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FOX’s Lou Dobbs just promoted the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that inspired Pittsburgh massacre

FOX’s Lou Dobbs just promoted the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that inspired Pittsburgh massacre

As white supremacist terrorist attacks spike in frequency, the president’s favorite cable channel continues to pump out open white supremacist conspiracy theories to their millions of viewers. Just last night, decaying windbag Lou Dobbs pushed the common anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Jewish billionaire and Democratic donor George Soros is using his money to “fund open borders and chaos,” accusing him of using his “tentacles” to work against “sovereignty:”

“It is extraordinary and I think most people, I will include myself, cannot conceive of why a man would fund efforts that work against sovereignty, work against our laws, there are laws against illegal immigration — and to see his tentacles reach out into various non-government organizations and nonprofits, that are working with everything from the Koch brothers to the Southern Poverty Law Center as you document through this book.

It is stunning to see how pervasive and how successful he has been with his strategy.”

https://twitter.com/bad_takes/status/1171947107252625408?s=20

This is the same theory that was pushed by the President late last year and directly inspired the anti-Semitic massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For weeks before the attacks, FOX News pushed the unfounded and completely absurd idea that George Soros was funding the “caravans” of immigrants from South and Latin America that were coming into the United States.

Those theories took off on right-wing social media sites like 4chan, 8chan, and Gab, and eventually drove the Tree of Life killer to commit his heinous deeds. The killer wrote on right-wing messaging platform Gab that “HIAS [A Jewish nonprofit that resettles refugees] likes to bring invaders that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

One of the most prominent promoters of this theory, aside from Donald Trump himself, was Lou Dobbs, who bears a portion of responsibility for inciting the horrifying massacre that killed eleven innocent people.

Anti-Semitism on the right has escalated drastically since President Trump took office; the day after the election was marked by swastikas spray-painted in different locations across the country and his first few weeks in office dominated by bomb threats called into Jewish community centers. 

Since then, two right-wing anti-Semitic terror attacks have been carried out at American synagogues and anti-Semitic hate crimes have soared to the highest level in two decades, the vast majority of them linked to white supremacy.

After watching the Republican Party spend months trying to smear Democrats representatives of being anti-Semites over their appropriate and reasonable criticisms of Israel and then to see the complete silence from prominent GOP figures on the promotion of these theories by Dobbs and Trump, it’s clear that the constant hand-wringing over remarks from Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib is motivated by nothing by racism, hatred, and spite, and should never be engaged with or responded to with anything but disgust and condescension.

Colin Taylor
Opinion columnist and former editor-in-chief of Occupy Democrats. He graduated from Bennington College with a Bachelor's degree in history and political science. He now focuses on advancing the cause of social justice and equality in America.

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