​The second-second civil war starts today, July 4

FARGO– Three days before America’s 242nd birthday, a Second Civil War was forecasted, although technically, the prediction would have been the nation’s second-second civil war, as the first time the conspiracy was weaponized, the war never started.

Neither did the war between right and left, or fascists and ANTIFA, or Republican and Democrat start today, July 4, either, assuredly much to InfoWars talk show host Alex Jones disappointment, the man who started the conspiracy.

“BREAKING: Democrats Plan To Launch Civil War On July 4th,” Alex Jones tweeted on July 1. Jones included a video with the tweet claiming elite publications were calling for a “civil emergency” using civil unrest and racial strife to force President Trump from office.

Following Jones’s tweet about a Second Civil War to be waged by liberal Democrats against President Donald Trump and the Republican right, Twitter took action. The imaginations of thousands were ignited, tweeting back with references to #civilwarlettersletters.

“Meanwhile, in Republican Bizarro World: commie liberal Democrats are forced to abort plans to launch a second Civil War thanks to the tireless investigative journalism of #AlexJones,” a Twitter user named IAmNotACrook wrote.

“Dear Maw and Paw,” a Twitter user named Tracy Dwyer wrote. “Been captured by the blue wave. They actually fed me, clothed me, got me medical attention, and are teaching me to read. Total monsters…”

“Dearest,” a Twitter user named Tony Pasnanski wrote. “I am okay. I was captured by a curly hair blonde girl with an AR-15. But she was just taking selfies with the gun so I was able to escape.”

“My dearest betrothed,” a Twitter user calling himself Tea Pain wrote. “It is the eve of battle here in Bowling Green. The enemy is so close we can smell their Old Spice and citronella tiki torches. We have awaited an anticipated attack for days but have only encountered misspelled tweets and dank memes.”

“Dear Pa," Tom Champman wrote. “General Obama came to inspect the troops. The general inquired as to my name and I said ‘Private Tom Chapman from the great state of Virginia ma’am.' Then she shook my hand and told me to call her Michelle. This is why we fight, Pa.”

The tweets continued, and using the words of another Twitter user, “If you haven’t wasted your time reading #secondcivilwarletters, then you’re wasting your time.”

The tweets, although witty and humorous, aren’t harmless. On November 4, 2017, right-wing media outlets such as InfoWars, Silence is Consent,Guns & Gadgets, predicted the first Second Civil War after information from a man named Bob Avakian, of Refuse Fascism, was misused by a person named Jordan Peltz in a video entitled “ANTIFA Has To Go!”

“According to sources, Antifa is planning on all out civil war on November 4^th,” Jon Anthony of Silence is Consent wrote. “Antifa is planning to purge every single Trump voter, Republican, and conservative American in this country… raiding houses, seizing weapons, and causing absolute chaos.”

Alex Jones is the mastermind behind the second prediction of a second-second American Civil War, but he supported the first forecast as well.

“Democrats are being routed by patriots…” Jones said in 2017. “So what’s going to happen? They’re going to go the violence card, they’re going to go to the false flag card. This is it. Get ready.”

Lloyd Parker, of Guns & Gadgets podcast, reflected the sentiment in 2017 saying, “Be safe, stay vigilant and carry your weapon.”

Historically, doomsday conspiracy theorists such as the “Y2K bug” in computers 18 years ago, were at least based in some truth. Today, however, many are falling prey to the farfetched theories, including a writer for Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group, named Earick Ward.

“As America’s Civil War is being re-litigated, do not the conditions for our next great struggle appear at hand? Father against son? Brother against brother? Right against left?

“The tension is palpable. The rhetoric, from both sides, is ratcheting up to a fever pitch. Short of some type of intervention, the tension, the rhetoric could turn to bloodshed.”

Conspiracy theories and fake news tactics have misled nations into wars, stretching long before the Japanese used misinformation campaigns against the Chinese before World War II, or in the former Yugoslavia when fake news was used to stir up hatred between Christian and Muslim toward the end of the 20th century, or most recently the 2014 Russian propaganda machine in Ukraine.

“Ukraine is where Russia tested and then rolled out fake news tactics – that is, pumping out propaganda and simultaneously working to undermine people’s faith in a free press,” Gregory Warner wrote for NPR in August 2017.

Alex Jones seems to have obtained many of his theories from David Icke, an Englishman, and former BBC television sports presenter and Green Party spokesperson. Icke turned to disseminating conspiracy theories after he reportedly began receiving messages from the spirit world telling him that he was a “son of a Godhead.” Icke, a Holocaust denier, believes that shape-shifting reptilian humanoids called Archons are secretly running the earth.

Icke also spread his misleading theories about the London Bombings of 2005, saying the government was behind the attacks to incite hate and war against Muslim countries. Similar theories are being spread by bloggers and conspiracy theorists about 9/11 as well.

Both Icke and Jones use pages straight from the Russian playbook to go after liberals on gun control issues, calling school shooting survivors “crisis actors,” or that the world is controlled by reptiles.

Another recent example of fake news turning violent includes Pizzagate, where Jones and other right-wing media outlets pushed the idea that a Washington, D.C. pizzeria, Comet Ping Pong and its owner James Alefantis were involved in a child sex abuse ring including Hillary Clinton and other high-ranking politicians. Jones later apologized for his promotion of the fake news, but not before a 28-year-old man, Edgar Maddison Welch, shot an AR-15 rifle inside the restaurant during a personal investigation.

In the NPR story pertaining to Russian meddling in Eastern Ukraine, one of the interviewees encapsulated the hard lessons fake news and conspiracy theories can lead to:

“The very first lesson,” a person named Ruslan Deynychenko said, “do not ignore this problem because it allowed Russian media to influence local people to kill each other.”