{"id":10368,"date":"2023-04-05T11:45:39","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T11:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=10368"},"modified":"2023-04-05T11:45:39","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T11:45:39","slug":"soros-backed-the-gops-favorite-attack-on-the-man-prosecuting-trump-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=10368","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSoros-backed\u201d: The GOP\u2019s favorite attack on the man prosecuting Trump, explained"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“Donald Trump\u2019s outraged response<\/a> to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg\u2019s indictment of him contained the usual mix of bombast and self-pity, with a predictable dollop of conspiracy-mongering. One line of attack stood out in particular: He accused Bragg of being \u201chand-picked and funded by George Soros.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump wasn\u2019t alone. The alleged Bragg-Soros connection has been everywhere in the Republican response to the indictment, including in comments from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis<\/a>, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance<\/a>, and a host of other prominent Republicans<\/a> and Fox News coverage<\/a>. It often gets shorthanded into a two-word phrase: \u201cSoros-backed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soros, a nonagenarian Holocaust survivor and billionaire financier, is a longstanding hate figure among conservatives. Over the past two decades, elements of the right in both the United States and his native Hungary have engaged in a concerted campaign to turn Soros into a boogeyman \u2014 the shadowy power behind transatlantic liberalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though Bragg has never been directly funded by Soros, the accusation of a link isn\u2019t entirely out of whole cloth \u2014 Bragg\u2019s 2021 campaign for district attorney does seem to have indirectly received some of his financial support<\/a>. But the intensity of the accusation certainly doesn\u2019t seem proportionate to the tenuousness of the connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To liberals, the Soros accusation smacks of nothing less than antisemitism. \u201cJust replace \u2018Soros-backed\u2019 with \u2018Jewy Jew Jewish Jewy Jew,\u2019\u201d the popular comedian John Fugelsang tweeted<\/a> in response to DeSantis\u2019s attack on Bragg. Naturally, conservatives have denied the charge and argued that liberals are just trying to suppress reasonable criticism<\/a> of a prominent Democratic donor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is, of course, nothing wrong with criticizing Soros\u2019s philanthropic work, especially his partisan donations to the Democratic Party. But it\u2019s difficult to separate the criticisms from the context \u2014 and the last two decades of attacks on Soros have turned him into a stand-in for a certain kind of Jewish \u201crootless cosmopolitan\u201d that allows politicians to appeal to antisemitism without having to do so explicitly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Trump populist era, attacks on so-called \u201cglobalists\u201d \u2014 a term long used on the extreme right as a euphemism for \u201cJews\u201d \u2014 have become increasingly common on the mainstream right. The increasing mainstream flirtation with antisemitic stereotypes and rhetoric<\/a> has made the subtext of the attacks on Soros harder and harder to deny.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It\u2019s true that Soros supported pro-democracy activists and civil society groups in former communist states \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t make him the \u201cpuppet master\u201d secretly getting people out into the streets to demonstrate against dictators. The idea that a Jewish financier is secretly masterminding global events against the interests of rooted local conservatives \u2014 it doesn\u2019t take a scholar of antisemitism to see what Beck was drawing on here.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“When Trump and his allies tried to position the so-called \u201cmigrant caravan\u201d<\/a> as a major threat to America before the 2018 midterms, the president told reporters that \u201ca lot of people say<\/a>\u201d Soros was behind it. You heard similar rhetoric from Donald Trump Jr. and Republicans in Congress<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a baseless lie, and an antisemitic one to boot. The idea that Jewish money is bringing in nonwhite immigrants to menace the United States is a staple of far-right rhetoric \u2014 one that had been voiced by a shooter who killed 11 Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue<\/a> in 2018.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Many more thoughtful<\/a> conservatives<\/a> have argued that Soros is a principal funder of the \u201cprogressive prosecutor\u201d movement, a nationwide campaign to elect district attorneys who aim to try and tackle problems like mass incarceration by (for example) refusing to prosecute certain low-level crimes. Bragg is one such progressive prosecutor, and seems to be the beneficiary of Soros\u2019s funding: Shortly after the group Color of Change pledged roughly $1 million to support Bragg, they received roughly $1 million in funding from Soros.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Conservative criticisms of Soros\u2019s support of \u201cprogressive prosecutors\u201d are not necessarily antisemitic. If what they were saying was \u201cprogressive prosecutors raise crime rates and it\u2019s bad that Soros is supporting them,\u201d that would be one thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what they\u2019re actually doing is claiming that Trump\u2019s prosecution is illegitimate and politically motivated \u2014 and that support from Soros is proof of said illegitimacy. The same \u201cpuppet-master\u201d implication is invoked (remember Trump\u2019s words: \u201chand-picked\u201d). And it beggars belief that these conservatives don\u2019t know that the Trumpist faithful won\u2019t fill in those conspiratorial (and yes, antisemitic) blanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it\u2019s certainly possible to criticize George Soros without being antisemitic in the abstract. But at this point, we know what a dog whistle from Donald Trump and his ilk sounds like, and it\u2019s hard to ignore that the chorus of attacks on the Soros-Bragg connection hit those same notes.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/23665035\/trump-indictment-soros-backed-anti-semitism-george<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Donald Trump\u2019s outraged response to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg\u2019s indictment of him contained the usual mix of bombast and self-pity, with a predictable dollop of conspiracy-mongering. One line of attack stood out in particular: He accused Bragg of being \u201chand-picked and funded by George Soros.\u201d
\nTrump wasn\u2019t alone. The alleged Bragg-Soros connection has been everywhere in the Republican response to the indictment, including in comments from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, and a host of other prominent Republicans and Fox News coverage. It often gets shorthanded into a two-word phrase: \u201cSoros-backed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soros, a nonagenarian Holocaust survivor and billionaire financier, is a longstanding hate figure among conservatives. Over the past two decades, elements of the right in both the United States and his native Hungary have engaged in a concerted campaign to turn Soros into a boogeyman \u2014 the shadowy power behind transatlantic liberalism.<\/p>\n

Though Bragg has never been directly funded by Soros, the accusation of a link isn\u2019t entirely out of whole cloth \u2014 Bragg\u2019s 2021 campaign for district attorney does seem to have indirectly received some of his financial support. But the intensity of the accusation certainly doesn\u2019t seem proportionate to the tenuousness of the connection.<\/p>\n

To liberals, the Soros accusation smacks of nothing less than antisemitism. \u201cJust replace \u2018Soros-backed\u2019 with \u2018Jewy Jew Jewish Jewy Jew,\u2019\u201d the popular comedian John Fugelsang tweeted in response to DeSantis\u2019s attack on Bragg. Naturally, conservatives have denied the charge and argued that liberals are just trying to suppress reasonable criticism of a prominent Democratic donor.<\/p>\n

There is, of course, nothing wrong with criticizing Soros\u2019s philanthropic work, especially his partisan donations to the Democratic Party. But it\u2019s difficult to separate the criticisms from the context \u2014 and the last two decades of attacks on Soros have turned him into a stand-in for a certain kind of Jewish \u201crootless cosmopolitan\u201d that allows politicians to appeal to antisemitism without having to do so explicitly.<\/p>\n

In the Trump populist era, attacks on so-called \u201cglobalists\u201d \u2014 a term long used on the extreme right as a euphemism for \u201cJews\u201d \u2014 have become increasingly common on the mainstream right. The increasing mainstream flirtation with antisemitic stereotypes and rhetoric has made the subtext of the attacks on Soros harder and harder to deny.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s true that Soros supported pro-democracy activists and civil society groups in former communist states \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t make him the \u201cpuppet master\u201d secretly getting people out into the streets to demonstrate against dictators. The idea that a Jewish financier is secretly masterminding global events against the interests of rooted local conservatives \u2014 it doesn\u2019t take a scholar of antisemitism to see what Beck was drawing on here.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“When Trump and his allies tried to position the so-called \u201cmigrant caravan\u201d as a major threat to America before the 2018 midterms, the president told reporters that \u201ca lot of people say\u201d Soros was behind it. You heard similar rhetoric from Donald Trump Jr. and Republicans in Congress.<\/p>\n

This was a baseless lie, and an antisemitic one to boot. The idea that Jewish money is bringing in nonwhite immigrants to menace the United States is a staple of far-right rhetoric \u2014 one that had been voiced by a shooter who killed 11 Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.” <\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Many more thoughtful conservatives have argued that Soros is a principal funder of the \u201cprogressive prosecutor\u201d movement, a nationwide campaign to elect district attorneys who aim to try and tackle problems like mass incarceration by (for example) refusing to prosecute certain low-level crimes. Bragg is one such progressive prosecutor, and seems to be the beneficiary of Soros\u2019s funding: Shortly after the group Color of Change pledged roughly $1 million to support Bragg, they received roughly $1 million in funding from Soros.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Conservative criticisms of Soros\u2019s support of \u201cprogressive prosecutors\u201d are not necessarily antisemitic. If what they were saying was \u201cprogressive prosecutors raise crime rates and it\u2019s bad that Soros is supporting them,\u201d that would be one thing.<\/p>\n

But what they\u2019re actually doing is claiming that Trump\u2019s prosecution is illegitimate and politically motivated \u2014 and that support from Soros is proof of said illegitimacy. The same \u201cpuppet-master\u201d implication is invoked (remember Trump\u2019s words: \u201chand-picked\u201d). And it beggars belief that these conservatives don\u2019t know that the Trumpist faithful won\u2019t fill in those conspiratorial (and yes, antisemitic) blanks.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s certainly possible to criticize George Soros without being antisemitic in the abstract. But at this point, we know what a dog whistle from Donald Trump and his ilk sounds like, and it\u2019s hard to ignore that the chorus of attacks on the Soros-Bragg connection hit those same notes.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[298,583,221,699,161,1854,969,1853,1585,469,1855,509,170],"class_list":["post-10368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-anti-semitism","tag-campaign-finance","tag-donald-trump","tag-donation","tag-funding","tag-george-soros","tag-hungary","tag-indictment","tag-jews","tag-money","tag-money-in-politics","tag-politics","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10369,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10368\/revisions\/10369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}