Only one man can invoke the type of rage and wrath from the mainstream more than Donald Trump, and he runs an alternative right-wing news site where there’s always a war for your mind. His name is Alex Jones, and he runs the infamous website, InfoWars.
Seeing as how Jones had been a big proponent to spreading Donald Trump’s message during the campaign, newly minted NBC host Megyn Kelly felt the need to do a sit-down interview with him. And liberals are f–ing pissed.
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The root cause of their outrage stems from Jones’ conspiracy theory about the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. He believes the tragedy was a false flag operation run by the government in which parents faked the deaths of their young children. Jones’ claim is obviously false and has been debunked by both federal and state-level law enforcement.
Despite the fact that his claims are debunked, he continues to believe his version is correct. For those outraged about the interview, Kelly is essentially offering a platform to America’s most infamous conspiracy theorist. And NBC is airing it on a day when parents of the Sandy Hook victims are particular vulnerable, Father’s Day.
While I’m not a father yet, I understand the emotional toll this might take on a parent who’s had to deal with the anguish of losing a child. However, NBC isn’t forcing anyone to watch the Jones interview.
Many critics are also forgetting one major detail, Kelly is a tough journalist. She’s not going to lie down and allow Jones to air his theories without being challenged. Just the previous week before she interviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin about hacking the 2016 election. While Putin continued to deny involvement, Kelly kept pressing him. She even brought up his brutal authoritarian response to political dissidents and journalists. He denied those allegations as well and yet hardly anyone was upset with Kelly over that.
If we’re being honest here, you need journalists like Kelly to interview people like Alex Jones. How else are you able to weed out the bad ideas from the good ones? Sure, some people might be convinced of Jones’ theories, but they were probably more susceptible to those ideas anyway.
We’re at a critical point when it comes to political discourse and fake news. It’s much better to delegitimize ideas through debate than to shut it down altogether. Hopefully, Kelly delivers on that at the very least.
Watch the teaser to the interview below:
