Considered opinion: HateConspiracy theories about Soros aren’t just false. They’re anti-Semitic.
Blaming Jewish outsiders for dissent and social unrest isn’t new. On Monday eight days ago, a pipe bomb was sent to the home of George Soros, the billionaire whose Open Society Foundation supports many liberal causes in many countries. Soros’s name has also become a central element in conspiracy theories around the world. Talia Lavin writes in the Washington Post that it is no surprise that Soros would wind up as a target of a bomber who appears to have been an avid consumer of conspiracy theories. Soros has become the subject of “escalating rhetoric on the right… which posits Soros as a nefarious force, fomenting social dissent and paying members of a migrant ‘caravan, that has been the subject of intense right-wing fearmongering leading up to the November midterms. And that rhetoric draws on old, and deep-rooted, anti-Semitic ideas that have been deployed by the right for decades.”
On Monday eight days ago, a pipe bomb was sent to the home of George Soros, the billionaire whose Open Society Foundation supports many liberal causes in many countries. Soros’s name has also become a central element in conspiracy theories around the world.
Talia Lavin writes in the Washington Post that it is no surprise that Soros would wind up as a target of a bomber who appears to have been an avid consumer of conspiracy theories. Soros has become the subject of “escalating rhetoric on the right — including from President Trump — which posits Soros as a nefarious force, fomenting social dissent and paying members of a migrant ‘caravan, that has been the subject of intense right-wing fearmongering leading up to the November midterms. And that rhetoric draws on old, and deep-rooted, anti-Semitic ideas that have been deployed by the right for decades.”
Lavin notes that on 5 October, Trump theorized on Twitter that Soros was behind vocal protests against Brett M. Kavanaugh’s appointment as a Supreme Court justice, stating that “the very rude elevator screamers” were “paid for by Soros and others.” More recently, extreme-right Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) pointedly raised the question of whether Soros was paying members of the migrant caravan. More bizarrely, a top lobbyist for Campbell Soup Company was chastened by his patrons for suggesting on Twitter this week that Soros’s Open Society Foundation controlled the migrant caravan — “including where they defecate” (Lavin notes that she works at Media Matters for America, which received a $1 million donation from Soros in 2010, eight years before she joined).
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) last Tuesday posted a tweet – which he later deleted – suggesting that three Jewish billionaires who contributed to the Democratic Party were attempting to “buy” the 2018 midterm elections: “We cannot allow Soros, Steyer, and Bloomberg to BUY this election! Get out and vote Republican November 6th. #MAGA,” McCarthy wrote.
