The Ugly, Dark Side Of Master Communicator Alex Jones

Speaking with TJ Walker, the show where we dissect how and what world class leaders communicate. Folks, there is an ugly side to strong communication from time to time. Today's topic is an ugly topic. I guess it's an ugly show. It's why I waited for the weekend to bring this up. I, of course, in general, encourage people to be better communicators, stronger communicators. I think that the more good communication in the world, it helps everybody, it helps societies, it helps democracy. The more people communicate, the less they go to war. But sometimes you have people who communicate in the name of promoting war. Conflict, hatred, bitterness, divisiveness. There is a guy who I've followed for a long time and is now getting outsized attention during the 2016 political season, the presidential season here in the United States. And he's a talk show host many of you, perhaps even most of you have not heard of before, but he is, in fact, wildly influential. His name is Alex Jones. He is known as one of America's foremost conspiracy theorists. He spews nonsense like the fact that he thinks 911 was an inside government job, that mass killings, when guns are involved, that they would. The actors were done and kids at schools were not really shot to death. I could go on and on and on about his nonsense. The problem is one of the political candidates for president, United States is now giving this guy a lot of positive reinforcement. He shows up on his show, his top lieutenants show up on the program. He essentially endorses him. And it's got a lot of people scared. Now you've got Alex Jones openly trafficking and anti Semitic conspiracy theories. And this is getting more and more attention in the New York Times, other prominent media outlets. Now, he has been spewing racial hatred, anti Semitic theories for a long time, but now he seems to only be escalating it. Here's something he said the other day that he wants to blame America's ills on, quote, the Jewish Mafia, quote, they run Uber, they run the health care. They're trying to scam you, they're trying to hurt you, are things he says on his program. They're part of a, quote, a global corporate combine in alliance with Japanese communist and other evil factions. He says, I guess I better do some exposes on the Jewish Mafia. And here's how he described Rahm Emanuel, the former chief of staff to President Obama, former Democratic congressman and now the mayor of Chicago. He says that Rahm Emanuel is, quote, a guy foaming at the mouth with knives at cabinet meetings, basically threatening The President, totally crazed, who's got his fingers in everything, screwing us over. But then Jones says, well, I'm not against Jews, but apparently he's against the so called Jewish mafia. Here's the thing folks, there certainly was a time, well, there's always been anti Semites and always nut cases spewing on ham radio, CB radios. What's different now is a guy like Alex Jones can put together a whole mini empire. Right before I started recording this program, I checked the stats on Alex Jones's little media empire just on YouTube. And what I saw scared me. He has nearly all 1 billion views just on YouTube. Keep in mind, that's only one of as many distribution channels and he's on itunes and he's on every kind of podcast place and lots of other video platforms. So I mean, this guy has billions and billions of views and listens. And at the moment he seems to have the ear of someone who has a 50, 50 chance of becoming the next President of the United States. And that's what has a lot of people scared. Now I'll occasionally have friends forward me emails with links to videos from Alex Jones. They're like, ha ha ha, look what he's done. And you know what? It's funny and it's cute until it's not. It's funny and it's cute until the blood does start flowing in our streets. Now, many of you listening from around the world, we have a pretty diverse listenership. Know what I'm talking about? Democracy is not a given. Political stability, calm, not a given in a lot of countries, you could even say most countries of the world. Here in the United States, we tend to just assume it's going to be the way it's been for the last 130 years. 150 years where there's been relative calm, relative stability. Not a lot of Civil War since 150 years ago. So we just assume that's the case. Well, maybe we shouldn't. We have not just Alex Jones and his. I don't know if he has millions of followers daily, but collectively he certainly has millions of people listening to his message. And he is a part of this alternative right movement that is now actively preaching the message that elections are rigged. Therefore it doesn't matter if their candidate doesn't win on election day, that if the outcome is not what they intend. Well, let's just essentially have civil war. One former member of Congress, Joe Walsh, and I'm not even going to get into his party label or what candidate he's supporting. But he has said this week that if his candidate doesn't win, he's going to pick up a musket. Now, I doubt he has a musket. I doubt he knows how to use a musket. But clearly he's sending a signal that he's not going to say, well, that's the election. We have to listen to the will of the people. He is certainly suggesting that there should be civil war if a Democratic vote doesn't go the way he wants. And this is being fomented in part by so many commentators on the Internet, talk radio, podcast, other places. Alex Jones is perhaps one of the most successful and influential, but there are others out there. All I could say is certainly get a wide range of viewpoints. Anyone can fall into the trap of confirmation bias. But. But watch what you are watching and listening to. If someone is spewing nonsense, hatred all the time, there's a fine line between looking at, occasionally mocking it, sending it to people, saying isn't this ridiculous? Ha ha ha. Versus watching it over and over and over, sending it on to people, and all of a sudden it's no longer ha ha ha. Before you know it, it can just become a part of your world view. So even though I'm quite bullish in general on the democratization of communication technology, the ability for there to be more and more viewpoints, more and more voices in our world, our public affairs, there is a downside. There is risk to society and to democracies. And Alex Jones and the logical consequences of his views is one of them. I'm TJ Walker. Don't mean to be a downer today. Sorry about that. Maybe a month from now, everyone's feeling a lot more comfortable and calm and relaxed when it comes to ideas being communicated by major political forces in America. But there's also a chance things are even worse. I hope not. Thanks for spending a little time with me on the weekend. See me again and listen to me again tomorrow. Also, feel free to send me your comments, your thoughts, your suggestions on topics, your questions. You can do it on Twitter JWalker or post on the blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, wherever you are listening to or watching this program. Thanks. See you tomorrow. Thanks for listening to speaking with T.J. walker.