A flood of anti-Semitic tropes

Soros’ beliefs and causes are certainly fair game for criticism; liberals have demonized the wealthy Koch brothers for their support of Republicans in much the same way that conservatives do Soros. But there can be no doubt that many attacks on Soros are overtly anti-Semitic, drawing on ancient tropes of Jews as sinister and secretive puppet masters. Infowars’ Alex Jones—on whose show Trump has appeared—says Soros is a leader of a “Jewish mafia” that controls global finance. And Trump, echoing Breitbart, has called Soros a “globalist,” which evokes the stereotype of the stateless Jew, loyal to no nation, and falsely accused him of supporting open borders and unrestricted immigration. The Spanish-language Radio Television Marti network, which is funded by the U.S. government, aired a report this year that called Soros a “multimillionaire Jew” of “flexible morals,” who was “the architect of the financial collapse of 2008.” In Soros’ native Hungary, authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban—an anti-immigration nationalist—invoked every anti-Semitic stereotype in his “Stop Soros” campaign this year, saying the country’s enemy was “crafty,” “international,” and “feels it owns the world.”