The normalization of “fake news” sites by President Trump continues as Infowars is granted an exclusive look at tomorrow night’s speech by the president. The conspiracy site founded by Alex Jones interrupted its exposés of false flag operations to publish a bulleted list of talking points from President Trump’s upcoming address to Congress. The article notes that “It should be noted this was not a leak, but was given directly to Infowars.”
According to the article, “In Tuesday night’s speech, he [Trump] will lay out an optimistic vision for the country that crosses the traditional lines of party, race and socioeconomic status. It will invite Americans of all backgrounds to come together in the service of a stronger, brighter future for our nation.”
“The President will lay out the concrete steps he has already taken to make the American Dream possible for all of our people,” the unattributed article says. “He will talk about how he wants to work with Congress to pass a bold agenda” including “tax and regulatory reform, making the workplace better for working parents, saving American families from the disaster of Obamacare, making sure every child in America has access to a good education, a great rebuilding of the American military and fulfilling our commitments to our veterans and making sure they have access to the care they need.”
Infowars, whose slogan is “there’s a war for your mind,” is best known for its hard-hitting reporting on issues such as the implementation of martial law in Texas under the guise of the Jade Helm military exercise and the claim that members of the Hillary Clinton campaign were involved in a pedophile ring allegedly run out of a District of Columbia pizzeria. These and many other Infowars stories were completely false.
The preferential treatment of Infowars by the Trump Administration comes as the president is increasingly hostile to the mainstream media. Last week, the Trump Administration blocked a number of outlets that had been critical of Trump from attending a press briefing. Two days later, the president tweeted that he would not attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a function not missed by any president of either party since 1981 when President Reagan was forced to phone in remarks after he had been shot. At one point, Trump even said of the media, “They are the enemy of the people.”
Trump has also elevated Steve Bannon, the publisher of Breitbart News, to the National Security Council, and granted White House access to the Gateway Pundit, a partisan blog. Both Breitbart and Gateway Pundit are well known for their reporting of hoax stories.
Mr. Trump’s association with hoaxes and conspiracies goes back long before his successful presidential campaign. Trump promoted birther conspiracies about both Barack Obama and Ted Cruz. In 2014, Trump suggested that vaccines cause autism and, in 2016, suggested that the truth is not known about the September 11 attacks. Trump also suggested that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the Kennedy assassination.
For years, the conspiracy blogs have tainted the reputation of the conservative movement and even served to divide the Republican Party between those who disagree with the left on policy grounds and those who believe that the left is controlled a secret cabal of murdering elites who, by the way, also control the Republican leadership. Now it seems that these purveyors of radical conspiracy theories are more acceptable to the new administration than real news organizations who are critical of the president.
The move to normalize the conspiracy sites is a transparent attempt by President Trump to bypass the mainstream media and take his message directly to his base. As Trump’s war with the press continues, it is likely that favored treatment of sketchy sites will continue as well.
Such actions will limit the ability of Republicans to appeal to moderate and independent voters and have policy proposals treated seriously. President Trump’s normalization and affirmation of these alternative media outlets does not bode well for the mainstream conservatives of the Republican Party.
Originally published on The Resurgent
NOTE: After this article was published, we learned that the
information published by Infowars was not exclusive and had been sent to many
media outlets.
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