Over the past few years I've posted more than a few words about far-right conspiranoia-porn peddler Alex Jones, who, like most of his ilk, is an irascible ranter, atrocious bully, or pathetic whiner as it suits his needs. More often than not, he is all three at once.
Unless you've been totally unplugged from the news (which actually doesn't seem to be such a bad idea, even if I can't bring myself to do it), you're probably aware that Jones has been both in whiny and irascible-rant modes lately because his defamation trial in Texas has not been going his way at all. And his misfortune in court is a good thing, because Jones has been getting away with spreading his poison, without suffering any personal consequences, for too many years. (Don't get me wrong; I generally support anyone's right to spout off and make a fool of himself or herself in public, but if that spouting off causes harm to others, then the spouter should suffer all appropriate legal and moral consequences.)
One of the high points of the Jones trial, and one that launched a thousand social-media memes, was when it was revealed in open court that Jones' lawyers had "accidentally" sent the entire contents of his phone to the plaintiffs' lawyers -- rendering him not only liable to perjury charges but also shining a spotlight on his possible (probable) role in the January 6 insurrection.
Jones' initial reaction to the news of the phone glitch was a reminder that this is truly the type of situation for which the word Schadenfreude was invented. And let's hope that things continue to not go his way. Punishment via the courts won't bring back the innocent schoolchildren and adult staff members who were slaughtered at Sandy Hook, the mass shooting which Jones crapitalized on for so many years by claiming that it was a hoax, but at least there will be some measure of justice for those who lost loved ones.
True, Jones will no doubt continue to use the court rulings to expand upon his longstanding hero/martyr shtick. It's a shtick that, unsurprisingly, has been reinforced by some of his fellow right-wing conspiranoia peddlers, e.g., Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams, who recently published a piece on his Natural News site about Jones being the canary in the coal mine and a bellwether for all "anti-establishment" press.
And after Jones was hit with a $45.2 million verdict for punitive damages (on top of the $4.1 mil in compensatory damages handed down on the previous day), vile Trumpster and frequent Infowars guest Roger Stone called for contributions to support Jones, saying, "Alex Jones is a good and decent man. He is a God-fearing Christian...and right now he needs our support." (Sandy Hook family attorney Mark Bankston said that Jones' phone record leak revealed, among other things, "intimate messages" with Stone, so that should prove interesting. Stone, for his part, is urging Jones to sue his own lawyer because of the leaked messages.) In any case, Jones is apparently not just a hero/martyr, but a Christian one at that. Praise the Lard.
But if Jones is a financially ruined faux-Christian hero/martyr, that, in my book, will still be justice.
This post has been updated to add the information on the punitive damages verdict and Roger Stone's appeal to Jones' fans and followers for monetary support, as well as Stone's urging Jones to sue his own attorney.
Related on this Whirled:
- September 2021: Scamworld & politix: Eric Trump set to join
alt-health/conspiranoid scammers in Nashville in October
The strengthening alliance between alt-health hucksters (such as Jones) and the American right is not only spreading misinformation that endangers public health, but is also endangering democracy. While Jones himself wasn't featured at the event discussed in this post, a couple of his more notorious allies were: Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams and Roger Stone. - November 2018 -- Randazzled: hail the free-screech hero of
[alleged] rapists and Nazis and trolls
Notorious free-speech attorney Marc Randazza has made some bank defending loathsome characters, including Alex Jones. He can't claim any moral high ground in this matter, though he has tried to do so. - August 2018: Alex Jones and the usual whiners: censor-y
deprivation?
Jones has long been one of the right-wing whiners claiming that he is being "censored" and his First Amendment rights being grievously violated. But even though his defamation trial has been relevant to First Amendment rights, his de-platforming by privately owned companies such as Facebook and YouTube are not First Amendment issues per se. This post covers that point, plus some of the nuances in the "censorship" issue that are often overlooked by both the left and the right.
Related Off-Whirled:
- From New York Intelligencer: The Alex Jones Trial Is As Messy As You'd Expect
Of course, its messiness is what made it so entertaining (at Jones' expense), while at the same time grueling (for the plaintiffs). - From Variety: 'Alex's War' Review: A Gripping and Disturbing
Look at Alex Jones and the Politics of Unreality
Insightful background on Jones' rise to stardom and his mass appeal....it wasn’t all conspiracy. Jones was like a preacher, and what he was preaching was a religion — “stop the dehumanization.” And really, who doesn’t think contemporary America is dehumanized and only growing more so? Who doesn’t feel at times, in this society, overly controlled — by technology, by the corporatization that rules the technology, by the government that works hand in glove with the corporations, by not one but two political parties that seem increasingly out-of-touch with the needs of average people? Jones, like Trump, tapped into all that. But what gave it meaning was the way that Jones, a political carny barker, used conspiracy to reverse-engineer history. To him, every disaster, every predicament, everything about our world you don’t like had been planned and caused. By whom? By them. The globalists. The pedophiles. The technocrat corporatists who want to use vaccines to sterilize the population...
- From Ken White (aka @Popehat): Alex Jones At The Tower of Babel
White, an attorney, makes some good points about the reasons that legal accountability for Jones might not have much of an effect on the larger problem, which is the public's hunger for the kind of slop for which Jones has become obscenely rich by dishing out.
The point is that courts are ill-equipped to deal with people like Alex Jones, and people like Alex Jones are ill-equipped to deal with courts. Jones’ catastrophic testimony in his own defense illustrates this. Jones struggled to fit his bombast within the framework of the law, within the distinction between fact and opinion. It’s a bad fit because that’s not how he uses words...
...It’s fit that Alex Jones is held accountable for the impact of his words. He used false statements of fact to paint his picture, and those false statements of fact caused harm. But I suspect that a vast judgment against Jones won’t have much value as a deterrent or proclamation of truth. Jones is loathsomely rich because people want to consume his art. His landscapes of hate and fear and mistrust resonate with a frightening number of Americans... The plodding technicalities of law are probably inadequate to change their minds...