Alex Jones was a CIA plant, to make conspiracy theorists look crazy… And it worked really really well.
The government was nervous because there were some conspiracy theories that were a little too close to reality. Shit like MK ULTRA and the Harvard mind control experiment sound fake, but we have the declassified docs. We know they happened. And there were lots of conspiracy theories that were likely hitting just a little too close for comfort. But outright disputing the conspiracy theories would just add credibility to them, in a “methinks the lady doth protest too much” sort of way.
So instead, they set out to discredit the people making the claims. They wanted to poison the well. So they found a dude named Alex Jones who had potential. He’s easily manipulated, so they can basically feed him wild conspiracies and he’ll eat them up. And all they had to do was boost his message. Jones never even needed to knew he was a plant, (and in fact, it would work better if he remained clueless.)
They gave conspiracy theorists a face. Before Alex Jones, conspiracy theories were something the average person jokingly threw around while drunk at the bar. But suddenly, conspiracy theorists were up front and center. And here’s the important part: the theories didn’t have a good spokesman. Suddenly, the average person’s view of conspiracy theories shifted. They weren’t funny anymore; They had your crazy uncle ranting about dead kids being fake.
By giving conspiracy theories a face, then having that face spew the most insane bullshit alongside the true (or nearly true) theories, the government was able to discredit the true theories. They were able to poison the well, because the main person ranting about the conspiracy also thinks Sandy Hook was a hoax.