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Alex Jones-backed conspiracy theorist vying for Idaho congressional seat

With endorsements from Rand Paul and Roger Stone, Michael Snyder is looking for voters' support in Tuesday's primary.

Michael Snyder is an InfoWars favorite—and now might be heading to Congress. CREDIT: YOUTUBE
Michael Snyder is an InfoWars favorite—and now might be heading to Congress. CREDIT: YOUTUBE

Michael Snyder thinks the world is ending. But first, he wants your vote.

Or, at least, he wants the support of Idaho voters heading to the polls Tuesday to select a replacement for outgoing Rep. Raul Labrador (R), who has represented the state’s first Congressional district since 2011. The field is crowded: seven candidates are vying for the Republican nomination, the winner of which will face off against one of three Democrats in November.

But Snyder has distinguished himself from the pack — both for his views on the impending apocalypse, as well as for the people backing his attempt to become the “most pro-Trump candidate in America.” All of this in addition to pushing more standard far-right fare, like making abortion illegal in the U.S.

Snyder isn’t necessarily the favorite to replace Labrador, himself a longtime Tea Party favorite now running for governor. The former attorney has never held elected office and isn’t even the best known candidate in the race, which includes politicos like former Lieutenant Governor David Leroy and former state Sen. Russ Fulcher. As the AP’s Kimberlee Kruesi wrote late last year, Snyder wasn’t even “well known” in Idaho, and a lack of polling has made Tuesday’s primary far murkier than others.

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Nonetheless, that hasn’t stopped national figures from stepping into the breach to lend their endorsements to Snyder’s campaign. Perhaps the most prominent Republican to offer their support thus far is Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who endorsed Snyder’s candidacy last week.

Snyder is “a champion of liberty and the only one I can support for Congress” in the district, said Paul. The Kentucky senator added that Snyder is “the only one who will stand up to the corruption in Washington D.C. and fight the ever expanding reach of Big Government.”

Embattled former Trump confidante Roger Stone also voiced support for Snyder, claiming Trump “really needs Michael Snyder in Congress” and describing Snyder as “an outsider and a patriot.”

Stone isn’t the most outlandish, or most conspiratorial, voice offering to support Snyder, however. On Monday, InfoWars’ Alex Jones — a man who seemingly can’t stop getting sued — released a 49-second spot urging listeners to support Snyder.

The end of times

Most candidates, of course, would run from endorsements from the likes of Stone and Jones, themselves widely derided for their brain pills and inability to tell fact from fiction.

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Not Snyder. For a man Jones says has appeared on InfoWars “hundreds” of times, Snyder has fully embraced the type of fear-drenched conspiracies popularized by Jones. Those radical views have helped Snyder build his own audience, among those who believe vaccines are unsafe or that the end of the world is just around the corner.

Snyder is perhaps best known for his career as an author of several books predicting an imminent apocalypse, which will be followed thereafter by the return of Jesus Christ. Known colloquially as a proponent of “end-times” philosophy, Snyder is unabashed in his belief that the world is hurtling toward a looming collapse because of the impending arrival of the “Antichrist.”

Snyder has written a series of books to such effect. In his first novel, The Beginning of the End, Snyder wrote that we “are moving into the most unstable time in all of human history, and cataclysmic changes are coming. This is one book that will help you get prepared for what is ahead.”

In The Rapture Verdict, a non-fiction book, Snyder claimed that the “worst times in all of human history are coming,” and that he and his wife “are convinced that the greatest move of God and the greatest harvest of souls the world has ever seen will happen between right now and the triumphant return of Jesus Christ to this planet.”

Snyder hasn’t just been sounding the alarm bells; He’s also been hawking solutions. In Get Prepared Now!: Why A Great Crisis Is Coming & How You Can Survive It, Snyder and co-author Barbara Fix sold solutions for “the greatest economic collapse” America has around the corner. 

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For those unwilling to shell out for a book, Snyder — whose website describes him as “one of the most popular conservative authors in America” — maintains a blog called “The Economic Collapse.” On the site, Snyder opines on everything from why a nine-year-old’s dream about an asteroid might be a sign of nuclear war, to why a wounded bald eagle was God’s sign of America’s plight.

Snyder, as Alex Jones can attest, has also made a name for himself amid national conspiracies, from suggesting the Las Vegas shooter may have been an anti-Trump terrorist to pushing claims about “Category 6 hurricanes,” which do not exist. (As The Washington Post wrote, noting Snyder’s inaccuracies, “Although meteorologists have discussed adding a Category 6 to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale over the years, such an addition isn’t imminent, nor is it being newly considered in any significant way.”)

Snyder has ridden those conspiracies to a number of endorsements, along with the claim that he is “the most pro-Trump candidate in America.” Still, while Snyder has referred to Trump as a “miracle” — and suggested that any election loss would have been due to voter fraud — Snyder hasn’t supported the president at every turn. As he recently admitted, he didn’t actually vote for Trump during the 2016 primary, claiming he was traveling. Even with the end-times on the horizon, there’s still apparently time to squeeze in a vacation or two.