Of course George Soros is the Financial Times’ “Person of the Year.” They could hardly have given the award to the embattled Emmanuel Macron. Nor would the retreating Angela Merkel have sent a particularly strong message. Jean Claude-Juncker? Gimme a break.
Yes, it is a sign of the decline of the neo-liberal, rules-based, world order that the best person the FT could muster is an 88-year-old billionaire who confesses to having no guilt over his Nazi-affiliated actions during the Second World War.
The paper’s hagiographic take on Mr. Soros’s life would be rage-inducing were it not so risible in its contentions.
The author, Roula Khalaf, appears to make virtue of Mr. Soros’s decision to short the pound in the early 90s, delivering a smashing blow to Britain’s economy in the short-term profiteering interest of the Hungarian-born billionaire.
He then proverbially scratches his head in the Marrakech interview with the FT, stating:
“We had history on our side in the early years. It was a time when open societies were very successful and were gaining ground … But the course of history has changed. That’s the problem that I’m trying to understand. What has made closed societies gain ground.”
If he is indeed as smart as his life’s work and the article in question portrays, Mr. Soros should have no problem discerning precisely why “closed societies” are “gaining ground.” The dichotomy presented is also a false one. There are no “closed societies” in the West. There are just rules, laws, borders, and expectations of immigrants to assimilate.
What Soros means by “closed societies” is, simply: nations who do not want their histories and cultures to be overrun by mass migration — the response to which we are seeing play out in Hungary, Italy, Britain, America, France, Brazil, Spain, Germany and more right now.
Surely, a graduate from the London School of Economics and a student of Karl Popper can understand — even if they disagree — why this is happening.
Of course, Soros knows. He simply doesn’t care. And this is the mentality and approach to the working classes (or, as the Left correctly put it in 2008, the “1 percent”) that the Financial Times is endorsing.
You only have to look so far as the following paragraph from the FT long read to ascertain the battle lines that are being drawn for the next decade. It is the haves vs. the have-nots. And it is not a fight we, the have-nots, particularly wanted to engage in:
Mr. Soros has many homes, but the FT meets him in Marrakesh, where he is due to attend a conference. He is seated in a courtyard past the orange grove in the opulent La Mamounia Hotel. Casually dressed in a blue striped cardigan, he asks his visitors to speak through a microphone because he is hard of hearing. In Hungarian accented English, he jokes that he is the man with golden ears, a reference to his gold-plated hearing aid.
While Soros is busily funding anti-Brexit and anti-Trump efforts on both sides of the Atlantic, I hope the FT and his Open Society Foundations realize one thing about 2019 and the years to come: the deplorables are not going to roll over, nor are they going to back down.
The decision making processes behind Brexit and the deep-state thwarting of President Trump over the past two years have made the resolve of the rebellious even more entrenched.
Like the French with their Yellow Vest protests, I fully expect if the likes of the FT and Soros keep pushing against populism (a word they insist on using in only a derisory fashion), they will receive a push back that makes 2016 look like a dress rehearsal.
Raheem Kassam is a fellow at the Claremont Institute and the Middle East Forum. He is the author of two bestselling books: “No Go Zones” and “Enoch Was Right.“
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.