Conspiracist Alex Jones: “Rand Paul is awesome”
The radio host and 9/11 truther says that the mainstream media is out to get Paul, but "out of bullets"
By Mark BenjaminTopics: Rand Paul, War Room, 2010 Elections, Politics News
Alex Jones, the radio host who is closely identified with the “patriot” movement, is thrilled with Rand Paul’s Republican primary victory in Kentucky.
“Rand Paul is awesome,” Jones told me in a telephone interview from Austin on Wednesday. “He is a constitutionalist. He is against the Patriot Act and the Iraq war and what is happening in Afghanistan.”
In Tuesday’s primary, Paul crushed his GOP foe, Trey Grayson, even though Grayson had been favored by the party’s establishment.
“If you are an establishment Republican or Democrat, you are gone come November,” Jones said. “The good news is that people are coming in from both parties who have much better track records and don’t have these establishment pedigrees.”
He also warned the media against smearing Paul: “The mainstream media doesn’t understand, they are out of bullets. When the mainstream media wants to hurt Rand Paul, they should come out and endorse him. When the establishment attacks someone, it only empowers them.”
Paul has appeared on Jones’ show and the host has promoted his candidacy. Jones, a fiery orator who pledges unyielding fidelity to the Constitution, is riding a wave of neo-militant populism sparked by perceived big-government excesses. Even among his ideological kin, however, Jones nurtures a perhaps overly active predilection for conspiracies — particularly on the subject of 9/11.
On a recent segment of his radio show, Jones declared: “This nation is being criminally and unconstitutionally absorbed by private central banks that are looting every major country on the planet. They will destroy borders, destroy constitutions that protect private property and the right to self defense. This is the stated goal.”
Jones believes the U.S. government is involved in a decades-long conspiracy to imprison political dissidents in concentration camps that will be run by FEMA.
He told me that he’s never talked about FEMA camps with Paul. “I know they are concerned about the police state, I know that they are concerned about so many of our liberties being lost,” he said of Paul’s campaign. “They know that if you have a big, powerful government, it always turns towards oppression.”
Mark Benjamin is a national correspondent for Salon based in Washington, D.C. Read his other articles here. More Mark Benjamin.
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