Thread by @RichardBSpencer

#AlexJones dug his own grave. He can’t whine about the 1A when he actively ignored and defaulted in the trial where that was very much at stake.

A plausible, if not necessarily winning, defense could have been attempted based on the *Snyder v. Phelps* decision, in which SCOTUS upheld the Westboro Baptist Church’s right to demean the memory of fallen soldiers at their own funerals (!)—provided it was political speech.

Jones could have plausibly said that he was not engaged in harassment of individuals; he engaged in political speech against “the globalists” or some such; he got the facts wrong but not maliciously so. (I don’t say this as an admirer of Jones; I say it to be fair.)

Again, Jones wasn’t able to offer such a plausible, and maybe compelling, argument, because he refused to cooperate with that trial where the 1A would have been at issue. Instead he now whines about his constitutional rights at a trial merely over compensation.

So why did Jones ignore the trial proper, where serious constitutional issues would have been discussed? Was he merely lazy or overwhelmed? Perhaps, but I don’t think so. I think he relished the chance to be on stage before the world.

According to The Economist, “He [Jones] was found liable by default in all of them [counts] as he did not hand over documents, including financial statements, as ordered by the court.”

He refused to hand over his financials during Discovery—but they came out, in some form, anyway. He might have been concerned about the money…but I imagine his main concern was the identity of “investors” (that is, the *patrons* sponsoring his operation).

There’s a frequent refrain that Alex Jones is a “turd in the punch bowl”; that is, he takes on important, controversial issues, say, CIA “black ops,” and turns them into whacky conspiracy theories that no serious person would take seriously. Fair enough!

In this view, Jones is operating, unwittingly our many wittingly, on behalf of the Deep State. He destroys serious criticism of the military industrial complex, financial sector, etc. by enveloping criticism of these institutions in utter nonsense.

From this perspective, if Alex Jones didn’t exist, the Deep State would be forced to invent him.

On the other hand, Jones also functions on behalf of conservatives and the GOP, offering up a kind of “circus” version of their own ideology and talking points—one that is clearly attractive to GOP voters.

J6 was a moment when Jones and the GOP establishment were working, not only in parallel, but, in fact, cooperatively.

I thus suspect that the real financials of InfoWars are fascinating—not simply for the amount of morons willing to buy diet pills from Alex Jones but for the MAINSTREAM Republican donors backing the operation.

If this were true, then Jones demonstrated loyalty to them (“fell on his sword”) by defaulting in the case proper. He protected them, and they’re hanging him out to dry.

Yes, I know that what I’m saying is a bit of a conspiracy theory. So sue me!