American billionaire and philanthropist George Soros, a Jew of Hungarian origin, has been the target of the American and European far right for years.
But Donald Trump’s historic indictment has revived the worst anti-Semitic misinformation and conspiracy theories in the United States, experts say.
Mr. Soros has a long history of funding projects promoting transparency and democracy, making him the bogeyman of extremist groups and the toughest fringe of the Republican Party in the United States, a country that has been extremely polarized since the eruption of populist Donald Trump.
Even before the former president’s April 4 appearance in New York criminal court, the financier has been accused by Mr. Trump and his supporters of influencing the Manhattan prosecutor who charged him, Alvin Bragg, a African-American magistrate, elected from the Democratic Party and ranked on the left.
In fact, George Soros, who finances organizations considered progressive, had given a million dollars to an association, Color of Change, working for more diversity in the judiciary and the American judicial system.
This organization had supported Mr. Bragg’s election campaign for the position of New York State Prosecutor’s Office for the Manhattan jurisdiction.
US media factcheckers have uncovered the fact that less than half of that million dollars was spent by Color of Change to support Mr Bragg.
Elected, like all judges and magistrates, at the end of 2021, Alvin Bragg took office on January 1, 2022 and immediately tried to apply his reformist and progressive program, in particular to avoid prison sentences for petty criminal offenses.
Even indirect support from Soros was enough for Donald Trump, without any proof of the slightest direct link, to accuse the magistrate of having been “chosen and financed by George Soros”.
The staunchest Republican elected officials and supporters of the 45th President of the United States (2017-2021), also a billionaire, have thus embellished their tweets with shortcuts and spades such as Alvin Bragg “supported / financed by Soros” when it is not was not “the prosecutor Soros”.
Outside the Manhattan courthouse where Mr Trump appeared, a protester held a sign with the slogan “Google it! George Soros funds US prosecutors”.
Questioned by AFP, a spokesperson for the American billionaire, Michael Vachon, assured that Mr. Soros “had never met, spoken or communicated in any way whatsoever with Alvin Bragg”.
And he lambasted “many people on the right who are trying to shift the burden of proof from the accused (Trump) to the accuser Bragg.”
Mr. Vachon also deplores that “because of George’s (Soros) well-known support for reformist prosecutors, Republicans allege that he is behind everything, even if mainstream media have already deflated” these stories.
American and European conspirators have long targeted George Soros, a Hungarian Jew born in Budapest in August 1930 who survived his country’s Nazi occupation and the Holocaust, before moving to the United States and make a fortune there in finance from the 1970s and 1980s. He then speculated against the pound and the Bank of England in the 1990s.
“Conspiracy theories are built around the idea that there are powerful forces beyond our control that act on behalf of globalized elites to hide the truth from the people,” Joshua Tucker told AFP. , co-director of the Center for Social Media and Politics at New York University.
“In this case, Soros embodies the globalized evil elite,” laments the specialist.
With a “dangerous” dose, within the “Republican Party, of anti-Semitism against George Soros”, denounces on Twitter the American Jewish left group J Street.
From Europe to Asia to America, far-right social media influencers accuse Soros of funding a “great replacement” of white Americans with populations of color. When the billionaire is not mocked for allegedly favoring immigration, social and civil unrest, or multiculturalism.
burs-ac/nr/vgr/cpy/rr
10/04/2023 12:09:27 – Washington (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
