Alex Jones named his website Infowars. Their slogan is, “there’s a war on for your mind!” His central, long-running thesis? That he and his conspiracy-believing followers are at war, or on the verge of war, with the “deep state,” liberals and the mainstream media.
All that is probably why Jones tweeted the following on July 1:
“BREAKING: Democrats Plan To Launch Civil War On July 4th.”
And yet, because this is 2018, the tweet and accompanying video became a point of conversation, going viral on Twitter among those who believed this statement was an escalation for Jones. It even inspired a satirical hashtag that trended much of Tuesday on Twitter.
But claiming that America is on the verge of civil war is kind of Jones’ thing. Below is a short, incomplete history of Infowars talking about the coming civil war — just from this past year.
May 2018: “Civil war is inevitable.”
This video actually features Jones protege Owen Shroyer, who hosts the War Room on Infowars.
“Unless the left comes to grips with . . . their own mental issues,” Shroyer says at one point, “civil war is inevitable.”
“I’m not going to sacrifice my country to avoid civil war. I’m not going to sacrifice my future,” he says. The thing that prompted Shroyer’s comments was a tweet from a representative about small business week:
“It’s #SmallBusinessWeek.55% of small biz owners don’t think new tax law puts them on level field w/ big biz6 in 10 say it won’t lead to raises for workers7 in 10 say it won’t lead to hiring new workersU.S. workers & families deserve better than this #GOPTaxScam,” wrote Rep. Eric Swalwell wrote on May 1.
February 2018: “Breaking! Top Democrats call for Civil War”
This video, as many of Jones’ videos are, takes a meandering route through several topics that the conspiracy theorist is angry or worried about, such as: free speech at universities, China, the globalists, and Infowars articles reportedly being banned from the White House (“because we make good points!”).
“There is a major revolution going on right now ladies and gentlemen,” Jones said, “and you gotta decide which side you are on.”
December 2017: “Alex Jones and Roger Stone train for the next Civil War”
The title is pretty self-explanatory on this one: The video opens with several seconds of footage of Jones and Stone firing automatic weapons at a gun range, to dramatic music. Jones says, “I think this video is going to trigger libtards.” And then they fire more guns.
That’s pretty much the video, not counting the occasional ads for Infowars’ supplements.
October 2017: Ted Nugent Joins Alex Jones: The Left Is Trying To Start A Civil War
“We got a call about 15 minutes ago from Ted Nugent saying he wanted to pop in,” the video begins.
“Undoubtedly, Ted, we are seeing a full-on war on the Second Amendment,” Jones tells Nugent when he calls in to the show. Nugent replies, “I agree.”
A lot of the interview is about conspiracy theories swirling around the Las Vegas shooting.
“We must always be suspicious. We must always question the information we are given. And that’s why I salute you,” he tells Jones.
September 2017: “Breaking: Left openly planning civil war”
”‘Antifa plans civil war to overthrow the government.’ That’s on Drudge Report dot com today, right in the middle column,” Jones says. He’s reading a headline from an Infowars writer.
Over the past year, when Jones has talked about civil war, he’s talked a lot about Antifa, the blanket name for anti-fascist activists that has been adapted in right-wing media as proof that the left is violent. In this video, Jones calls them “crazed, self-hating white people who are trying to start a race war in America.”
June 2017: “Get ready for CIVIL WAR!”
Jones posted a montage video with this title showing several clips he believes will prove a civil war is coming.
June 2017, again: “MSM Directs Democrats To Carry Out Terror Attacks”
Jones blamed the shooting at a Republican baseball practice on the media. In one of his many video responses rallying his viewers to treat liberals and the media as a terrorist organization in its wake, Jones said that Trump needed to tweet the following:
“This is Democrat-inspired terrorism, directly caused by their organized concerted effort to start a bloody civil war, which they’re going to kick off.”
In yet another video reacting to the shooting that same month, Jones says that the “first shots of the second American Civil War have already been fired.”
