And, as one Jew to another, I think you're incredibly naive or uniformed. Invoking George Soros by name has become a way to inject anti-Semitism without appearing to be anti-Semitic. Yeah, some people reference him just on the basis of how he uses his wealth to influence politics and society, but do you really believe DeSantis wasn't aware of the implication when he branded Alvin Bragg as "Soros-backed?"
So how does one criticize George Soros and/or people he gives considerable amount of money to for their campaigns with extremely progressive values without automatically being called antisemitic?
Certainly there are people, many people, who use Soros as the be-all-end-all scapegoat of a globalist conspiracy. But I’m not going to make that assumption unless there is a pattern of antisemitic behavior. It’s not naivety, it’s not assuming everyone you disagree with is automatically guilty of the most extreme negative traits and ascribing every possible comment to malintent.
But oddly when it is people on the left explicitly making comments about Israel or CPAC controlling the levers of power in the US, the same globalist trope as Soros, those comments are usually not met the same condemnation by peers on the left. In general there is selective concern for antisemitism, totally dependent on who is doing it.
In the case of the NYC election, Bragg won and was presumably backed by Soros via a PAC, which accounted for a lot of his funding. Money’s fungible but it’s not a crazy idea to assume this is how these things work. But Bragg actually spent far less money than the runner up, Weinstein, who threw $8m+ of her personal money into her campaign at the last minute. So the idea Soros “bought” Bragg into power isn’t really the case if we use the false assumption that those with the most money win. So on one hand you could say Desantis is just wrong if he’s trying to allude to Soros bought Bragg’s position by outspending because that just wasn’t the case. Or he’s just that Soros has radical ideas and this is the guy he wanted in office.
I’m sure we could find clips off leading Jewish Republicans using the same “Soros-funded” qualifier.
And as I have explained many times, I think Desantis is not a good candidate for President and is dangerous, perhaps even more dangerous than Trump. Desantis actually has an ideological agenda beyond self promotion and seems to hold some rather extreme and oppressive viewpoints in my opinion. I just don’t see the evidence of him being an antisemite at this point. That’s always subject to change.
It’s just crazy to me how much money gets shoveled into political campaigns. I wish that would be a conversation willing to be had.
www.salon.com
