Anti-Semitic Roots and Deadly Consequences of ‘Lizard’ Rhetoric Promoted on FlashPoint

Right wing guard reported Last week, FlashPoint, a prominent Christian Dominionist and MAGA-oriented television show, featured “prophet” Joseph Z claiming that “the spirit of antichrist” had chosen Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz to align with the “evil overlord lizard mafia” and his “goblin masters.” Right Wing Watch readers noted that such rhetoric is rooted in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, which encouraged us to follow up on that post.

The FlashPoint program wasn’t the first time Z had used such rhetoric. episode of his podcast, which he posted last September, is titled “ANGRY LIZARDS TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD.” In a portion of the podcast aimed at the World Economic Forum and its founder Klaus Schwab, Z referred to “angry lizard goblin perverted mafia scumbags” and “angry lizard scumbags trying to take over the world.” Z also used the phrases “world domination pipeline,” “dominion spirit,” and “straight out of the Antichrist manual.”

The previous episode of Z is notable because FlashPoint host Gene Bailey, a prominent Trump supporter who was invited to Mar-a-Lago last year to interview the former president, made a strong case for Z on the show last week, saying he’s been keeping a close eye on the “prophet” for about a year.

The World Economic Forum and its call for an economic “Great Reset” after the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a series by conspiracy theories promoted by right wing media and grounded in the idea that “a group of world leaders orchestrated the pandemic in order to take control of the global economy.” These claims are variations on an older conspiracy theory about the “New World Order,” which antisemitic originand uses the same conspiracy theories promoted by the infamous forgery “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, which has been used to promote anti-Semitic violence. Among those promote “great reset” and COVID conspiracy theories has been the intense anti-semitic far-right announcer Stew Peters.

In Z’s earlier “lizard” video, the “prophet” also referred to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Castro’s child” – a reference to another false conspiracy theory that Donald Trump promoted recently during his interview with far-right online personality Adin Ross, who has a history of promoting racism and anti-Semitism.

In a 2021 NBC story about a conspiracy theory about reptilian aliens hiding among humans to achieve world domination, cultural historian Lynn Stuart Parramore explored his roots in both science fiction and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories:

The idea of ​​shape-shifting, blood-sucking reptilian humanoids invading Earth to control the human race sounds like a cheap science fiction plot. But it’s actually a very old story with disturbing links to anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic hostilities dating back to the 19th century.

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The fantasy of a world where lizard people rule has gained popularity in recent years, partly due to the musings of David Ickea popular British sports reporter turned conspiracy theorist known for his eccentric ideas. (Note: Icke’s son is one of the promoters (of the Great Reset conspiracy theories.)

Icke would have you believe that a race of reptilian creatures has not only invaded Earth, but has also created a genetically modified hybrid race of lizards and humans called the “Babylonian Brotherhood,” who, he claims, is busy forging a global fascist state. This sinister cabal of global reptilian elites boasts a membership list that includes former President Barack Obama, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Mick Jagger.

This nonsense is being spread by a variety of conspiracy theorists on the internet, including far-right, Trump-loving QAnon supporters, one of whom was accused in 2019 of killing his own brother because he thought he was a lizardAs much as 12 Million Americans Believed This Lizard People Conspiracy in a 2013 survey by Public Policy Polling. It’s safe to assume the number is higher today.

The bizarre trope originated in the second half of the 19th century, when the Industrial Revolution, Darwin’s theory of evolution, and rapid scientific advances were upending traditional ways of life, leaving people uneasy and unsure of what to believe. It became more pronounced toward the end of the century, when fears about perceived outsiders, particularly Jewish ones, were stoked by waves of immigrants flooding urban centers in Britain and the United States in search of economic prosperity and religious freedom. The flood of immigrants created cultural conflicts, as well as health and sanitation crises, in cities that lacked adequate infrastructure to accommodate the millions of newcomers.

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Does this sound familiar? It should, because today’s conspiracy theorists’ Internet posts often contain traces of exactly the kind of anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic tensions that historically surface when segments of the population feel betrayed by elites and fear losing their own social and economic status.

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Billionaire George Soros is a common scapegoat among this group, and he is often depicted as a world dominant reptile.

Parramore also noticed that Anthony Quinn Warner made claims about a conspiracy of lizard people taking over the planet before causing an explosion in downtown Nashville, Tennessee on Christmas Day 2020. A 2021 Business Insider story he noted about that bombing: “Like the lizard man theory, QAnon is based on age-old anti-Semitic clichés.” The Daily Beast reported that a man who stabbed his brother to death — and claimed God told him his brother was a lizard — was also a QAnon supporter and had tried to join the Proud Boys.

Literary Hub cited another example of the lizard conspiracy theory that proves deadly:

In August 2021, the owner of a Christian surf school in Santa Barbara, California, drove with his two young children to the Mexican beach town of Rosarito, where he killed both children (aged two years and 10 months) and left their bodies by the side of the road. He would later claim that his wife had “snake DNA” and that he killed his children out of fear of “interbreeding” between humans and reptiles—a theory he appears to have borrowed from the work of former athlete and Green Party politician David Icke.

Z’s references to goblins may have been influenced by controversy over whether the depiction of goblins in the Harry Potter books and films, particularly an evil banker, promoted age-old anti-Semitic tropes. Comedian and commentator Jon Stewart was among those to raise the issue, though he later said People took his “lighthearted” remarks too seriously. When the goblin controversy flared up again last year with the release of the video game “Hogwarts Legacy,” Times of Israel noted that the UK’s Campaign Against Antisemitism released a statement following Stewart’s comments saying that “the depiction of the goblins in the Harry Potter series is in keeping with their depiction in Western literature as a whole” and “evidences centuries of antisemitism in Christianity more than malice from contemporary artists.”