In between complaining about being called out for anti-Semitic dog whistles in trying to link George Soros to DA Alvin Bragg and insisting the link between them is a lot stronger than it actually is, the Media continued to push more basic accusations of Bragg being linked to Soros in order to defend Donald Trump.
A March 26 post by Kevin Tober, about an episode of “Meet the Press” in which a Trump appeared, insisted that Bragg is “a radical Soros-backed prosecutor” who is engaged in a “political prosecution” of Trump — though he offered no facts to back up and Trump hadn’t even been indicted yet — then went on a tirade smearing Soros as evil and Bragg as a “third-world” attorney:
It’s clear that no amount of facts or logic will deter leftists like [show host Chuck] Todd from their half a decade quest to see Trump behind bars. Regardless of what you think of the man himself, all fair-minded people know this is a political prosecution by a corrupt third-world District Attorney doing the bidding of one of the evilest men in the world: George Soros.
Tober didn’t explain how “fair-minded people” somehow know this is a “political prosecution” when the evidence hadn’t yet been made public. He also didn’t back up his smears of Bragg and Soros with anything resembling actual facts.
Alex Christy was triggered in an April 6 post when a comedian called out right-wing attacks on Soros and Bragg:
NBC Late Night host Seth Meyers teamed up with show writer Jeff Wright on Wednesday for a painfully unfunny bit where they declared that GOP criticism of George Soros and his funding of progressive causes is “racist” and “anti-Semitic.”
Meyers set the table by reporting that “following President Trump’s indictment, Trump and many of his allies have been claiming the Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg’s investigation is funded by liberal mega-donor George Soros. Here to comment is one of my writers, Jeff Wright, everybody!
After Wright did a bit about how he confused “George Soros” for “George Santos” and some jokes at the latter’s expense, he got to the point, “it turns out George Soros is some rich liberal billionaire who donates to a lot of Democrats and Republicans think he’s the puppet master controlling all the strings on all these Trump investigations and that is offensive.”
Meyers then chimed in to add, “Because it’s anti-Semitic,” to which Wright followed up, “It racist. I mean, why can’t people admit that a black person is capable of hatching an evil scheme like this all by himself?”
If conservatives were to focus their attention exclusively on Bragg himself, Wright and Meyers would almost certainly still play the race card. As it was, Wright highlighted two Republicans and their supposedly outrageous attacks, “Seth, look at all these statements. Ron DeSantis called Alvin Bragg ‘Soros-backed’ Senator Ron Johnson called him ‘Soros funded.’”
Yes, and? Still, Wright then introduced a quick montage of various Republican politicians, conservative activists, and Fox News and Fox Business mentioning name dropping Soros in response to Trump’s indictment.
At the conclusion of the montage, Wright returned to add, “I’m Soros-ed out. Even Trump mentioned Soros in his speech from Mar-a-Lago. Why you gotta keep bringing Soros into this? Let Alvin Bragg enjoy his time in the spotlight.”
[…]Apparently Late Night thinks pointing out one person’s political donations is the same as blaming Jews for your personal problems.
A few days later, though, the MRC was taking the opposite view when billionaire Harlan Crow (who has a weird collection of Nazi stuff) was exposed as the sugar daddy of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
The same day, Clay Waters whined about the New York Times pointing out the anti-Semitic dog-whistle stuff:
In the indictment of Donald Trump, many conservatives saw the malign influence of left-wing billionaire George Soros, who funded the successful election campaign of Manhattan-based Democrat District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The liberal press reacted to criticism of Bragg and “puppet master” Soros with outrage and accusations of racism and anti-Semitism.
A Tuesday morning “news analysis” from New York Times reporters Jonathan Weisman and Andrew Higgins went down the same path: “George Soros Is a Familiar Villain for the Right Wing in Trump’s Indictment.”
“Puppet master,” of course, is very much an anti-Semitic trope — even the MRC has gone there — though Waters seems to be unaware of that history. Instead, he tried to play whataboutism:
Yet when liberals target influential conservative donors as “puppet masters,” the Times nods along, as reporter Jeremy Peters did in a 2018 story about the spat between libertarian donor Charles Koch and Donald Trump:
The difference — which Waters failed to point out — is that Koch is not Jewish and Soros is.
Joseph Vazquez used an April 10 post to complain that the hated NPR called out the right-wing obsession with tying Bragg to Soros:
The taxpayer-funded leftists at National Public Radio flung proverbial sewage at critics who dared raise Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s financial ties to billionaire George Soros.
NPR’s Apr. 6 edition of All Things Considered decried Bragg’s highly politicized prosecution of former President Donald Trump. The outlet railed at critics like Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
NPR host Mary Louise Kelly brought on guest and liberal Soros biographer Emily Tamkin, who downplayed the fact that Soros gave $1 million to the anti-police Color of Change PAC just a few days after the group initially pledged $1 million to support Bragg’s 2021 election campaign. She also teed up Tamkin to direct wild accusations of anti-Semitism at “conservative politicians” who criticize Soros.
But here was the fun fact that Kelly conceded that undermined the entire argument: “I want to open by noting that NPR has in the past accepted money from Soros’ foundation to finance independent reporting on state governments.” Perfect, so no conflict of interest there, right NPR?
[…]MRC Business Vice President Dan Schneider, who is Jewish, slammed NPR for its asinine propaganda in a statement: “NPR is doing what weak people typically do: they call their opponents nasty names instead of addressing the actual issue.” He continued: “[S]imply because the largest donor to Democrats and left-wing causes happens to be Jewish should not make it impossible to point out that Soros is a funder of the most radical, left-wing causes.”
One could more plausibly argue that “weak people” are actually the ones who use propaganda (that could very well be called asinine) to turn people like Soros into bogeymen to advance partisan agendas and who hurl immature insults (like “asinine”) at anyone who disrupts their narrative.