On How Infowars Became a Ridiculous Trump Fan Site

Interesting piece in the MSM (emphases added):

Depending on who you talk to, Kurt Nimmo, a former editor for Infowars, left the conspiracy-peddling website after being a demonstrably lazy staffer—or he was fired in a sudden and acrimonious manner by the site’s red-faced major-domo, Alex Jones. But the real story, whatever it is, is only slightly less muddy than the fever swamps through which its writers trudge each day to deliver stories about Lady Gaga’s satanic Super Bowl performance and the imminent assassination of President Donald Trump.

Nimmo told The Daily Beast this week that he joined Infowars in 2008 and “rebuilt the website.” He left the publication in July 2016, and has since been working for NewsBud, a site run by the conspiratorially minded whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. Nimmo also periodically writes for his own blog, entitled Another Day in the Empire.

Since his exit, Nimmo has noticed the general framework and voice of the site shift into becoming essentially a pro-Trump propaganda outfit—something that he perceives as an abandonment of Infowars’ initial focus on the “New World Order,” or as Jones would call it, the establishment. “I disagree with Alex Jones on Donald Trump,” Nimmo said in an email to The Daily Beast. “I believe Donald Trump is an enabler of crony capitalism, the same as his predecessor. I also believe he will not end the wars started by Bush and continued by Obama. I cannot support a man who will further war and murder. Alex Jones has more or less ignored this and considers Trump a patriot and a defender of the Constitution. This is clearly wrong.”

Jones’s turn as the anguished, chest-thumping id to the president’s ego has been well-documented in the 2016 election. Trump has even appeared on Infowars for an interview with Jones and praised the rage-filled radio host’s reputation as “amazing.” And even now, after he made it to the highest office in the land, Trump’s longtime friend and former adviser Roger Stone often hosts Infowars and credits it in part for helping Trump make it to the Oval Office.

Nimmo doesn’t see the Trump fandom as an asset in any sense—but rather a tacit endorsement of war crimes and he speculates that his disagreement with the Trump agenda could have contributed to his axing. “Support for Trump also means supporting waterboarding, killing the families of suspected terrorists, squandering trillions more on a bloated military, supporting Israel despite its crimes against humanity, omitting Saudi Arabia from the list of terrorist states, and further militarizing police in the U.S.,” Nimmo told The Daily Beast. “Alex Jones previously opposed most of these things, with the exception of Israel, which he has refused to criticize.”

(snip)

Nimmo also takes issue with the content produced by Paul Joseph Watson, the stubble-faced British video-blogger and writer for the site who goes by @PrisonPlanet on Twitter. During the 2016 election, Watson pushed stories about untrue allegations that Hillary Clinton had brain damage and he has become a favorite of the “alt-right” for his popular videos declaring that “Islam Is Not a Religion of Peace.” He was also recently duped into publishing a false story about the imminent release of a video showing Trump saying the “N” word.

“If we are to judge Paul Joseph Watson by his editorials and tweets, he is an Islamophobe little different than Geert Wilders or Pamela Geller,” Nimmo said, referring to the Dutch politician and the writer who both share anti-Islam sentiments. “He has embraced the alt-right philosophy on Islam. I disagree with this. The United States government and the military-industrial complex are far more threatening to our liberty than a gaggle of crazy Islamists, many supported by the CIA and Saudi Arabia.”

While they’ve rarely worked in the same physical space, ironically enough Nimmo credits Watson for being the person who got him his job at Infowars. “He did more or less get me the job in 2008, he recommended me to Alex Jones after reading my blog,” Nimmo told The Daily Beast. “Not sure what this has to do with anything. He wasn’t claiming back then Islam would destroy the world. In fact, he wrote radical jihadis were created by the CIA and British intelligence. Guess he doesn’t talk about that much anymore.”

In the past few months, Nimmo has vocalized his disdain for the current version of Infowars, calling Jones a “snake oil salesman” and referring to the outlet as “infotrump” on Twitter. After The Daily Beast made Watson aware of these criticisms from the former employee, he lashed out at Nimmo in an email. “So the criticisms are we sell products to fund ourselves (the horror),” Watson wrote in an email to The Daily Beast, referring to the “Super Male Vitality” product among others on the site’s store. 

(snip)

Nimmo claimed that the animus was coming from the fact that “they’re scared shitless” of the Food and Drug Administration examining the supplements sold on the site. And there’s another thing, according to Nimmo. He wasn’t axed because he did a bad job.

(snip)

(A letter) confirmed that Nimmo was terminated after he moved. Jones has not responded to requests for comment via email or text message. “I don’t know if revealing this is part of the confidentially agreement, but I cannot consent to Watson lying about it,” Nimmo continued. “I was told by other former employees he was also angry about my repeated requests for health-care insurance. My wife and I are in our mid-60s and I find it unconscionable for a multimillion-dollar operation not to provide health insurance for employees. I merely do not wish for the article to say I was let go due to poor work performance.”

Nimmo certainly seems WAY more reasonable here than the others who are still there. I guess he was too much of a lefty or hippie for the uber-right-wing crank Jones.