The saga was concisely summarized by New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, as Greene theorized about a “secret Jewish space laser,” and a meme was born. This isn’t the birth of Greene’s conspiratorial reputation, mind you; this had already been well established by his embrace of QAnon and promotion of alternative theories about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and more than one mass shooting. The “Jewish space laser” was only the most bizarrely accessible.
After Republicans won the House majority in 2022, Greene became an unlikely ally of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). With the change in leadership, she went from pariah to establishment loyalist, someone who could sometimes serve as a bridge between the fringe right of the Republican conference and its leaders. She was now someone to take seriously.
So when a British journalist approached Greene at an event last month and brought up the subject of conspiracy theories, Greene bristled.
“Tell us about Jewish space lasers,” asked Emily Maitlis.
“Why don’t you go talk about Jewish space lasers,” Greene responded angrily. She then suggested Maitlis do something else that can be left to your imagination.
Yet less than a month later, Greene proposed an amendment to the legislation focused on foreign aid on Wednesday.
“With the funds made available by this Act,” the proposed amendment states, “necessary monies will be used for the development of space laser technology on the southwest border.”
Haha! Get it? Having fun, joking about space lasers. In a bill based on offering military support to Israel.
(For what it’s worth, which isn’t much, the original technology cited by Greene in 2018 as the source of the “space laser” was not a laser at all but rather directed radio frequency power.)
We assume the intention here is to be light and bring back another element to the border and immigration. (A request for clarification from Greene’s office was not immediately responded to.) But making fun of one’s past eccentricities is much better when one isn’t problematically eccentric in the same way.
Greene, for example, is a strong opponent of providing more aid to Ukraine in its defense efforts against Russian invaders. She has been doing this for a long time, arguing shortly after the Russian invasion that Ukraine would be better served by simply rolling over. The long term, she suggested in March 2022, was for Americans to fight on the ground, to defend the imagined financial interests of powerful non-MAGA political actors.
How the Rothschilds might have been involved was not made clear, but the frame of thought was recognizable.
More recently, she insisted in a social media post, he said it was “anti-Semitic to condition aid to Israel on funding Ukrainian Nazis,” a criticism that is closely linked to his relentless attacks in recent weeks against President Mike Johnson (R-La.). But the “Ukrainian Nazis” story is itself false and is a central part of Russian disinformation about its aggression.
His desires are not limited to the subject of foreign aid either. When a container ship crashed into a bridge in Baltimore late last month, Greene quickly amplified claims there might be something nefarious going on. When a criminal investigation into the accident was announced, it claims to have been justified – apparently a misunderstanding that the focus of the investigation was negligence and not intentionality.
It is a feature of American democracy, not a flaw, that anyone can be elected to federal office. You don’t need to be a lawyer; you do not need to have first served at the local or state level. But there has always been an expectation of seriousness, of taking into account other points of view, even a desire to compromise.
Greene never approached national politics seriously. Instead, she views decision-making largely through the same lens she’s always had, influenced by fringe theories and with supreme confidence in her own ability to put the pieces together. Under these conditions, it is difficult to consider the “space lasers” amendment as an act of humorous subversion. It lands flat, as if Donald Trump is trying to be self-deprecating about his efforts to turn the tide. Roe v. Wade.
In fact, it’s unclear whether Greene’s amendment is a joke.
washingtonpost
