The puppeteers
As a scholar of antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt finds Marjorie Greene’s claims about Jewish lasers in space all too familiar.
Greene’s claims were familiar territory. All of them – space lasers, 9/11, school shootings, Trump’s election loss and so much else – shared a common theme: conspiracy.
In her QAnon-inspired worldview, behind them all was a small group of inordinately powerful people who had global – not national – loyalties. They conspired against the common welfare to advance their own interests. They mutilated babies. They amassed power and money in order to harm good, hard-working and, one can fairly assume, Christian folks. This is the foundation stone of classic antisemitism. There are certainly non-Jews in the swamp Greene wants to “drain”. But ultimately it is Jews who are the puppeteers.
Antisemitism is a prejudice, akin to so many others. Just like racism and an array of other hatreds, it relies on stereotypes and assumes that all members of the group share those characteristics. Antisemitism has unique characteristics that differentiate it from other hatreds. The racist “punches down” and loathes persons of colour because they are apparently “lesser than” the white person. They are, the racist proclaims, not as smart, industrious, qualified or worthy. In contrast, the antisemite “punches up”. The Jew is supposedly more powerful, ingenious and financially adept than the non-Jew. Jews use their prodigious skills to advance themselves and harm others. The Jew is not just to be loathed. The Jew is to be feared.
Women have now entered that category – we too are ok to punch because that’s punching up. We control gender and being female, and we oppress the tragic men who want to wear pretty dresses.
I don’t believe Greene is advocating physical violence against Jews. It was hard, however, not to be struck by her choice of words when she spoke on the House floor to argue that these were no longer her views. Rather than apologise, she condemned the attacks on her as an attempt to “crucify” her. Crucify?
To be fair, I think her choice of word could easily be just stupidity rather than malice. I’m not sure she’s clever enough to remember that the word “crucify” has a specifically Christian antisemitic resonance.
Ultimately, however, this is about something more all-encompassing than even antisemitism. It is about an attack on democracy and the institutions that undergird that democracy. Conspiracies, such as those peddled by QAnon, are not just infused with antisemitic symbolism and themes, but are designed to create doubt about democratic institutions including Congress, the courts, financial agencies, electoral processes, the media and anything that is even obliquely connected to democracy.
Every act of prejudicial physical violence begins with words. Greene has provided an endless array of such words. Her Republican colleagues, rather than stand and applaud, should recognise that and act upon it. There are people who spread hatred and prejudice and there are those who enable the spread of hatred and prejudice. Not just Greene, but also the Republicans who have failed to condemn her are enablers. They will ultimately bear responsibility for the consequences.
They will, but they will probably never care.
And seriously, does anyone really believe those are no longer her views? If so, I have some swamp land in Arizona I’d like to sell them.
Wow, interesting point about punching up vs punching down. (I mean, in actuality it’s a load of bullshit, but it’s the kind of rhetoric used by the holders of the particular prejudice to make their particular prejudice feel moral.)
(i.e. I’m not disagreeing with Lipstadt)
I hope that work continues apace on the development of the Feminist Space Lasers.
And given trans activists’ broad success at institutional and policy capture, it doesn’t work at without the rhetoric of trans identified males (TIFs are always left out of this) as the most oppressed and marginalized group ever. It reminds me of the premis of a couple of movies from the Reagan era, Red Dawn and Amerika, in which the poor, helpless United States (at that time, as ever since, the most powerful military power on the planet) was somehow invaded or taken over by the USSR. I was in my twenties at the time, but I knew there was something fundamentally dishonest, paranoid, and delusional about the ideas behind both of these productions. Red Dawn I never saw, but I watched some of Amerika, simply because parts of it were filmed in my home town of London, Ontario.