For as long as anyone can remember, Alex Jones has been ranting and raving about the rise of an authoritarian government in the U.S. For a very long time, Jones has also been a vocal supporter of Donald Trump. Now, as the Trump administration increasingly comes to resemble the authoritarian regime that Jones has long warned Americans about, the podcaster seems increasingly nonplussed by that turn of events.
During a recent episode of The Alex Jones Show, the conspiratorial podcaster discussed the recent actions taken by the White House with a vexed tone and a furrowed brow. Jones’ guest, self-identified white supremacist incel Nick Fuentes, also seemed quite disturbed by recent actions taken by the Trump administration. As Fuentes railed about the government’s police-state style tactics against protesters of Israel, Jones demurred that the real threat seemed to be Trump’s proposal to deport American citizens to Salvadoran prisons. Still, neither podcaster seemed able to decide what the bigger threat was:
FUENTES: You have…1,500 people with a legal right to be here, they’re being expedited — their removal is being expedited for no reason other than they criticize the fact that, you know, we’re supporting this foreign war [Fuentes seems to be referencing the Gaza conflict].
JONES: Here’s where I’m at, though. In general, I see the whole, a lot of the populist conservative space spending half their time on this, and I just, I mean, I think it’s way more dangerous Trump saying we’re looking to deporting citizens to El Salvador. Now, that’s unconstitutional, and that is really bad.
FUENTES: I agree with that. Then again though, I don’t think that’s a real policy. That hasn’t happened. What is really happening —
JONES: Now they’re talking about using the Enemy Combatant Act to do it for regular crime. It’s —
FUENTES: I don’t, I think that’s one of those throwaway comments.
JONES: So you think it’s him trolling?
FUENTES: I think they’re flooding the zone with poo like Bannon said.
The fact that Fuentes and Jones, who both celebrated Trump’s political victory in November, are now expressing buyer’s remorse should tell you just how radical the current administration is. In recent weeks, Trump has given plenty of people on both sides of the political aisle cause for serious concern about the state of American democracy. Last week, ICE agents arrested a Wisconsin judge, accusing her of obstructing an investigation into an illegal immigrant. While this would have been news enough on its own, many onlookers saw it as simply the latest escalation in an ongoing fight between America’s judiciary and the White House. The courts have (so far) served as a check against the executive branch’s ever-ballooning view of its own powers, and Trump’s supporters have increasingly called for judges to be impeached and arrested.
Meanwhile, the administration’s use of federal police power has continued to rattle Americans, as agencies like ICE aggressively crack down on an ever-broadening milieu of people. Case in point: This week, federal agents smashed into a home in Oklahoma, in an apparent effort to find certain “suspects.” The agents had the wrong house, but still managed to terrorize the woman and children living there, and also seized the family’s “phones, laptops and their life savings in cash as ‘evidence,’” local news reported. The family says it doesn’t know when it will get its stuff back.
The Trump administration also recently passed an executive order that will further wed federal police powers and state and local law enforcement. The order seeks to mobilize law firms (which the administration has also tangled with) to defend cops pro bono who are accused of misconduct. It also aims to “maximize the use of Federal resources” and channel it towards optimizing police departments while amping up “investment in the security and capacity of prisons.”
Jones will surely not be the last MAGA adherent to question their allegiances to the rightwing billionaire in the months (and years) to come. He may be the most colorful, however. The podcaster also recently commented that Trump likes to “guzzle” poop (in an apparent reference to Trump’s love of Diet Coke, which Jones said was laced with “GMO E. coli feces.”
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