Jewish Space Lasers: The Rothschilds and 200 Years of Conspiracy Theories

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Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia has courted controversy on various issues by promoting QAnon conspiracy theories, alongside a history of anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic remarks. Years-old views, including a Facebook interaction in which she agreed with a comment that the Parkland shooting was a "false flag" staged event, and a video in which she pushed 9/11 conspiracy theories, have been unearthed. Solaren was planning to launch for PG&E in 2016 but this never came to fruition, Wired reported in 2019.

The title of the book alludes to one conspiracy supposedly espoused by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who actually didn’t say Jewish Space Lasers, but she is one of many on the American Right who are buying into the theories and conspiracies, or at least publicly promoting them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like it will get much easier to counter, even as the Rothschilds get replaced by George Soros and other modern “Jewish boogeymen”. The Rothschild family is a European Jewish banking family that has been the center of conspiracy theories for hundreds of years. Despite the obvious antisemitism of these claims the people who spread them claim they are "just asking questions" or that they just want people to "question the real story" but they are almost always just Jew hating propaganda. These conspiracy theorists who are just seeking the truth are the dumbest, most gullible people you will ever meet. They want to feel smart but they are complete idiots. The question of ignorance often arises when confronting conspiracy theorists. Can someone genuinely claim they didn’t know the Rothschilds were Jewish or that their theory wasn’t about Jews but about a powerful family? Rothschild believes that such ignorance, especially from public figures, isn’t excusable. He emphasized that accountability is essential, citing Marjorie Taylor Greene’s inability to take responsibility for her statements as a prime example. Omar engaged in factually questionable rhetoric that echoed ugly tropes in a way that maybe helped some bad actors spread their ideas. Greene outright endorsed a series of obscenely outlandish conspiracy theories, some relating to Jews and some not.You can see Byford’s analysis at work in the most popular right-wing conspiracy theory in America today: QAnon. Mike Rothschild is an American journalist with no connections to the Rothschild family he writes about. “This is the biography of an idea,” he explains, “and it’s a simple enough one: that Jews control everything, and that the Rothschilds are the ‘Kings of the Jews’.” As a political junky, and a technologist I got very interested in misinformation and disinformation the last several years. Some of the books were very enlightening, and I’m always happy to learn more.

Greene also speculated that a range of people or groups were involved in this fire, including former California Gov. Jerry Brown, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and Rothschild Inc., an investment firm. Of course, the Jewish community is a place where there is always a surfeit of opinions. Not surprisingly, some observers doubted whether this was a matter for humour, arguing that it was not acceptable to laugh at such a dangerous – albeit absurd – claim. They argued that however far-fetched – a word that some pundits claim must have a Yiddish origin – Greene’s assertions might be, they were not a laughing matter. The phrase, a clear potshot at Greene, has dogged her ever since she was revealed to have posted Facebook screeds in 2018 implying that a company owned by the Rothschilds, the wealthy Jewish banking family, had started a California wildfire from space. Although the Geogia congresswoman has insisted she never uttered those exact words, her Rothschild comment was just one of her several brushes with antisemitism, which have also included an embrace of the QAnon conspiracy theory and likening Biden to Hitler. Her beliefs have earned her scorn from figures on both sides of the aisle, as well as widespread condemnation from the Jewish community.The persistence of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories should make mainstream politicians very wary about indulging in conspiratorial thinking, especially about Jews. Yet it doesn’t always work out that way. But then, just as suddenly as it had gained a foothold on social media, the humour stopped. The abrupt halt to some very clever exchanges came when the Republican caucus refused to punish, criticise or condemn Greene in any fashion. Instead, they gave her a standing ovation. They did so after she told them that she had only been “curious” about some of the ideas she had posted and didn’t really know what space lasers were. Though her explanations beggared the imagination – her space laser post was long and detailed – it was enough for her colleagues.

Let’s get this out of the way: First-term Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s claim that the 2018 California wildfires were ignited by a space laser controlled by a corporate cabal, including the Rothschild banking firm, is objectively ridiculous. It’s okay to laugh about it. Needless to say, there’s no evidence that China or the Biden administration are using laser weapons against the U.S. Join Book Club: Delivered to your inbox every Friday, a selection of publishing news, literary observations, poetry recommendations and more from Book World writer Ron Charles. Sign up for the newsletter. Part history book, part dark comedy, Jewish Space Lasers follows one the longest running conspiracy theories in history: the Rothschilds. Along the way he goes into how and why each culture has clung to this conspiracy theory to explain everything from the outcomes of wars to the gold standard to why someone’s career never took off. The scope of this conspiracy theory is so vast, confusing, and intertwined with other conspiracy theories, that it’s on the one hand hard to comprehend and on the other you can see why it’s so alluring. It’s as if the entirety of western civilization’s ills can be drilled down to a singular family, which is slightly comforting to people with metallic headwear needing a more understandable worldview - no matter how far fetched. So the idea of the Rothschilds as these string-pullers, as these manipulators, is the thing that gets passed down; the details are totally fungible and do not matter at all.Greene's conspiracy theory was just one of numerous extremist conspiracy theories that she voiced support for on social media before joining Congress. After giving a potted history of the Rothschild banking dynasty that began with Mayer Amschel Rothschild, born in Frankfurt’s Jewish ghetto in 1744, he then highlights conspiracy theorists’ twisted, alternative version. This portrays the Rothschilds as puppet-masters who engineered the American civil war and hired Charles Darwin to invent the theory of evolution so they could promote a godless one-world government. They now supposedly control 80% of global wealth and run sperm banks to expand their bloodline. For reasons not wholly unrelated to his surname, the author is keen to discredit such preposterous notions. (A branch of the Rothschild family owns a stake in The Economist. Make of that what you will.) There were quite a few court Jews who made money like the Rothschilds and, of course, there were other banking families — including the Warburgs who actually did some of the stuff that the Rothschilds are accused of doing with the federal reserve. Why is it that they in particular were so attractive for conspiracy theorists?