Alex Jones vs Piers Morgan
Radio host and conservative filmmaker Alex Jones was the perfect guest for Piers Morgan to invite in the wake of the much discussed petition to remove the CNN host from the U.S. Here's why I think Piers won this debate by a considerable margin.
First, before I say anything about the nature of the debate, people will obviously have pre-existing ideas about Piers Morgan. They may hate him because he's British. The may dislike his accent and his points of view. They may even think a British host on an American network is wrong. Or maybe, just maybe, the conception is Piers is attacking American ideas and values.
Whatever the case maybe, this debate, about gun violence, was an opportunity for Alex Jones to present the facts (not just FBI figures) related to gun use and help gun advocates push their agenda. Jones had national coverage through CNN to make a standpoint for gun owners, and face up to Piers Morgan, who has a reputation of allegedly 'putting people on TV to humiliate them'. Well, humiliation is usually self-inflicted, and in this case, it was clear that Alex Jones didn't understand how valuable this debate was.
Instead of allowing Morgan to ask questions, on the show that he hosts, Jones decided to attack his ideas, and attack anyone who was against taking guns away. His reasoning was based on deep emotions he had about freedoms and how they were at risk in society. Conspiracy was also a major part of his argument and that Bloomberg and the police were tyrannical forces. He also touched on the American Revolution of 1776, as if it was about to happen again.
Morgan was barely able to get any response out of Jones during the entire debate. Jones came across as irrational, emotionally unbalanced and blinded with anger, without being able to answer any questions directly. He accepted the interview but refused to take part in it. He was effectively talking to himself while Piers Morgan reiterated that he calm down. Piers tried to understand why Jones wanted him to be removed from the U.S, but there was so much anger, viewers got many messages with never-ending stories.
At no point during the interview did Jones create any positive logic to give gun advocates a good image, nor did he use his FBI statistics to meaningfully defend the use of guns on a national level. When Morgan repeated "11,000 deaths" in the U.S from gun crime, it was irrelevant to him. Jones didn't speak about it at all, but focused instead on 911 being an inside job. Yet 911 was a terrorist attack where planes crashed into buildings; it had nothing to do with guns. Moving to more recent events, the shootings in Newtown were horrific, yet he didn't have anything to say about the victims. At no point did he sympathize with people who had lost loved ones. It seemed as if the right of gun ownership was more important than the facts that had been presented before him.
Jones also played the victim, and spoke about Piers' Daily Mirror past, and felt that he was out to attack him:
"You're a hatchet man of the New World Order. You're a hatchet man! And I'm going to say this here: you think you're a tough guy? Have me back with a boxing ring and I'll wear red, white, and blue, and you'll wear your Jolly Roger."
This kind of delusional paranoia became more and more evident as his non-stop attack kept switching to different ideas. As Jones ran out of things to say, he started to mock Piers' accent. It didn't help him win over sympathy for being a "victim" of a conspiracy. Instead, he himself invented it, right there, as he talked to himself with Piers looking baffled.
At the end of the debate, he kept on going, and Piers ended it in mid-speech. It was painful to see such a prolific radio host humiliating himself on national TV. Piers didn't have to do any work to embarrass him. Jones only further isolated gun owners and damaged the pro-gun image further. It could have been a different story…and he could have been far more clever with his conservative views.
At the end of the interview, Jones delivered an Oscar winning meltdown, that few will ever forget.
