There’s a special breed of stories slinking through the shadowy corners of the internet and the brains of people with apparently too much free time: conspiracies about George Soros and, more recently, USAID. These theories are like bargain-bin soap operas—they stink of desperation, and I don’t mean just the financial kind. So who spun these modern fairy tales, what’s the point, who gets burned, and—most importantly—what kind of suckers actually believe them? Let’s carve this up with a sprinkle of salt and a dash of venom.
George Soros, the Hungarian-American billionaire who stacked his fortune on financial gambles and has a soft spot for progressive causes via his Open Society Foundations, has been the conspiracy crowd’s favorite piñata for years. The tale starts taking shape in the 2000s, but its roots reach back to the ’90s when Soros caught flak from nationalists for his role in crashing the British pound in 1992—the infamous “Black Wednesday.” The full-blown conspiracy we know today, though, got its polish in 2008, in Hungary, courtesy of two American political mercenaries: Arthur Finkelstein and George Birnbaum.
These two were hired by Viktor Orbán, the Fidesz kingpin, who needed an outside villain to tighten his grip on power without a convenient local fall guy. Soros, with his wealth, liberal activism, and Jewish heritage, was a dream pick. Finkelstein and Birnbaum turned a divisive philanthropist into a global scapegoat, blamed for funding everything from protests to migration—no solid evidence, just a lot of hot air. The aim? Easy: unite the electorate with a shared enemy, dodge domestic screw-ups, and fan the flames of fierce nationalism. Their campaign worked so well it spilled over Hungary’s borders—hitting the U.S., where Trump and his posse picked up the “Soros funds everything” tune, and Europe, where the far right sees him as the devil himself.
So who are these Finkelstein and Birnbaum characters? Arthur Finkelstein, born 1945 in Brooklyn to Eastern European Jews, was a wizard of negative campaigns. He worked for Nixon, Reagan, Netanyahu, and Orbán, pioneering filthy attacks and voter division. George Birnbaum, born 1970 in Los Angeles to a Holocaust survivor, cut his teeth under Finkelstein and ran with it, advising big shots like Netanyahu, Klitschko, and Bennett. They cashed hefty checks from parties like Fidesz and Likud, often through connections like Netanyahu, who hooked Orbán up with them.
Their hypocrisy’s staggering. Both Jewish—Finkelstein keeping kosher, Birnbaum shaped by his dad’s Auschwitz ordeal—they crafted an antisemitic narrative against Soros, another Jew and Holocaust survivor. They fed Hungary shameless posters of “Soros laughing last” that ripped straight from Nazi propaganda under good ol’ Adolf. Birnbaum later shrugged it off, saying they “didn’t think for a second” about Soros’s Jewishness—he was just a handy target. Really? Wait, it gets uglier. Finkelstein, gay and married to his partner, propped up homophobic Republicans like Jesse Helms, while both peddled a story that endangered Jews—look at the Pittsburgh synagogue attack sparked by anti-Soros hate. All for a fat paycheck and a warped view of “Jewish interests” that excuses any tactic.
Now USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) has stumbled into the conspiracy spotlight. By 2025, X posts started tying USAID to Soros and the CIA, branding it a global destabilization tool. Unlike the Soros saga, this one lacks a clear puppetmaster—it’s more a rumor that took flight amid Trump’s comeback and Musk’s bureaucracy-trashing tirades.
The goal? Weaken trust in the U.S. abroad and stoke domestic paranoia about the government. It screws ties with places like Ukraine or Global South countries where USAID works, and it chips away at faith in American institutions back home, especially among populists.
Who gets hit, who comes out on top? The Soros conspiracy smacks progressive causes, democratic institutions, and Jewish communities exploited by simmering antisemitism. In Hungary, it’s kept Orbán in charge for over a decade; in the U.S., it’s a cudgel against Democrats. USAID takes heat from authoritarian regimes itching to trash U.S. aid, plus domestic skeptics spotting “deep state” boogeymen everywhere. The winners? Politicians and strategists like Finkelstein and Birnbaum, raking in cash and clout from the mess, and figureheads of corrupt, authoritarian, criminal regimes—Putin, Orbán, Netanyahu, even Trump—who redirect scrutiny from their shady antics to a made-up bad guy. Classic disinformation and manipulation playbook.
And who swallows this crap?
The conspiracy junkies: a stew of angry, undereducated loudmouths ranting at the dinner table about Soros, shitty Wi-Fi, nanobots in Coke, flat Earth, and “basement sleuths” swearing USAID’s planting chips in mosquito nets. They’re the type who’d lose a debate to the family cat but fancy themselves Sherlock Holmes after one dodgy tweet. Their brainpower? Like a busted tricycle—creaking along but not going anywhere fast. They gobble blurry memes and yell “Soros pays!” without a clue where Budapest is or who Soros even is.
They’re not always stupid, just lazy—especially mentally. They’d rather cling to a clear villain than admit the world’s a chaotic mess with no director. Finkelstein and Birnbaum’s hypocrisy, if they’ve even heard of them, doesn’t faze them—they buy the product without checking the label. Call them “sheep,” and they bleat back “you’re the sheep!” while braying insults and the latest mantra from Russian propaganda manuals: march! It’s tragicomic: a bunch of suckers keeping this absurd circus alive, convinced they’re the village geniuses.
No point explaining the lunacy of these Soros and USAID theories—political fables, one cooked up by crooks Finkelstein and Birnbaum for power and profit, the other sprouting from distrust and online rumors, egged on by shady types like Musk or Nawfal. Truth doesn’t matter; it’s what people want to believe—and how well you sell the story. Too bad the buyers can’t laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.
Ink And Reason 