Joe Scarborough has decided that criticism of George Soros’s involvement in politics is anti-semitic, and that America is thus “Germany, 1933”:

What Scarborough is saying here is absolute nonsense, and those at whom it is aimed should respond by assiduously ignoring it.

George Soros is heavily engaged in American politics, and he is as liable to be criticized for that engagement as is anyone else. The phrase to which Scarborough objects is “Soros-backed,” which Governor DeSantis used yesterday to describe Alvin Bragg. And why did DeSantis say that Alvin Bragg is “Soros-backed.” I’ll tell you: because Alvin Bragg is backed by George Soros. Here’s CNBC:

Soros’ $1 million check to the Color of Change PAC, the largest individual donation it received in the 2022 election cycle, came days after it endorsed Bragg for district attorney and pledged more than $1 million in spending to support his candidacy, according to records.

CNBC also notes that Soros has spent “hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to back Democratic political campaigns.” Which, as it happened, I already knew, because George Soros writes about it from time to time in public. Here, for example, is a recent column that Soros wrote for the Wall Street Journal. It’s titled, “Why I Support Reform Prosecutors.” It features George Soros’s byline, and only George Soros’s byline. And it contains lines such as:

I have been involved in efforts to reform the criminal-justice system for the more than 30 years I have been a philanthropist.

And:

This is why I have supported the election (and more recently the re-election) of prosecutors who support reform. I have done it transparently, and I have no intention of stopping.

And:

The funds I provide enable sensible reform-minded candidates to receive a hearing from the public.

George Soros is not hiding his involvement in backing the election of the sort of prosecutors whom he prefers — we might call them “Soros-backed” prosecutors — and nor should he hide that involvement. This is America. In free countries, free people are allowed to argue for whichever sort of elected officials they prefer. And in return, other free people are permitted to criticize them. There is nothing factually incorrect about Ron DeSantis describing prosecutors who have been backed by Soros as “Soros-backed”; there is nothing morally wrong with Ron DeSantis going on to criticize those prosecutors, or the results they yield, or George Soros for having helped them get there; and there is nothing “anti-semitic” about Jews who hold political opinions being criticized for those political opinions, as would anyone else be. What Scarborough and co. are trying to do — what so many within the media spend their day doing at the moment — is shut down the debate, so that only one side is able to speak openly. This will not do.