Soros: the Global Right's Apex Boogeyman.
Jul 17, 2025Commentary: By Salim Muwakkil, host of the "Salim Muwakkil Show" on WVON 1690 AM, journalist, and community activist.
On my show last Saturday, a longtime criticism concerning me and my work was recalled during a contentious exchange with a caller and the residual commentary on the FB page of my broadcast. The critique hangs on my reception of a 50-grand grant from the Open Society Institute (OSI), headed by George Soros, a Hungarian financier and philanthropist who is on the far right’s Mt. Olympus of boogeymen.
The grant was intended to help subsidize the journalism I was doing for the publication of which I was the Senior Editor; my specific focus was on how mass incarceration affected prospects of Black leadership. But such grants also represent an acknowledgement and endorsement of your choice of subject matter.
Incidentally, the money was sorely welcomed, as working as an alternative journalist is not exactly lucrative. I did several articles and a chapter in a book edited by Joy James titled "States of Confinement: Policing, Detention and Prisons," explaining this growing relationship between Black leadership and returning citizens. As a recipient of the grant, I was listed as a Fellow of the Open Society Institute (OSI, now Open Society Foundations).
I got the grant in the year 2000, after more than a quarter-century as a journalist grappling with many of the same issues the OSI had targeted. In other words, I felt extremely deserving. These grants require no further commitment to the Open Society Foundation, other than occasional follow-up conferences and gatherings of fellows, most of whom share similar concerns for democratic pluralism and racial equity.
Still, being a recipient of an OSI grant does provide a convenient rationale for those who seek to label you an 'agent' of some sort or another. This, despite the fact that Soros is perhaps the lone billionaire dispersing grants to ideas that challenge the power of the kind of privilege he enjoys. It’s not hard to see why he’s so rare, and why his practices so trouble those with less benevolent motives.
Incidentally, one reason Soros shows up so frequently in MAGA boilerplate is his demonization by Viktor Orban, the Trump-adjacent leader of Hungary (also Soros’ native country), one of the right-wing authoritarians currently sharing the leadership spotlight in places like Italy, Turkey, India, Argentina and Israel. Soros deploys his cash to fund movements and ideas opposed to such autocracies and thus is reviled by the forces on the right.
So … when you hear anti-Soros refrains being shouted from the rhetorical rafters --especially by Black enthusiasts -- be advised that most of their put-downs are products of lavishly-funded propaganda efforts by forces most threatened by the OSI’s liberatory agenda.
Certainly Soros’ OSI is far from perfect; benefits based on a philanthropic billionaire are inherently unstable, arbitrary and susceptible to varied complications. Still, such benefits offer a rare economic incentive to do good in the world.
Be wary of those who prefer to lurk on the cynical fringes launching spurious accusations. Don’t dismiss them, necessarily; just be wary.
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