GEORGE SOROS CONSPIRACY THEORIES SURGE IN US RIGHT-WING CIRCLES

George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist who has long been a target of conspiracy theories, is now being falsely accused of orchestrating and funding the protests over police killings of Black people that have roiled the United States. Amplified by a growing number of people on the far right, including some Republican leaders and especially by US President Donald Trump, online posts about Soros have skyrocketed in recent weeks.

Soros, 89, a former student of Karl Popper, has donated billions of dollars of his personal wealth to liberal and anti-authoritarian causes around the world, making him a favored target among many on the right. The Hungarian-American, who is Jewish, has also been the subject of anti-Semitic attacks and conspiracy theories for decades, wrote David Klepper and Lori Hinnant for the Associated Press (AP) on Monday, June 22, 2020.

“I think partly it’s an attempt to distract from the real matters at hand — the pandemic, the protests or the Black Lives Matter movement,” Laura Silber, chief communications officer for Soros’ philanthropic Open Society Foundations, said of the theories. “It’s pretty demeaning to the people out there protesting when someone says they’re all paid. It’s insulting.” Experts who study conspiracy theories say the new claims about Soros are a way to delegitimize the protests and the actual reasons behind them.

A look at some of the claims: Soros pays protesters. No evidence has been presented to suggest demonstrators were paid by Soros or his organizations. It’s a new take on an old hoax: past versions claimed Soros paid for a long list of other events, including the 2017 Women’s March held just after President Donald Trump’s inauguration; Soros pays to transport protesters. Last week, a photo claiming to show two buses emblazoned with the words “Soros Riot Dance Squad” got widespread attention. The photo was cited as proof of Soros’ involvement in the protests, but it was bogus. The original photo showed two unmarked buses and someone later doctored it to add the language supposedly implicating Soros; Soros organizes stashing piles of bricks near protests. Several false claims involving stockpiles of bricks have been debunked and no evidence has turned up showing they were purposefully placed.