On the eve of the Iowa caucuses, the right-wing Real America’s Voice network sponsored an online Twitter space town hall hosted by Human Events Daily podcaster and pizzagate promoter Jack Posobiec and featuring conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, former Trump official Michael Flynn, and political dirty trickster Roger Stone. The more than two-hour conversation on Elon Musk’s X platform was a window into the fearmongering and conspiracy theories being used to rile up Trump’s base for this year’s presidential election.
The MAGA celebrities had good and bad news for their fans, telling them:
- Trump is heading for a landslide in the GOP primaries and victory in the presidential election;
- Trump’s enemies are in a “total panic” and will stop at nothing to deprive him of his rightful power, including a “racial uprising” and “subversion.”
- The MAGA movement must drive conservative turnout to record highs to overcome efforts to rig the election against Trump.
Jones and others worked themselves into a lather over recent news coverage about legal experts, democracy advocates, and members of Congress thinking about ways to protect against the prospect of a vengeance-seeking, authoritarian President Trump giving orders to misuse the military against his political opponents.
Jones claimed that Trump opponents are scheming to generate a “communist uprising” and “racial uprising” against Trump while stripping him of the power to quell the violence. “Subversion against the country is treason,” Jones said. “It is a coup.” He suggested that Trump’s enemies are “scared to kill Trump” so they are “war-gaming their plan B.”
Flynn went even further, calling the preparations to resist potential authoritarian orders by Trump “a form of subversion,” but adding that there might not even be an election. He suggested that Democrats are plotting “other scenarios” and “other plays” that would leave the country with something other than a duly elected president.
Flynn also insisted that “there’s no way in the world they’re going to allow a Joe Biden to go to a convention this summer” and said there are behind-the-scenes plans to get Biden “out of the way.”
“Do not underestimate this enemy,” Flynn said. “And I call them that very precisely because they are adversaries of our way of life, they are adversaries of our constitutional duties and responsibilities. And these are, many people are anti-American. They're part of the Democratic Socialist Party of America, or worse, the Communist Party of America, and they are inside of our government. They're inside of our institutions.”
Who exactly is the enemy? Among the people and institutions cited by Jones, Flynn, Stone, and Posobiec were Barack and Michelle Obama, the Clintons, former Attorney General Eric Holder, philanthropist George Soros, “globalists” in general and the World Economic Forum in particular, and “communists” in government and other institutions.
Among the plots they attributed to these enemies are a coming purge of military leadership, a potential assassination attempt, the release of a new virus before the election, and “domestic terror” in the form of a “racial uprising.” Flynn claimed that the left in America is “replaying” the “Bolshevik revolution of the 1920s.”
Jones said that Trump needs to be telling Americans that “they’re up against a deep state coup.” Flynn, who had supported calls for Trump to declare martial law in December 2020, insisted that “we’re in the middle of a coup,” adding, “The coup has been ongoing, folks.”
Jones, Flynn, and Stone posturing as defenders of democracy comes across as high-level gaslighting given that they were all deeply involved in “Stop the Steal” efforts to keep Trump in power illegally after voters rejected his bid for reelection.
“We really have a country to save and the only guy that’s capable of doing that right now in sort of the near term is Donald J. Trump,” said Flynn, who travels the country with the Christian nationalist ReAwaken America tour, which uses MAGA celebrities to draw in audiences who are then exposed to far-right ideology and conspiracy theories.
The panelists were careful to say that, while Trump’s momentum has his opponents in a panic, MAGA activists would still have to work hard to ensure his victory. Jones promised to knock on doors to help achieve the 75 to 80 percent conservative voter turnout he said would be needed to overpower attempts to rob Trump of the election.
The group also speculated about potential running mates for Trump. Roger Stone said he’d like to see former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard on the ticket, but Flynn said that he knows Gabbard and is “not a fan.” Flynn said Trump should “absolutely not” consider Nikki Haley, saying she would undermine him “from day one.” Sen. Rand Paul’s name was floated for vice president or Secretary of State. Stone said Flynn should serve as Secretary of Defense.
