If anyone can figure this out, I hope they promise to tell us:
What is it about Soros exactly that leads right-wing commentators — including their long-time leader, Rush Limbaugh — to falsely brand this American citizen a “foreigner”? The answer to that question provides substantial insight into the American Right and how they think about many things.
Soros doesn’t even sound foreign, particularly when the President is named Obama.
DonkeyKong
They just want to horde all the billionares John. Mine, mine, mine! That really is it.
Bubba Dave
I think they see him as more of a rootless cosmopolitan, really.
Chris G.
Traitor to his class, as they said about FDR?
BGinCHI
A rich guy who doesn’t tow the line?
He’s an ideological traitor (he’d get a pass if he was gay, an actor, or could play electric guitar).
gogol's wife
I believe he’s an immigrant from Hungary. If you knew how his name is really pronounced, it would sound furrin to you. But I’m sure he’s a U.S. citizen.
Davis X. Machina
He’s Jewish, a Holocaust survivor, and therefore a rootless cosmopolite.
You’d think they’d cut him slack on the basis of his French conviction for insider trading — a badge d’honneur in wingnut circles, I am sure.
Mike G
He’s a very rich man who isn’t doing his rich guy duty by being a kkkonservative devoted to right-wing selfish politics, corporate feudlism, deregulation and reducing his own taxes. As an apostate, they hate him more than garden-variety progressives.
Having survived the communists and the Nazis, he doesn’t hesitate to point out the similarities between those ideologies and corporatist reactionary Republicanism.
He probably did more than any private individual on the planet to bring down communism, so he has anti-communist cred that makes his criticism of the right a threat.
Plus he’s a joo joo joo with a suspicious Yurpeen accent.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
New rule: every BJ post title must reference a Beatles song. No more of this “Open Thread” nonsense.
BGinCHI
What has 7 arms and sucks?
George Soros.
Wait, no. Def Leppard.
My bad.
kommrade reproductive vigor
What is it about right wingers that makes them scream “Ausländer raus!” when they encounter anyone who doesn’t agree with them?
mclaren
He does have an accent.
New Yorker
He was born in Hungary and doesn’t toe the far-right line, so he’s the “other” just like Obama and millions of other Americans. I mean, I know I’m “other” despite being born here (and having 3 grandparents born here as well), being a white man, and having a business degree because a) I’m a liberal b) I’m an atheist c) I’m an Ivy League graduate and d) I live in New York.
Bella Q
He’s a Joo who doesn’t have an English or German sounding name. Plus he wasn’t born here. naturalized, scmaturalized – he’s a lefty so that makes him a furriner, not a real amerikan. Geez, catch a clue.
MikeBoyScout
We need more red blooded murkins like Rupert Murdoch.
DanR2
So the answer to the question is not part of that Greenwald bit. Thanks for the useless link, then. Also.
Kyle
He’s not a rightard and he has a ‘foreign’ accent and/or name — therefore like Obama he can’t possibly be a “real Murkan”.
George W. Bush
Because if you’re not with us, you’re against us.
New Yorker
I also think there’s an element (as some above have alluded to) of paranoia about the cabal of international Jewish bankers ruling the world involved in this, even if they’re not coming out and saying it. I’m sure much of the Tea Party is as anti-semitic as their far-right brethren in Europe, they just keep it under wraps since they need the Jews in order to have Jeebus come back.
Linda Featheringill
George Soros became a US citizen in 1961.
His father changed the family name from Schwartz to Soros in the 1930s to give them a layer of protection against the Nazis. Apparently, George likes that name and has kept it.
Edited for grammar.
Cris
@DanR2: Greenwald should have closed with “The answer is left as an exercise for the reader. “
KG
@gogol’s wife: yeah, the wikipedia says that he was born in Hungary but that he’s a naturalized citizen. I don’t know the workings of the right-wing mind anymore, but I’m guessing it’s either ignorance or nativism.
I have another thought… I read a while back about the state of politics during the late 18th century, and how political rivals would call each other traitors to the revolution. I think there is some of that in the right-wing psyche.
calipygian
I think the case could be made that Soros is even MORE American than that fat piece of shit Limbaugh since Soros CHOSE to become American, while Limbaugh fell into his citizenship by accidently falling out of a vagina that was located here. Plus, that fat piece of shit declined to die for his country by serving in Vietnam when the call came, preferring to get out of his obligation by bitching and moaning about a boil on his ass.
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
Hold on – am I following?
You’re suggesting that the fact that our President’s name is “Obama” should have some bearing on how the right hears certain last names?
You do realize that they think he’s not really our President, because he’s foreign, right? I mean, you’re still with us here, John Cole, right?
RSR
He’s a rich foreign (born) media savvy politically active guy–which is oh, so un-American. Until Rubert Murdoch came along. But somehow, Soros is still bad and Murdoch is the new good.
The lyric “If X is wrong, I don’t want to be right” comes to mind. Somehow what was wrong for us, when done by them, is right. And still our X is wrong.
IOKIYAR
BGinCHI
The other big difference between Soros and, say, Murdoch or the Koch Bros is that Soros doesn’t benefit directly from the money he donates to Media Matters or Human Rights Watch, etc.
Murdoch and the Kochs, on the other hand, are investing their money in politicians and a political party who pay them back handsomely.
At least fucking Soros has the nuts to spend his money for his principles.
And yeah, I know the Kochs spend a lot of money on philanthropy. Get back to me when it makes them skip a course at dinner at the club.
TR
Of course Soros is a foreigner who spends foreign money.
I heard all about it on Fox News, that all-American network that gets all of its money from a transplanted Australian billionaire and a Saudi prince.
FeFiFo
Its just Otherizing – taking any interpretation of a target’s character to demonstrate how unlike the audience the target really is. And keep in mind that the bar for factual truth in these interpretations is demonstrably low, and has been for some time now. The conservative movement has long been comfortable portraying themselves as the only True Americans (which makes everyone else Not Americans by default). Soros’ Not American Birthplace is just another bingo card square at this point – if it wasn’t that, they have a whole list of other Otherizations they can fall back on (its usually claims he was a Nazi). These types of claims are designed to leave a lasting, general impression of his Otherness that becomes one of many universal references among conservatives, not to stand up to a fact check by someone who would bother to fact check Rush in the first place.
TR
And I should add — if you ever frequent the true believer blogs on the right, they act like George Soros invented the practice of rich people funding political activists.
I really think many of them are genuinely unaware that this has been SOP for the GOP since the 1970s. But mention the work of conservative funders like the Koch brothers, Richard Mellon Scaife, the Coors family, the Olin Foundation, and on and on … and all you get is a blank stare. It’s like they think the Heritage Foundation and AEI and the Cato Institute just sprang organically from the soil.
The irony, of course, is that they believe Soros represents something new and scary … because all the right-wing media and right-wing thinktanks funded by conservative billionaires tell them so.
Sly
He’s a Jew.
Yeah. I said it.
H. Blufeld
_F_ear _O_utrage _X_enopobia.
Everything the Foxsuckers believe can be classified into those three. So Soros has to be a furriner for the Xenophobia theme to take.
H. Blufeld
_F_ear _O_utrage _X_enopobia.
Everything the Foxsuckers believe can be classified into those three. So Soros has to be a furriner for the Xenophobia theme to take.
SectarianSofa
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Er, no thanks, Grandpa.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Sly: He’s a Jew who survived the Holocaust.
Based on some fReichtard rantings I’ve read, this is a crime.
soonergrunt
@Mike G: That’s pretty much it.
SectarianSofa
I think that Soros , representing as he does the same anti-American, pro-Sharia, Soshialist, unChristian, Fascist otherness that drips, also too, from the telepromptagenic words of our “Citizen” Obama, has to be seen as equally empty of will, skill, (and the proud, reflexive, unchecked anti-intellectual fucktardism that seems more and more the hallmark of our exceptional American culture) and above-all Individual Agency. Clearly not an American. He is a ciper, whose wealth (like Obama’s success) was manufactured by outsiders — Hungarians, Jews, Anglicans, Argentinian Communists, the UN, Ancient Hippie Communes, Secret Societies of Sun Worshippers, Zodiac Priests, Illuminati, Scientists, Evolutionists, Elites, World Elites, non-Christian Elites, Modernists, Atheists … life and success orchestrated by the same powers. It doesn’t matter what the reports are, what the ‘citizenship papers’ read … that documentation pales against the shattering obviousness (it don’t take no fancy education) of the real truth. Soros / Obama are soulless golems, doing the bidding of their real masters. Puffed full of of money from the outside. Given cover and cover stories. Full of stories and foreign monies.
Did I mention that golems aren’t American, and can’t be citizens?
junebug
I made the mistake years ago of telling idiots on a wingnut site that I worked for a Soros foundation in a former Soviet Republic. Never heard the end of it.
Soros was able to get into eastern Europe very quickly — even before the Mormons and Christians, IIRC. Perhaps they hate him for that as well as his choices of where to put his money.
I also taught some Malays who hated him — something about currency manipulation.
Working for his foundation wasn’t great, but it gave me the foot in the door I needed to get where I needed to go and I think I did some good. At least I gave the people I interacted with a valuable tool and not just some slosh about getting their own planet one day.
The Republic of Stupidity
Well shit…
They’d call ME a ferringer if they knew what I really thought of ’em…
And my family, on my father’s side, has been here since the Revolution…
No, no… not the Palin Revolt…
The REAL Revolution…
Rheinhard
They don’t of course *really* give a shit about the “foreign” aspect, they just will take any tack available to attack him, for reasons I explained in my post on Oliver Willis:
Roger Moore
@Rheinhard:
There’s also an “I’m rubber, you’re glue” aspect. The right wingers have been (apparently correctly) accused of taking foreign money, and the accusations seem to be hurting them. So they want to turn around and make the same accusations right back at the left. It’s part of the Rovian strategy of accusing your opponents of doing exactly what you’ve been doing.
Angela
My mom, an evangelical Christian, sent me an e-mail a few months ago, about Soros the atheist and how he wants to eliminate God from this country.
I replied if she thought bearing false witness was wrong. Sometimes I just hate having wing nut relatives.
SectarianSofa
@Sly:
I actually had no idea he was Jewish. Or I had forgotten. This happens occasionally, when someone posits that a person is _actually_ hated not for reason X, but because they are Jewish. Is it that people who care (greatly?) if someone is Jewish also know if someone is Jewish? Or am I just poorly informed of the origins of our overlords?
SectarianSofa
@Angela:
I thought everyone had wingnut relatives. I’m trying to figure whether this would imply that the ‘center-right nation’ canard/legerdemain involves an average or a median.
So, anyone _not_ have wingnut relatives? I’m not from and don’t live in Kansas, but that’s where my related wingnuts are.
Angela
@SectarianSofa: I’m from Kansas and I have wingnut relatives in Kansas, Colorado, and Texas. Thank God I moved to the East Coast, where I finally realized the reason they sounded so nuts was because they were.
MeDrewNotYou
@SectarianSofa: In my experience, especially with wingnut relatives, anti-semites know (or think they know) when enemy X is Jewish. Whether it springs from them hating Jews means hating X, or they hate X already and being a Jew is just icing on the cake, I can’t tell.
Roger Moore
@SectarianSofa:
None that I know of, but no shortage of DFHs. I don’t know if there’s a single registered Republican among family members who are first cousins or closer.
Mnemosyne
He’s a Jew.
Next question.
wmd
Don’t forget he broke the pound. He also defies free market orthodoxy.
Mnemosyne
@SectarianSofa:
It’s two things:
(A) People who hate Jews make a point of finding out if people they know or hear about are Jewish;
(B) Anti-Semites decide that anyone they disagree with is Jewish, even if they aren’t. And sometimes even people they agree with — there are persistent rumors that Rupert Murdoch is secretly Jewish because his mother’s maiden name was Green, but it doesn’t appear to be the case.
Comrade Kevin
@SectarianSofa: I don’t have any wingnut relatives, in the American sense, but whoo boy, do I have some doozies in Ireland.
Comrade Kevin
@Mnemosyne: That reminds me of something Christopher Hitchens said years ago about anti-Semites. Essentially, he said that they can’t *not* talk about Jews.
Amir_Khalid
@junebug: Pedantic quibble: “Malays” (e.g. me) are an ethnic group. “Malaysians” (e.g. me and actress Michelle Yeoh) are a nationality. Which of the two do you mean? Resentment here of George Soros — our PM at the time Dr. Mahathir blamed him for betting against the ringgit in the runup to the 1997 financial crisis — cut across ethnic lines, as far as I recall.
goatchowder
Exactly. He’s Jewish– and not a NeoCon. That’s why they don’t consider him American. However, if he were a Likudnik right-wing Jew, they’d be slobbering all over him. I guess being a warmonger– and hating Arabs– is all that it takes to get into the club.
James E. Powell
It’s because he is Jewish, for sure, but also because he is a traitor to his class. It isn’t just the treason in itself. To the standard corporate ruling class mind, that any rich person would be anything other than a right-wing patrician is so at odds with their understanding of the laws of the universe that it is evidence of an evil, dishonest force at work.
He is not merely loathsome, he is to be feared.
Viva BrisVegas
@Mnemosyne:
They could always ask her. Dame Elisabeth Murdoch is 101 years old and looking pretty good for it.
She came from an Irish background, so I suppose she could be descended from Irish Jews, but it must be a peculiarly American thing to think that Green is a more Jewish name than say, Smith.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Angela: Uh, no offense to your mom, but how, exactly does one get God out of a country before He is ready to go?
mai naem
Jeez, y’all are dense. The answer is simple. Soro’s isn’t some form of a sugar daddy to the likes of Bill Kristol, Jonah Goldberg, Ramesh Ponnurru, Dinseh Dsouza etc. so you attack hin.
Bill E Pilgrim
My Hungarian partner pronounces his name as “Shoros” which is how it’s pronounced where he was born. His family was “Schwartz” actually, but changed it to Soros because of anti-Semitism in Hungary. I always imagine Sean Hannity (pronounced “inanity” in the original Martian) or the other wingnuts hearing it that way when she says it, because it would make them even more apoplectic.
She also says “Sharkozy” for another son of a Hungarian aristocrat, which always seems more appropriate with its Jaws-like implications.
gleeb
Maybe they just fear palindromes?
Marmot
@mai naem: Exactly. It ain’t because he’s Jewish. Well, not by itself. Wingers just group their enemies together — “Obama wants the terrorists to win” and “Ike is a secret Commie” and calling someone a fascist and a socialist and “Democrats are the party of parasites” and on and on.
They’re not very smart, and all that matters is Us Versus Them. Never mind that “Them” is a lazy Susan of interchangeable bad guys.
chopper
so he’s jewish, survived occupation by the nazis and the communists, made his own way to wealth, using that money to play a very big role in hungary’s transition from communism to democracy as well as the rose revolution in georgia.
but he’s a liberal, so he’s teh biggest evil evar.
wilfred
A better question would turn on why Soros is offensive in a genuinely political sense, rather than why he is or isn’t offensive to particular political parties or ethnic/religous groups.
The bare minimum of observation would show that the ultra-right wingers are hardly anti-semitic. They are die-hard supporters of Israel for fuck’s sake and routinely support any anti-Muslim action made in the cause of advancing Israeli/Jewish interests in the Middle East. How can they possibly be against Soros because of his nominal religous/ethnic affiliations – critical thinking, please. They are against Soros because he eases his conscience by supporting social programs that they detest.
It would be better to ask yourself why anyone defends Soros when his very existence – currency trader/manipulator- causes more damage to the poor and dispossessed than any purportedly ‘political’ position based on Democrat/Republican wanking could ever cause.
But that would demand thought; and consideration of something more than the Manichean presentation of politics presented by the media you despise and, well… you.
Archangel
I liken it to the scene from the movie 48 Hours where the Eddie Murphy character, a temporarily released prisoner, borrows Nick Nolte’s character’s badge, then proceeds to rough up a few suspects, and afterwards exclaims, “I’m your worst nightmare. I’m a n****er with a badge.”
Substitute the N word for all the other epithets the conservascum like to use (liberals, Feminazis, socialists, atheists, gays), and the word badge for another symbol of power and authority they worship (money, Senatorial seat, Presidency), and there you have their basis for hating Soros. Or Obama. Or Pelosi.
gene108
Funny / Sad thing is stories like George Soros, poor immigrant coming to America and making a fortune, are what used to be considered inspirational material about why America is a great country; why American is the Land of Opportunity and anyone, who is willing to work hard, can live the American Dream.
I guess in the future, the right-wingers don’t want the poor immigrants they will use as grist in their slaughter houses, farms, etc. to get uppity ideas that they can eventually become rich themselves and own their own farm, meat packing plant, etc.
You can’t have stories about poor immigrant becomes fabulously wealthy in America floating around anymore.
fasteddie
They only like white conservative christians. If you are not that, you are not a real american. If you are not a real american, then you don’t count.
godwin alert – these teatard are just nazis wrapped in the flag.
Cris
wilfred actually makes a very good point here; too bad it’s wrapped in the usual package of condescension and scorn.
Thomas
Oh, come on — wingnut gasbags don’t think Soros is a foreigner! They’re banking on the tremendous likelihood that their listeners can be bamboozled into thinking he is. Limbaugh is a scumbaggy fraud, not an idiot.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@SectarianSofa:
Another one this morning. The tide is turning.
SectarianSofa
@Cris:
Hmm, well I’ll grant that wilfred tied a couple of ideas together in a more or less coherent fashion, with a nod to reality based on a surface reading of the barest superficial observation. So, he fits in with most of the commenters here. But he’s the bad kind of jerk and the bad kind of superficial philosophizer, unlike (obviously) the rest of us.
And the usual degradation of ‘Manichean’ was a bit grating, but you get what you pay for.
SectarianSofa
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
I sure hope we’ll be having a Yoko Ono scream-along later on in an open thread title.
SectarianSofa
@Thomas:
Well, those terms can be a bit plastic, so I’m not sure he isn’t both.
He may be a scumfragging bog, as well. Those things blend together, meaning means and ripeness determined o’er and overflowing. Much like the no true Scotsman earlier who was or was not libertarian, an idiot, a fraud, fucking retarded, a brilliant engineer, or an aspy with a digital grasp of the analog currents of what might be but probably isn’t real life.
This is a long way of saying that I’m not sure that in my own language, that ‘idiot’ and ‘scumbaggy fraud’ are not the same thing. I’m sure that if Andrew Sullivan were a Buddhist, his Buddha would have felt the same way.