The Off Topic Topic

[derspiess]

Alex Jones?  Don't do that.

[Valmy]

Soros is just one of many billionaires using their money to 'make the world better' according to their own personal whims. The idea that this one guy is some sort of unique puppet master or really controls much of what goes on is ridiculous. Unless he is a trillionaire, he is just one of dozens if not hundreds of big 'stakeholders' out there.

[Josquius]

Soros is just one of many billionaires using their money to 'make the world better' according to their own personal whims. The idea that this one guy is some sort of unique puppet master or really controls much of what goes on is ridiculous. Unless he is a trillionaire, he is just one of dozens if not hundreds of big 'stakeholders' out there.

The problem is he's standing up to the true big money interests

[The Brain]

Remember the alamy.

[The Minsky Moment]

Tom Steyer and Jim Simons are bigger overall donors for the Democrats than George Soros. They don't seem to be targets for that kind of conspiracy mongering.

Soros is not simply attacked for leftist beliefs, he is attacked in conspiratorial terms using language and images taken directly from anti-Semitic banking conspiracies.  It's just a reworking of the old Rothschild conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elder of Zion, with Soros being the new ringleader.  To see this sort of thing in places like Hungary or Poland, while depressing is not surprising.  To see the same language and imagery invoked by supposedly mainstreamish commentators in the US is more concerning.  It's like the increasingly mainstream use of the term "deep state" in the US - a term used and abused by an authoritarian government in Turkey to destroy the political opposition and civil society.  The right wing in the US, for whatever its many faults, used to be mostly insulated from the more virulent strains of far right ideology globally.  No longer so - the ugliest global memes now take roost here as well.

There is a deeper context here.  Before WW2 and even after, the American Right was infected with fascist, racist, and anti-Semitic tendencies.  A generation of young American conservatives, led by Bill Buckley and others, made it their life's project to purge that ugliness from American conservatism.  For a long time, it look like they succeeded.  Trump and Trumpism has put that entire project at risk and revived a troubling, once dormant strain of American rightest ideology.  It is no accident that Trump's signature slogan is lifted directly from America's last significant pro-fascist political movement. 

[Iormlund]

Soros is also the most popular Elder amongst our Far Right. Fortunately our neo-nazi parties have a minuscule following.

[Iormlund]

In other news, it looks like the Spanish government might fall.

[Razgovory]

I've seen quite a bit of the old Rothschild stuff resurrected lately.

The American Right spent the last 15 years attempting to redefine what Nazis were.  "Actually the Nazis were the far left.  Their descendants are the liberals.  The Nazis used the word "Socialist" and that's all you need to know".

Now when Honest-to-God Nazis show up the American Right is unable to identify them, much less oppose them.

[celedhring]

In other news, it looks like the Spanish government might fall.

I think it won't. Every single party besides the socialists actually wants the motion of no confidence to fail (because that would mean a socialist president), just in a way that they can't be blamed for it.

[Iormlund]

Yeah, but a motion to call immediately for elections might actually happen.

[The Larch]

Soros is also the most popular Elder amongst our Far Right. Fortunately our neo-nazi parties have a minuscule following.

You know the PP guy that was dismissed from the European Council recently for taking bribes from Azerbayan? He also blamed Soros for everything, so it's getting popular outside of far right circles.

[Valmy]

I don't think one has to be anti-Semitic to indulge in conspiracy theories regarding the Democrats' most prominent donor.

He is only the most prominent in the minds of anti-Semites.

Or anyone who watches Fox News.

Well now that is just unfair. Not everybody who watches Fox News is a raging anti-Semite.

[Valmy]

Iranians, etc. can hate him for whatever reasons.  The most common reason he's hated by right-leaning Americans is that he's a big-time donor to the Democrats and left-wing causes.  He's basically the Koch Brothers of the Left. 

Now if you're talking about the alt-right, go ahead and have at it with the anti-Semitism claims.

Yeah what happened to the Koch brothers hysteria? I guess with Trump around there is no room for other bogeymen. Anyway if right-leaning Americans are going to single him out as the dark master behind the Democrats they are playing a dangerous game and empowering truly dark and dangerous forces. We have plenty of other big moneyed interests they can heap their scorn onto without providing cover for anti-semites and authoritarian nationalist types.

Anyway as far as I know no entire countries have destroyed their own civil society out of paranoid fear of the Koch Brothers like Hungary has for Soros. It is next level crazy.

[Eddie Teach]

I don't think one has to be anti-Semitic to indulge in conspiracy theories regarding the Democrats' most prominent donor.

He is only the most prominent in the minds of anti-Semites.

Or anyone who watches Fox News.

Well now that is just unfair. Not everybody who watches Fox News is a raging anti-Semite.

They'll have heard of Soros. Unlikely they know the guys Minsky mentioned.

[Valmy]

They'll have heard of Soros. Unlikely they know the guys Minsky mentioned.

And gosh I wonder why that might be?