After the indictment of Donald Trump finally fell, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis attacked the transparently partisan and “un-American” nature of a D.A. going after a presidential candidate with rickety 7-year-old campaign finance charges, noting that Alvin Bragg is a “Soros-backed Manhattan District Attorney.”
That last bit is indisputably true. DeSantis didn’t contend that Bragg was “bought” or “under the thumb” of Soros — even though either would be completely within the norms of modern political rhetoric. He simply asserted that Bragg was “Soros-backed.”
“They’re attacking Jewish international bankers,” Joe Scarborough explained to his guests this morning, including best buddy Al Sharpton, a man who led a pogrom against Jews in New York. “It’s what antisemites have been doing for hundreds of years. … That’s what they do. They try to blame everything on Jewish international bankers. It’s Germany 1933.”
The first question any reasonable person would ask is why? In the partisan-riddled, hyperactive imagination of “Morning Joe,” every Republican is a budding member of the Volksgemeinschaft; but why, in the real world, would the governor of Florida, a state with a sizable Jewish population, send antisemitic dog whistles? DeSantis, according to Morning Joe an “antisemite,” is headed to Israel in a few weeks and has never engaged in any rhetoric or supported any issue that could remotely be construed as anti-Jewish. Indeed, DeSantis is constantly praising the Jewish community.
Reductio ad Hitlerum is both lazy and cynical, but it’s also corrosive. These baseless, politically motivated accusations of antisemitism are especially pernicious because they diminish the significance of the real, growing variety. For most modern American Democrats, antisemitism isn’t something to “fight” as much as it’s a convenient political implement to selectively wield. For the Andrew Weissmanns and Jennifer Rubins of the world, playing to the partisan mob on social media is far more important than worrying about religious Jews being smashed over the head with bricks in Brooklyn or college students feeling compelled to hide their beliefs and identity.
Soros, who has not only dismissed his Jewish identity as irrelevant but worked against Jewish causes, is a standard bearer of the Progressive faith, not Judaism. Soros, the leading benefactor of hard-left causes in the United States, is deeply and transparently involved in our debates. It is highly convenient that no one is permitted to point any of this out without being smeared as a bigot. This was not, needless to say, the standard applied to Sheldon Adelson or to Jared Kushner or anyone on the right.
Today, Soros lied to Semafor — which apparently runs press releases for him — claiming that he “did not contribute” to Bragg’s campaign because “I don’t know him.” “Reporter” Ben Collins floated this laughable excuse yesterday, as well. Using this new standard, the only way to assert a candidate is “backed” by a patron is to obtain pictures of the two shaking hands while exchanging a bag of cash.
Soros groups gave at least $7 million to the outfit Color of Change, which was doling out cash to characters exactly like Bragg in 2020. Bragg took a million in his D.A. race campaign. (Soros’ son also gave Bragg money.) That is a considerable donation for a D.A. race. But Soros has been funding campaigns to elect leftist district attorneys since at least 2015. In 2016, stories with headlines like “George Soros’ quiet overhaul of the U.S. justice system” began appearing. And by 2019, Soros’ groups had pumped at least $17 million into local D.A. races. By 2023, that number probably hit $40 million. Soros has every right to do this. And we have every right to point it out.
None of this is a secret. In his Wall Street Journal column, “Why I Support Reform Prosecutors,” Soros lays out his views on criminal justice “reform” and brags about his financial backing. “This is why I have supported the election (and more recently the re-election) of prosecutors who support reform,” Soros writes. “I have done it transparently, and I have no intention of stopping. The funds I provide enable sensible reform-minded candidates to receive a hearing from the public. Judging by the results, the public likes what it’s hearing.”
One of these people was Alvin Bragg. And there is nothing antisemitic about pointing it out.
