The Descent of America

In case you have any doubts that the right-wing War on Soros serves as a vector not only for anti-semitism, but for the importation of European right-wing tropes and tactics into the American system, you should read Aaron Wiener’s piece at Mother Jones about how your taxpayers dollars are being used to promote Soros-flavored anti-semitic conspiracy theories while valorizing a partisan advocacy group.

Five months before George Soros received a pipe bomb in the mail, a US government-funded broadcasting network produced a segment that attacked the liberal donor—a common target of conservative conspiracy theories—as a “multimillionaire Jew” and “the architect of the financial collapse of 2008.”

The video segment, which aired in May, was produced by Radio Televisión Martí, a Spanish-language network that broadcasts news and propaganda to Cuba to promote US foreign policy interests. The Miami-based network is overseen by the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which is part of the United States Agency for Global Media, an independent US government agency whose stated mission is “to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.”

The taxpayer-subsidized video portrays Soros as a threat to Latin American democracy. Featuring ominous music and images of street violence, the 15-minute video begins with the narration: “George Soros has his eye on Latin America. But Judicial Watch, an American investigative legal group, also has its eye on Soros and what it sees as his lethal influence to destroy democracies. It describes him as a millionaire investor and stock market speculator who exploits capitalism and Wall Street to finance anti-system movements that fill his pockets.” Judicial Watch, a right-wing group, is in the midst of a fundraising campaign called Expose Soros and has been looking for evidence that taxpayers are funding Soros’ advocacy work.

It’s short, so just click through and read the whole thing. While you’re there, maybe make a small donation to support Mother Jones? It’s been doing good work.

And yes, I’m aware that there’s been a mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.* We don’t know if what the motivation for the attack was, and maybe it will turn out not be a hate crime. Of course, it’s easy to leap to that conclusion. These murders comes immediately after not merely the attempted mail-bomb attacks, but also a mass shooting in Kentucky that was likely racially motivated.

I’m sure there will be calls for Americans to reflect on the wages of heated rhetoric. These will be paired with invocations of the Sanders supporter who tried to murder US congressmen. That’s all well and good. Still, when it comes to contemporary American politics, the rot starts from the top.

UPDATE:

Kevin McCarthy posted and deleted this just hours ago. It gives the lie to all the disingenuous “of course we aren’t anti semites!” bs. If “Soros” isn’t just code for Jews, then why would he delete it in response to a synagogue shooting? Very revealing. pic.twitter.com/aIkzkLCpXn

— Ed Boo-mila (@gin_and_tacos) October 27, 2018

UPDATE II: So the fascist loser thinks Trump betrays the cause by not purging Jews. Oddly enough, he’s right that Trump is a globalist, but not because Trump fails the test of being a proper Aryan. One of the main activities of the Trump organization is to serve as a mechanism for globalized kleptocrats to launder and stash their money.

*My mother grew up in and around Squirrel Hill; when I was young we visited my grandparents, their siblings, and my cousins there at least once a year. They attended a different synagogue, though.