Marjorie Taylor Greene's "space lasers" show how the GOP gets away with escalating violence

Source: Salon

Marjorie Taylor Greene's "space lasers" show how the GOP gets away with escalating violence

From Kari Lake's "strap on a Glock" to the Supreme Court coddling Capitol rioters, GOP threat levels are growing

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED APRIL 22, 2024 6:00AM (EDT)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sure knows how to get the attention she craves by saying something incredibly stupid.

"I’ve previously voted to fund space lasers for Israel’s defense," she tweeted Wednesday, demanding that the U.S. put this imaginary tech up for "defense for our border."

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As every remaining liberal on Twitter and multiple journalistic outlets dutifully pointed out, there are no "space lasers." The tech that Israel is developing is ground-based. The recent Iranian attack on Israel was thwarted by a multinational alliance that mainly used old-fashioned fighter pilots to shoot down drones and missiles. But it's almost certain that Greene knows all this. "Space lasers" was a reference to one of her most famous idiotic comments, commonly called the "Jewish space lasers" conspiracy theory, involving false accusations that a wealthy Jewish family is secretly causing wildfires from space.

Greene can be touchy when mocked about "Jewish space lasers." But she also knows that the best way to get her message out is to frame it in the dumbest terms possible. That ensures that the press covers it and liberals re-post it, while also engaging the MAGA audience that rushes forward to defend her from liberal "elites" making fun of her. (I call this the "stupid-victim cycle.") Most of the time, this is a win-win situation. Her followers get to feel victimized, news websites get some easy traffic, and liberals get more evidence to build the case that the GOP is beyond redemption. But in this case, what got overlooked was deeply troubling: Greene is encouraging the cold-blooded killing of asylum seekers, many of whom are children.

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Read more: https://www.salon.com/2024/04/22/marjorie-taylor-greenes-space-lasers-show-how-the-gets-away-with-escalating-violence/