Tom Zirpoli: Bored billionaires and their conspiracy theories | COMMENTARY

If there was a contest for the most despicable person in the news today, I think most people would agree that Alex Jones would be near the top of the list. For those unaware, Jones is a conspiracy theorist.

His most-infamous conspiracy is about the Dec. 14, 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where 20 first-grade children and six of their teachers were slaughtered in Newtown, Connecticut. Jones declared that the shooting was a staged, false flag event designed by gun control advocates.

Jones promoted this story on his Infowars network and on any right-wing media outlet that would allow him — and many did. In response, many of these followers harassed the families of the dead children for years.

For example, one of his followers sent family members pictures of dead children. Another said he urinated on the graves of their children. And the list of harassment these families endured goes on.

How one could stoop so low to harass the families of children massacred in their classroom is beyond my comprehension, but there is much about being a MAGA Republican I’ll never understand. Yes, Jones and his followers are MAGA Republicans and big Donald Trump supporters.

He urged his followers to participate in the Jan. 6 insurrection to overturn Joe Biden’s election as “the most important call to action on domestic soil since Paul Revere and his ride in 1776.”

Jones and his conspiracy Infowars network were sued by several of the Sandy Hook families for harassment and they won nearly $1.5 billion in judgments against him. Other cases are pending. During his trial, Jones admitted that the false story about the Sandy Hook shootings he promoted for years was, indeed, false. But, he said, he believed his statements were protected by free speech.

Barred from Twitter, now called X, in 2018 because of the abusive nature of his false posts related to the Sandy Hook killings, the 2020 election and other issues, X owner Elon Musk recently decided Jones was welcome to return to X and his account was restored.

Just last year, Musk said Jones would never have his account restored. “My firstborn child died in my arms. I felt his last heartbeat. I have no mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics, or fame,” Musk said.

That was last year. This year, Musk has joined the conspiracy club and has re-posted conspiracy theories on X himself, including an anti-Jewish one. It seems that Musk does, after all, have “mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children for gain, politics or fame.”

Musk is also losing advertising revenue on X. It seems companies paying millions of dollars for ads don’t want their company logos seen near Nazi propaganda. Imagine that. In response, Musk told the companies that have pulled their ads to go f**k themselves.

Perhaps Musk is just angry at the world. In addition to losing advertisers on X, Tesla Motors, also owned mostly by Musk, is having to recall nearly all of the Tesla cars sold in the U.S. — more than two million of them — according to Tom Krisher, writing for the Associated Press, to “update software and fix a defective system that’s supposed to ensure that drivers are paying attention when using Autopilot.”

According to The Washington Post, Tesla allowed owners to engage the Autopilot feature even when the car’s navigation system identified that, given the car’s location and other information, it was not safe. Vehicles using the Autopilot, according to the Post, have been involved in more than 700 crashes since 2014, with at least 19 of them fatal.

What is it about being a Republican billionaire that makes one’s brain turn into mush? Listening to Republican presidential candidate and billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy in a recent interview makes one wonder. Ramaswamy lives in a conspiracy world of his own. He gives Trump, king of the conspiracy world, and Musk significant competition.

Like Trump, Ramaswamy has spread misinformation about Covid-19. He questioned the role of the U.S. government in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

He called the Jan. 6, 2021, Republican insurrection at the Capitol in Washington an “inside job.” Ramaswamy also claimed “government agents” were behind the kidnapping plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Regarding the Republican insurrection, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, recently announced he would be releasing hours of video of rioters attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But he said they would “have to blur some of the faces of persons who participated in events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ and to have other, you know, concerns and problems.”

I wish these guys would get their conspiracy stories straight regarding the Jan. 6 events. Ramaswamy and others are saying the rioters were government agents, while Johnson admits they were MAGA Republicans who need to be protected from the Justice Department.

Sometimes, it is difficult to keep all of the conspiracy theories straight, especially when the MAGA Republicans are trying to outdo each other.

Tom Zirpoli is the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair in Special Education Emeritus at McDaniel College. He writes from Westminster. His column appears on Wednesdays. Email him at tzirpoli@mcdaniel.edu.