The Alex Jones-ification of the GOP

On a January night in 2002, a 37-year-old man donned a patriotic-themed uniform, covered his face with a skull mask and activated a long-held plan. Armed with a .45-caliber pistol, crossbow, makeshift bomb launcher, 2-foot-long sword and double-barreled shotgun/assault rifle hybrid, Richard McCaslin made his way into a forest north of San Francisco. His mission: to find and expose a secretive group of elites who — he wrongly believed — engaged in child abuse and human sacrifice. On a January afternoon nearly 20 years later, another man made his way from California to Washington, DC, on a quest to vanquish elites who, he wrongly believed, had stolen the presidential election from Donald Trump. Daniel Rodriguez, then 38, joined the mob that besieged the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. During the battle to breach the building, Rodriguez used a stun gun on a police officer, who would suffer a heart attack and traumatic brain injury. Both McCaslin and Rodriguez said they had been inspired by a fiery conspiracy theory peddler named Alex Jones.

McCaslin — who watched Jones sneak onto the site in a 2000 film called “Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove,” and who was thwarted by sheriff’s deputies before he could inflict harm on staff at the Bohemian Grove campground — was a freakish outlier. Rodriguez — who said Jones’ website had inspired him to seek “truth and answers” — held false beliefs about the 2020 election now shared by millions of Americans. It’s a contrast that mirrors the startling transformation of Jones, whose influence — through his technological prowess, fortuitous timing, cult of personality and sheer force of will — has crept from the fringes to the mainstream. A self-made entrepreneur, Jones is the creator and host of Infowars, a far-right conspiracy-mongering website that features articles and daily videos of his commentary. With the verbal fluidity of a great talk show host and the excitable charisma of a televangelist, the hard-charging, gravelly voiced Jones has perfected the WWE-ification of the news: It looks professional, but is far from real. If the object of an actual news show is to inform viewers in a compelling way, the object of Infowars is to whip up the ever-dormant flames of populist fear and resentment in service of going viral — without a thought to who gets hurt or who is driven to violence. It’s doom-porn, and the name of the game is to get eyeballs and sell products.