@echoreply’s response is about what I would say. Plenty of evidence of misconduct and turning a blind eye, less evidence for a widespread conspiracy, and I think the truth lies somewhere in between.
Yeah. There are plenty of faults you can accuse the left of, but “having significant figures and large groups that spread totally bananas theories” isn’t really our best fault at this moment.
I mentioned something similar up thread. I they are partially correct. Or at least he used to be that way. I don’t think Alex Jones is crazy. I think he is completely amoral. The niche he found was to call everything a conspiracy. I doubt he believes it but it makes him money. When I first became aware of him his theories were all over the place. Neo-cons were behind some things. The Clintons were behind others. Big business was guilty too. It didn’t follow one particular ideology and was against anyone that could be tied to a theory. It’s been relatively recently when he realized who his audience that he made his targets all be on the left. Now he’s certainly on the Trumper side because that’s where his bread is buttered.
The idea that peanut butter is adulterated with grasshoppers, or that McBurgers are part worms ignores the fact that peanuts are cheaper than grasshoppers, and ground beef is cheaper than worms. There’s no profit in the substitution. Similarly, starting fires with space lasers would be history’s most expensive way to start fires.
(tangent)
I recall seeing a couple of clips of Alex meeting some of his full-on whackadoodle fans in close settings (e.g. a bar). In that situation all his chest-beating schtick is nowhere to be seen, and his goal is just to make a hasty exit.
So I would agree that he’s largely playing a character, but I also doubt he has hidden political beliefs. He’s largely like Trump; he doesn’t have the intellect or interest in politics, he just wants to get rich(er) and doesn’t think of the consequences.
I’m sorry no one has said it yet…
Aren’t they all 
Really, if you iron out the wrinkles, you’lll find that CT is just a niche that has to be filled,and somebody needs to fill it.
Now I am left winger, and this is my own theory, but I don’t know how weird it is. Not Jewish space lasers weird, at any rate.
I was channel surfing this weekend, and there was a marathon of shows about bigfoot. Supposedly “scientific” shows. I thought “what a waste of time. Who lets this crap on TV?”
And then I thoght - maybe that’s the idea. The lack of critical thinking that causes people to believe bigfoot is real can just as easily make them receptive to the idea that lizard people secretly control the government, or that pizza parlors have secret pedophilia rooms in the basement, or that Donald trump is the best president evah.
And that the real plan is the dumbing down of America. “They” believe that people were more easily controllable when they believe in something they can’t prove, or when they don’t believe in science but rather in faith, so they give them something to break them down, make them receptive.
I have heard that the FDA has a standard related to insect parts in peanut butter, because it is very difficult, on an industrial scale, to make wholly insect-free peanut butter, and, quite frankly, it would not taste quite right without ground up insects in it. But the standard is rather a low percentage. It is not about stretching the product but about not having to add elaborate filtering systems that would raise the cost of production.
I think you have it backwards. IMHO the general public is so dumb that TV stations cater to them and produce such drivel to guarantee good ratings.
The constant exposure to fantasy rubbish such as Bigfoot, Nessie, Civil war gold and Curse of Oak Island is aimed squarely at the CT susceptible.
Or maybe it is a case of softening up people for greater credulity.
Things I’ve seen lately on UK cable tv are
Unsolved Mysteries - except that they never are mysteries at all
Dissappeared - well yes there are such things as missing people but these are usually presented as CT abductions.
Nazi Gold Train - supposedly there is a train full of stolen gold stuck in a deliberately collapsed tunnel somewhere in Europe but no-one ever knows where it is - but it could be in any number of places. except it never is.
Pirate treasures on some island
X-Files, its a multi year franchise about CTs but it helps create the idea of an ‘alternate’ history to the extent that various imagined agencies are probably believed to be real by the credulous.
The problem is that some things are just adventures and never sell themselves as reality but others attempt to blur the lines for the sake of entertainment - there is a whole spectrum of them with varying claims of authenticity.
A few do show what you’d call genuine mysteries, such as searching for Atlantis in recognisably archeoloogial ways, using real science - but in some other ‘mystery’ type shows there are a mixture of real historic interest unkowns - such as Stonehenge, and the dissappearnace of the Minoans but they also mix it in the same episodes with stuff that is really just CT horse shit. This blurs the lines so much that its easy to see why CT’ers end up getting dragged down the waste water drain hole.
The first part is totally true. I looked it up after posting that, and there’s an “actionable” level of 30 insect fragments per xx grams (100?) of peanut butter. I don’t remotely think it’s gonna affect the flavor, it’s not like insects are made of cinnamon, but it’s just an acknowledgement that a perfectly purified food-stream is neither economical nor necessary.
It would be the simpler solution. Greed over evil.
Or maybe…that’s what they WANT you to think. 
Obvoiusly someone believes this crap. I guess my “CT” is really the chicken or the egg. Are there stupid shows because people are stupid, or are people stupid because there are stupid shows? I wish someone would do a study, but like a lot of psychological studies, it would rely on the “stupid people” subjects giving truthful answers. And that ain’t gonna happen.
You’re joking, right?
The ‘Atlantis’ ones I have seen vary in type - some are execrable, but a couple are much more genuine, they tend to use Atlantis as a hook more than anything, but really looking for lost coastal towns in known areas of ground liquifaction with evidence of earthquakes that have been recorded in various accounts.
Awhile ago I read about the debate over whether Good n’ Plenty were kosher, based on their insect ingredient. IIRC, some rabbis say no: insects ain’t kosher. Others say yes: the dye made from insects passes through a state where it’s not a food, and therefore using the dye didn’t violate kosher rules.
Can’t find the debate now, but it was definitely interesting to read.
There is a symbiosis between programming and advertisers. The programming has to attract/interest the advertisers’ target audience, the type of people who are likely to buy the stuff. History used to have some fairly decent, interesting, informative content, up until about fifteen years ago. Then they started in on the cryptozoology and alien mysteries and all the general goofiness. There may be an occasional story about Napoleon or Gettysburg, but the audience for that is not as profitable. Last I looked, there were three, maybe four channels run by History, and all of them were targeting low-brows.
IIRC, trump actually considered this, and asked about it.
In some ways the military has already gotten dragged into the issue. Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, President Trump’s first national security advisor and a recently pardoned felon, publicly broached the subject of martial law on the conservative channel Newsmax last week, saying that the president should use the military to seize voting boxes and “rerun” the election in certain states.
“He could take military capabilities and he could … basically rerun an election,” Flynn said. "The president has to plan for every eventuality because we cannot allow this election and the integrity of our election to go the way it is.‘’ Flynn’s suggestion has been openly condemned by numerous retired officers. Lt. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, said on MSNBC that Flynn was a “disgrace to his uniform.”
So, since this was actually considered, I cant call it a “weird conspiracy theory”.
wiki:
A number of writers have alleged that the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in the Nicaraguan Contras’ cocaine trafficking operations during the 1980s Nicaraguan civil war. These claims have led to investigations by the United States government, including hearings and reports by the United States House of Representatives, Senate, Department of Justice, and the CIA’s Office of the Inspector General which ultimately concluded the allegations were unsupported. The subject remains controversial.
So I wouldnt call this theory crazy or weird, but it is unsupported by solid facts.