“We sent home the [Ottoman] sultan with his army, the Habsburg kaiser with his raiders and the Soviets with their comrades,” Orban thundered to an adoring crowd of more than 100,000 people in central Budapest this past week. “Now we will send home Uncle George.”
George Soros, that is.
With his left-wing views and deep pockets, the 87-year-old New York-based financier and philanthropist has in recent years become the ultimate boogeyman for far-right ideologues, demagogic despots, tin-hat conspiracy theorists and anti-Semites the world over.
George Soros, founder of the Open Society Foundations, advocates for open government and humane treatment of refugees. (Olivier Hoslet/AFP/Getty Images)
But nothing compares to the intimacy and intensity with which he is now being assailed in his native land. As Hungary’s parliamentary campaign enters its final weeks, Orban has made attacks on his onetime benefactor the centerpiece of his reelection campaign.
Although Soros has not visited Hungary in years, his craggy face is a constant here, peering out from bus stations and looming over highways as part of a ruling-party advertising campaign. The ads put a dark spin on Soros’s call for a more welcoming approach to refugees, suggesting that the billionaire has a secret plan to flood the nation with migrants.
The campaign goes well beyond rhetoric. Orban warned ominously Thursday that Soros’s allies in Hungary would face “revenge” after the April 8 vote, and there are already indications of a crackdown to come.
Talk about a misleading article!
Soros' plan for refugees is not secret as the author claims. Soros wrote about it openly and published it in the newspapers. You can read about it here:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/george-soros-heres-my-plan-to-solve-the-asylum-chaos-2015-09-29
First, the EU has to accept at least a million asylum-seekers annually for the foreseeable future. And, to do that, it must share the burden fairly — a principle that a qualified majority finally established at a Sept. 23 summit.
Adequate financing is critical. The EU should provide 15,000 euros ($16,800) per asylum-seeker for each of the first two years to help cover housing, health-care and education costs — and to make accepting refugees more appealing to member states. It can raise these funds by issuing long-term bonds using its largely untapped AAA borrowing capacity, which will have the added benefit of providing a justified fiscal stimulus to the European economy.
Yep, that's correct. Soros wants the countries of the EU to take in one million "refugees" annually - most of whom are actually migrants - and borrow heavily to do it, presumably from Mr. Soros himself and his wealthy friends. Is it any wonder that most sensible Europeans are opposed to Uncle George's plans? Any writer characterizing these plans as "secret" is a joke. The plan is so "secret" that Soros himself published his plan in the newspapers.
Suggesting that a genuine disagreement over policy with a wealthy Jewish guy is due to anti-Semitism, especially when the the ideas of the wealthy Jewish guy are terrible, is absurd. In this case Soros is simply wrong. It makes no difference that he is wealthy, or Jewish. He is simply mistaken.
I leave aside the fact that the author's other characterizations of Mr. Soros' critics are also ridiculous. The simple fact is that most people who disagree with Mr. Soros are ordinary citizens who do not want their countries to be flooded with migrants and to borrow money in order to support them.
There are genuine problems with Hungarian Prime Minister Orban's campaign, and these problems are more profound than this superficial and disinformed author has comprehended. The real problem is not disagreement with Soros, that is sensible policy. The real problem is that Orban is campaigning on little else, and you can't effectively govern a country on "I don't like George Soros." Furthermore, after being in power for eight years Orban's political party seems to have run out of ideas, and the Prime Minister is increasingly surrounded with "yes" men, who want use the power of the state to enrich themselves. Orban's original young allies in overthrowing socialism in Hungary seem to be slipping farther and farther away from the center of political power. About the best thing to be said for Orban's party is that voting for them is voting for the status quo.
Unfortunately, the opposition parties are even worse. They are even more clueless and venal. Their idea of government is raising taxes, greatly increasing the foreign indebtedness of the country, enriching themselves, flooding the country with migrants, and carrying out instructions from Brussels, and I almost forgot to mention their most important campaign cry, "We hate Orban!"
Under the circumstances, it should surprise no one if Orban wins again, in spite of himself.
