Liberal philanthropist and
billionaire George Soros has
long been a favorite target of right-wing groups and Eastern
European strongmen. That's in
part because he donates
frequently to Democratic candidates and progressive
causes.  "Do you believe George
Soros is behind all of this?" 
"claiming that Goerge Soros was paying Hondurans to get on the
caravan"   On Twitter and darker
corners of the internet, Soros
haters have been casting him for years as a villain orchestrating
pretty much every event they
dislike. But in recent months,
President Donald Trump and other elected Republicans have
increasingly joined in on the
conspiracies. And that could set
a dangerous precedent.   "Obviously, billionaires have
power, whether it's George
Soros, whether it's the Koch
brothers — it's very clear that they have influence. When you
get to conspiracy theorizing,
that's when it degrades our
democracy. It distracts from the actual issues at hand, and it
whips up partisan fervor." 
Aryeh Tuchman studies extremism
at the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that fights against
anti-Semitism and other forms of
discrimination. He says there's
an important distinction between correctly stating that Soros is
an extremely influential
progressive donor and claiming
without evidence that he sways national events for perverse
purposes. "There is a fringe
element of hardcore anti-Semites
who have for many years characterized George Soros as
the rich Jew who is manipulating
world events, controlling the
banks, Hollywood, other organizations, potentially even
governments around the world for
his own nefarious purposes."  
Tuchman admits that a person who tweets a Soros conspiracy theory
may not mean to promote
anti-Semitism. But even then,
Tuchman says, these theories could give ammunition to those
disseminating the old and
dangerous anti-Semitic idea that
a group of powerful Jews work behind-the-scenes to manipulate
global events. "Any politician
or any public figure who uses
anti-Soros conspiracy theories, even if they are not overly
anti-Semitic, creates that
effect of laying the groundwork
for the dissemination of actual anti-Semitism. What people need
to understand is the history of
the anti-Semitic stereotype and
the danger that anti-Semitism has posed to Jews, you know, for
hundreds of years, and to
recognize that disseminating
even non-anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Soros is
potentially reinforcing the
anti-Semitic ideas about George
Soros."
