US Republicans increasingly using antisemitic tropes

Republican candidates and supporters are invoking the Holocaust and citing billionaire George Soros in messages with antisemitic undertones.

Republican officials have increasingly used the name of Jewish billionaire George Soros and invoked Nazi imagery in recent political statements, despite consistent warnings by leading US Jewish organisations that such tropes reflect antisemitic messages.

The uptick began when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told the Conservative Political Action Conference's annual gathering earlier this month that Soros, a Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor, "believes in none of the things that we do”. Orbán also accused Soros of “hating Christianity”.

Days after the CPAC confab, the Republican nominee for governor of Illinois, Darren Bailey, defended past remarks in which he alleged that the Holocaust "doesn't even compare" to abortion on the scale of human atrocities. 

Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate in Pennsylvania, has also invoked the Holocaust on gun control, abortion and the removal of Confederate monuments.

Andrew Torba, CEO of the far-right social media platform Gab, called Pennsylvania's Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Josh Shapiro, an "antichrist," adding that he is praying for the Jewish Democrat's conversion to Christianity.

Kari Lake, Arizona's Republican candidate said Soros and Cindy McCain, widow of Senator John McCain, were conspiring to destroy America

In addressing the phenomenon, Washington Post columnist Max Boot wrote: “You have to be pretty deep in denial to ignore why so many right-wingers from Viktor Orbán to (insert name of Trumpkin) vilify George Soros as a deep-pocketed political manipulator who is betraying ‘the people.’ This is a classic antisemitic trope.”

Stacy Burdett, a former senior official at the Anti-Defamation League and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, said these Republicans were “spouting antisemitic Soros conspiracy theories with impunity. The ADL, American Jewish Committee and IHRA definition are clear: Casting a Jewish puppet master controlling the media, economy, government for malign purposes is antisemitism, full stop.”