NRA-ILA | Bloomberg Adopting Soros Model of Buying Political Influence?

The 2023 off-year election cycle is now in our rear-view mirror, and while the results were a mixed bag for those who support the Second Amendment, there was one interesting observation made when it comes to elected offices anti-gun extremists are seeking to purchase.

Bearing Arms noted that anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg seems to be looking to expand his portfolio of politicians beholden to his vast financial resources.  A recent article from the pro-2A online media outlet reported that one of the subsidiaries of Bloomberg’s anti-gun corporate empire, Everytown for Gun Safety, funneled more than $250,000.00 into buying seats on the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) school board in Northern Virginia.

Loudoun County is one of the most affluent counties in the nation, often topping lists as the most affluent.  Its school board has also received a great deal of scrutiny—locally, statewide, and nationally—over the last several years, although not for anything related to firearms or the Second Amendment.

So why is Bloomberg so interested in purchasing seats on the LCPS school board?

One theory is that he is trying to develop a farm system, to use a baseball term, where he can develop anti-gun politicians who may not be able to help promote his anti-gun agenda initially, but who will be able to do so when they reach higher offices.  LCPS school board members cannot do much to change firearm-related policies, but they can use their position on the board to help pad their resume for future campaigns for higher offices with more political power.

Another theory is that Bloomberg will try to use the purchased board seats to indoctrinate students into his anti-gun cult.  While directly impacting the Second Amendment is outside the purview of the LCPS school board, the board does have the ability to influence how certain subject matters are taught in the school system, and could use that influence to vilify guns in general, and promote discredited interpretations of the Second Amendment and failed approaches to criminal justice reform that focus on disarming law-abiding citizens rather than the actions and punishment of violent criminals.

Bloomberg’s expenditures in Loudoun County are reminiscent of fellow anti-gun billionaire George Soros, and he may be the inspiration for Bloomberg pumping cash into races that don’t appear to have anything to do with the anti-gun agenda of Everytown.

Soros is now well known for his wealth being used to spend unprecedented amounts to purchase the offices of prosecutors; prosecutors who then seem to ignore their job of prosecuting violent criminals.  Anti-gun prosecutors cannot change the law to comport with the anti-gun agenda of their benefactors like Soros, but they can upend the criminal justice system in ways that lead to rampant crime waves, which can then be used to exploit the public’s fear of armed violent criminals to promote laws that actually disarm the law-abiding.

If that was the strategy, though, it would appear to have backfired.

Soros-funded prosecutors have become toxic in today’s political landscape.  Chesa Boudin’s election as San Francisco District Attorney was largely funded by Soros, but his policies were widely blamed for the City by the Bay descending into a crime-ridden hellscape, and voters booted him out of office in 2022 via a recall election.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, another Soros acolyte, felt so much pressure for her contribution to the crime problems in her city that she resigned earlier this year.

Kim Foxx, the Cook County (in Chicago, Ill.) State’s Attorney who was also elected with the help of massive funding from Soros, was so bad at her job that she incurred the wrath of anti-gun Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.  After several years of being widely criticized for her failures as a prosecutor, Foxx has chosen to not seek reelection.

Besides the backlash against Soros-funded prosecutors, law-abiding Americans have chosen to ignore the patently false claims of anti-gun extremists that guns are the reason for the nation’s crime wave.  Public opinion polls regularly show that the general public believes that better enforcement of existing laws would be more effective at addressing violent crime where firearms are used than passing more “gun control” laws.

And ever since violent crime started increasing—which coincided with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic—millions of law-abiding Americans have realized that they are best suited to be the initial deterrent to violent criminals threatening their safety, or the safety of their loved ones.  Since the outbreak, lawful gun sales have consistently exceeded 1 million sales per month, with many monthly records set, and subsequently broken, over that time period.

With all that said, how did Bloomberg do in Loudoun County?  A little better than Soros, apparently.  Of the two races highlighted as receiving the most cash from Everytown, Anne Donehue won her race while Erika Ogedegbe, an incumbent, lost.  Soros, in the meantime, has one of the prosecutors he financed, Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney Buta Biberaj, losing her race for reelection, although she has yet to concede.

Whatever the reasons for Bloomberg’s anti-gun apparatus Everytown diving into local school politics, it’s a strategy that warrants watching closely.  Regardless of what offices Bloomberg chooses to buy, you can be sure he will use the purchase to try to attack the Second Amendment.