Last week I posted on my Twitter and Facebook feeds that I didn’t know how anyone could listen to Alex Jones, the nutty, gun-obsessed conspiracy theorist and radio host.  One of my conservative friends (yes I do have those) replied that he feels the same way about Hillary Clinton.  He may have been writing about the same thing I was, but I’m not sure.  

As terrible and ridiculous and frightening as I think Alex Jones is, that’s not what I was referring to.  I don’t know how anyone can or would choose to physically listen to his voice.  I’ve never heard his speak when he hasn’t worked himself into a red-faced rage over something or other.  The first time I was treated to his less than dulcet tones was when he debated Piers Morgan on guns.  As his voice rose and his head turned color, he bellowed, “I’m here to tell you — 1776 will commence again if you try to take our firearms!”  Now this is the kind of guy you want to have a stockpile of assault weapons in his basement.

But let’s put the content aside.  I couldn’t imagine listening to this guy no matter what he was getting wound up about.  I’ve got the same problem with Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham, but Jones is by far the worst.

I’m not a screamer.  I’m not a shouter.  And I don’t like people who always are.   The first way to lose me is to start hollering and shaking like you’re going to punch me or shoot me.  Call me crazy – though not as crazy as Alex Jones, but I don’t call that any kind of discussion.  I call that a pre-assault.

What I don’t get is how this guy has a radio show, a YouTube channel and a podcast.  Dear God, he’s even got an app.  You can tune in to his loud, thundering lunacy at any time of the day or night.  But who are the people who listen to him?  I understand that some Americans love to have their views reinforced on a constant basis with no alternate views expressed.  I know that there are some who are so frightened of the government that they’ll believe any conspiracy theory they hear.  But, as I say, I wouldn’t care if I agreed with Alex Jones on every point he makes, I could not possibly listen to his voice for that long without going around the bend myself.  Can there really be that many Americans who are so angry that he sounds normal to them?  Anyone who reads this blog or my many Tweets knows I get pretty het up about things.  Still I don’t get scary and neither do the commentators I listen to.

Then again, this deep, visceral anger are the hallmark of talk radio.  People like Alex Jones seem to represent the ids of a lot of Americans.  If that’s the case, his crazed bloviating may be a relatively harmless way to vent that anger.  I might have to support that because – you know – the First Amendment.  Of course there’s always the fact that Alex and his listeners are the ones with the guns, the ones who wake up every morning fearing the jack-booted whatevers are coming to take away their arsenals.  If they want to listen and can listen without putting stakes through their own eardrums, let them go for it.

I’ll never really understand them, though.