My foundations support people in the country who care about an open society. It’s their work that I’m supporting. So it’s not me doing it. But I can empower them. I can support them, and I can help them.

Soros frames his philanthropy as facilitation rather than personal direction. By emphasizing that his foundations “support people in the country” who already “care about an open society,” he shifts agency to local actors and presents funding as a means of empowerment—providing resources, protection, and institutional capacity to civil-society groups. The repetition (“I can empower… I can support… I can help”) underscores a limited but consequential role: he cannot (or should not) substitute for democratic participation, but he can strengthen the conditions under which pluralism, transparency, and rights-based politics can operate. The quote also functions defensively, countering narratives that portray him as orchestrating events single-handedly.