Chapter Nine - Soros in Europe

CHAPTER NINE

Soros in Europe

IN AMERICA, GEORGE Soros became a meme.
In Europe, he became a warning label.

The backlash wasn’t just loud over there. It was organized, focused, state-sponsored, and in some cases, deeply personal. Especially in Hungary, the country Soros once called home.

As the Soviet bloc started collapsing, Soros poured money into Eastern Europe. He funded schools, independent media, legal reform, and civil society projects across the former Eastern Bloc. He helped launch Central European University in Budapest. He gave grants to young academics, activists, and politicians. One of those politicians was Viktor Orbán.

But Orbán didn’t stay a liberal.

When he returned to power in the 2010s, Orbán led a sharp nationalist turn, cracking down on migration, curbing press freedom, and consolidating control. And he needed someone to blame for any resistance. Soros was the perfect target.

The Hungarian government launched a full campaign against him.
They plastered Soros’s face on billboards.
They accused him of orchestrating a plan to bring masses of Muslim refugees into Europe.
They passed a law nicknamed “Stop Soros,” aimed at restricting NGO activity.

It wasn’t just politics. It was theater.

The attacks worked. Soros’s university was pushed out of Hungary. His foundations scaled back their presence. The idea wasn’t just to resist his influence, it was to make him the symbol of everything Hungary was rejecting.

Other countries followed the playbook.

In Poland, right-wing leaders blamed Soros for supporting liberal judges and pro-EU protesters. In Italy, anti-migrant politicians accused him of backing the NGO ships rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean. In France, nationalist groups used his name to suggest that immigration itself was part of a plot.

It didn’t matter that Soros didn’t control these governments.
Or that his funding made up a tiny fraction of their political landscapes.
What mattered was what he represented. Cosmopolitanism, liberalism, openness, and foreign interference.

To a lot of Europe’s new right, he became the enemy of national identity.

And in a political environment that thrives on fear, one rich man with a philosophy became the ultimate scapegoat.

He wasn’t just funding democracy anymore.
He was being accused of trying to erase national borders themselves.