LETTER: We must stand together to stop Kavanagh
Published in Hudson Valley One on October 25, 2023
Yesterday my mailbox was filled with the worst kind of antisemitic crap directly from Mike Kavanagh’s campaign. Reading it made my heart lurch to see that a candidate for Ulster County DA would sink to the level of hateful MAGA and proto-nazi/extremist politicians and their backers. It must not go unanswered.
Kavanagh invokes the ultra-right wing trope of blaming George Soros (meaning Soros the Jew, Soros the globalist controlling banker) as the evil mastermind behind David Clegg’s winning 2019 campaign. This hateful mailing arrived just days after the murderous attack on Jews in Israel and adds to the rising level of antisemitism and Islamophobia gleefully stirred up by extremists.
The Anti-Defamation League has a long article on the use of Soros related themes and how they reek of antisemitism. Here’s an excerpt that fits Kavanagh’s mailing:
“Even if no antisemitic insinuation is intended, casting a Jewish individual as a puppet master who manipulates national events for malign purposes has the effect of mainstreaming antisemitic tropes and giving support, however unwitting, to bona fide antisemites and extremists who disseminate these ideas knowingly and with malice.”
The graphics and words tie Kavanagh to the most extreme elements of the GOP/Party of Trump. The deliberate graphic placement of Soros as the “puppet master” looming over Clegg and Nneji says it all. To quote the ADL again, “Many of those conspiracy theories employ long standing antisemitic myths, particularly the notion that rich and powerful Jews work behind the scenes, plotting to control countries and manipulate global events.” In this case Kavanagh’s mailing infers the notion that Soros masterminds Ulster County elections for some nefarious “Jewish conspiracy.”
All open-hearted candidates and Ulster County citizens must immediately speak out, denounce and act against this extremist attempt by Kavanagh’s campaign. To do anything less allows this political hate to take hold in our community. We must stand together to stop Kavanagh and what can only stir up more hatred and violence against Jews. He is unworthy of the office of district attorney and should drop out of the race.
Tobe Carey
Glenford