Emily Tamkin
Emily Tamkin wrote the book on George Soros. Here’s what she has to say about those conspiracy theories.
(JTA) — Journalist Emily Tamkin’s comprehensive dive into the influence of George Soros is coming out into a very different world than she thought it would be released into.
When she started, following the election of President Donald Trump, conspiracy theories about Soros were beginning to make the leap to mainstream in the United States.
More recently, far-right conspiracy theorists have also blamed the 89-year-old Jewish billionaire philanthropist for the Black Lives Matter protests — he is paying protesters and “funding antifa,” they say — and the coronavirus pandemic. Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Soros have reached new heights, with half a million negative messages flooding Twitter every day last month, according to an Anti-Defamation League analysis. World leaders, including Trump, have amplified them.
That means Tamkin’s book, “The Influence of Soros: Politics, Power, and the Struggle for an Open Society,” is arriving at a fortuitous time. Of course, the New Statesman editor said, there would never be a bad time for a book explaining some of the most durable anti-Semitic tropes of our time.
“On the one hand, I thought, wow, the book is coming out with all of these conspiracy theories about him swirling in the news!” Tamkin told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from her home in Washington, D.C.
“And then I thought, well, part of the reason that I wrote the book is that conspiracy theories are seemingly always swirling about him in the news.”
Tamkin’s book addresses not only Soros conspiracy theories but the theories at the heart of his philanthropy and what drives Soros to give so much money.
“The protests really do drive home the relevance of the text of the book,” she said. “A protest is people demonstrating because they want to be able to more fully participate in democracy and in society, and that’s fundamentally what Soros’ philanthropy is all about.”
Tamkin addresses not only Soros conspiracy theories but the theories at the heart of his philanthropy and what drives Soros to give so much money. (Courtesy of Tamkin)
In a wide-ranging conversation, we talked all things George Soros, “perfect” anti-Semitism, the paradox of billionaire philanthropists and the Google alerts Tamkin uses to monitor the evolution of Soros chatter online. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
