Sebastian Gorka’s welcome return to the White House
President-elect Donald Trump’s pro-Israel pick for counterterrorism director pulls no punches about global jihad.
By Ruthie Blum
JNS
Nov 25, 2024
As soon as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced the nomination of Sebastian Gorka to the post of senior director for counter-terrorism in his new administration, the anti-“Make America Great Again” crowd dusted off an old smear campaign against the former West Wing staffer.
One enduring attack centers on his association with Vitézi Rend, a Hungarian merit organization established in 1920. Critics have sought to tie the group to Hungary’s fascist Arrow Cross regime, despite the International Commission on Orders of Chivalry recognizing its modern incarnation.
Gorka has explained that his wearing of the Vitézi Rend medal at Trump’s inauguration in 2017 was a tribute to his father, Paul Gorka, a Hungarian resistance fighter against both fascist and communist regimes.
This controversy underscores the deeper ideological rift between Gorka—a naturalized American, born and raised in Britain, where his parents had fled to escape Communist Hungary—and his detractors. His robust defense of American and Israeli policies has made him a favorite target of those who oppose his unapologetic patriotism and harsh attitude toward Islamization.
Assaults on his character don’t only hail from the left, however. Some of his foes simply can’t stand his rhetorical style or dislike him personally.
Take former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton, for instance, whose reaction to Gorka’s imminent return to the White House was to call him a “con man.” But then, Bolton also has an aversion to Trump, which he spelled out in “The Room Where It Happened,” the memoir he penned after being fired by the president.
Gorka doesn’t seem to be fazed by the epithets being hurled at him. Rather than launching a counter-assault, his response has been to quip about the brouhaha, with such social-media posts as: “The WaPo, NYT and John Bolton all don’t like me? What about James Comey? Or Scaramucci? Or Michael Cohen? Come on guys! I need a good laugh.”
If anything, he takes aspersions cast on his background and skillset as a sign that he’s struck the right nerve. As is the case with Trump, Gorka is either hated or adored.
Among those in the latter category, Trump’s comeback and Gorka’s return—along with the rest of the dream team being nominated for key roles—signal a rebirth.
They provide hope in the restoration of American power in a world gone haywire with hatred for Western values and an explosion of antisemitism—the canary in the coal mine of societal decay. And they restore faith in the fortitude of the United States to wrest itself from the clutches of woke culture.
Gorka has written about all of the above in his books “The War for America’s Soul: Donald Trump, the Left’s Assault on America, and How We Take Back Our Country” (2019); “Why We Fight: Defeating America’s Enemies – With No Apologies” (2018); “Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War” (2016); and “Toward a Grand Strategy Against Terrorism” (2010).
Two of these works were published before he was selected as Trump’s “deputy assistant” the first time around. That his resignation after a mere seven months on the job was due to political differences with the then-newly appointed chief of staff of the White House, John Kelly, who initially served as Trump’s secretary of homeland security.
Kelly’s own departure was spurred by repeated conflicts with the boss. Given that he was reported to have called Trump an “idiot” and the head of a “crazy-town” administration, his exit wasn’t simply appropriate; it explains in retrospect why he didn’t get along with Gorka.
More recently, Kelly said that Trump fits into the “general definition of fascist” as someone who “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”
Gorka, on the other hand, never let his having to leave 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue color his convictions or opinion of Trump. Instead, he used his syndicated show, “America First,” and TV platforms to promote a shared agenda.
He was rewarded by Trump in 2020 with an appointment to the National Security Education Board. And again today, of course.
For Israel, which is contending with a seven-front war to wipe it off the map, Gorka’s new gig is a godsend. In an interview on Nov. 16 with the Russian state-controlled international TV network RT, he was unequivocal about good versus evil.
“President Trump stands shoulder to shoulder with [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and our brethren, our brothers, our friends in Israel, whose job it is right now to destroy every stinking jihadi,” he said.
Both the lyrics and the music indicate that Gorka is a perfect pick.
1 comment:
Dude has as brain, is articulate and has some been-there, seen-that time.
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