and the day after – a number that almost rivals network television stations.

And in an election where 15 per cent of voters were casting ballots for the first time, it is not unlikely that some of these were conspiracy-prone followers of Mr Jones’s programmes who had never trusted the government enough to take part in an election.

Mr Trump himself has not shied away from wild conspiracy theories.

He pushed the theory that president Barack Obama may not have been born in the United States, and maintained he saw “thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the fall of the World Trade Center on September 11. During the Republican primaries, he propagated a conspiracy theory that fellow contender Ted Cruz’s father was associated with the man that assassinated John F Kennedy. And as election day neared, Mr Trump warned his supporters that elections would be rigged against him.

If Mr Trump continues this behaviour as president, he will be adopting a political tool already commonly used in other parts of the world, including the Middle East. In Egypt, protesters are always said to be paid foreign agents. In Lebanon, bombings and other incidents are regularly dismissed as part of a “Zionist plot” even when evidence to the contrary is available. And in Turkey, pro-government media somehow managed to accuse Scott Peterson – an American convicted in a high-profile 2004 murder case and currently on death row – of being involved in a coup attempt in July.

But in the US, such behaviour is unprecedented for presidents.

There was a hope that Mr Trump would moderate his views once the election was over, but so far, this has not been the case. He has taken to Twitter to attack the New York Times and said in a 60 Minutes interview broadcast on Sunday night that he would continue to lash out at "inaccurate stories" published by the media. He has also said that the thousands of people taking to the streets against his election were paid, professional protesters.

After Mr Trump’s election, Mr Jones said the property billionaire, whom he has described as “an imperfect messenger of God, but nevertheless a King David of our time”, had helped save the US from “modern corporate slavery”. But, he added, there is still work to be done.

"Operatives" – Infowars' term for other journalists – are spreading lies and faking news to sow dissent. Leftist plots are trying to undermine the economy and present Mr Trump as a failure. The globalists of the New World Order are plotting to kill the president-elect.

And then of course, there’s the fluoride in the water.