During a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre issued a dire warning about a "political disease" sweeping the U.S. with the support of billionaires like George Soros, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer.
LaPierre's address, issued a week after the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, was focused largely on perceived threats to gun rights. But the three Jewish-born individuals he singled out as working to undermine the American way of life have become reliable bogeymen not just for the NRA but for other factions among the far-right.
Over the past week, we've seen what happens when these anti-Semitic overtures boil over into real-world violence. On Friday, a Florida man was arrested for allegedly sending pipe bombs to a number of Democratic lawmakers and activists, including Soros and Steyer. The suspect, Cesar Sayoc, had shared a number of conspiracy theories about Soros, including a meme branding the liberal mega-donor as "Judeo-plutocratic Bolshevik Zionist world conspirator." Another tweet claimed Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg was actually an actor paid by Soros.
Just a day later, a 46-year-old white man with a long history of online anti-Semitism was accused of taking his hatred into a synagogue in Pittsburgh and fatally shooting 11 people. The suspect's activity on the social network Gab shows that he'd posted baseless conspiracy theories about Jewish involvement in the migrant caravan making its way from Central America to the U.S.
Soros, Bloomberg and Steyer are well-known philanthropists whose political donations have made them partisan lightning rods. But their Jewish heritage in particular has helped put them at the center of a series of far-right conspiracy theories about a supposed Jewish-led cadre ― often referred to as "globalists" ― secretly coordinating a foreign invasion of the U.S., or inciting civil unrest and political upheaval, or funding a hostile takeover of the government.
The NRA has regularly trafficked in its own form of conspiratorial anti-Semitism, working to portray Soros, Bloomberg and Steyer as nefarious figures intent on a realignment of American society that will involve stripping people of the right to bear arms.
In a blog post earlier this month, NRA President Oliver North specifically called out Soros, Bloomberg and "shadowy billionaire" and NRA "enemy" Steyer as part of "a small cabal of billionaires and their pet politicians," saying they are "conspiring to permanently transform America into a socialist state."
Their goal, North claimed, is to "crush the National Rifle Association, repeal the Second Amendment and seize power in Washington, D.C. — not with bombs and bullets, but with big bucks buying ballots." North went on to exhort his followers to recruit more NRA members and vote Republican in November in order to "defeat" this plot.
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