Hungarian-American military and intelligence analyst Sebastian Gorka, who served as deputy assistant to U.S. President Donald Trump, has a unique take on the Democratic Party — its progressive wing in particular. In an interview broadcast Sunday, Gorka took aim at young progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, comparing the Democratic Party to a lunatic asylum, The Hill reports.
“The lunatics are taking over the asylum…Bill Clinton and his ilk would at least rein in the loonies,” Gorka said.
The Fox News contributor then went on to call former United States President John F. Kennedy a “nationalist,” who would be pushed away from today’s Democratic Party.
“Today, a hardcore, pro-nationalist politician like John F Kennedy would not be allowed in the Democrat party. That’s how bad it is.”
It remains unclear how and why Gorka concluded that John F. Kennedy was a “hardcore, pro-nationalist” politician, especially since — as The Hill notes — it is a widely-known historical fact that Kennedy was frequently accused by his Republican opponents of being a socialist. During the 1960 presidential campaign, the Democratic Party candidate called for funding of programs meant to aid the poor, for instance, which lead to him being accused of propagating socialist policies.
Not much has changed in American politics, judging by Gorka’s most recent statements, since — so it seems — Republicans continue to accuse the Democratic Party of having socialist leanings, even though that appears to be far from the truth. Although left of the Republican Party, the Democratic Party – in a broader, global context – does not fall left of center on the political spectrum.
Gorka tears into progressive Democrats: “The lunatics are taking over the asylum” https://t.co/tWp4fmeUGM pic.twitter.com/2pzndkRksE
— The Hill (@thehill) November 18, 2018
Although left in the context of the American political spectrum, the Democratic Party can be considered a center-right political organization in a broader sense. For instance, according to the Political Compass — a widely-accepted multi-axis political model used to organize political thought — Hillary Clinton, like most mainstream Democrats, can be considered a center-right politician. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, would be thought of as a mainstream leftist in Europe.
For Sebastian Gorka, however, political science appears to be of no concern. Apart from labeling John F. Kennedy a nationalist, and claiming that progressive Democrats are lunatics, Gorka accused the U.S. Representative-elect for New York’s fourteenth congressional district Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of calling for a “socialist revolution,” and criticized Kamala Harris for comparing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the Ku Klux Klan, concluding that the Democratic Party is being taken over by radical politicians.
“When you’ve got Kamala Harris comparing DHS and ICE to the KKK…When you’ve got a [sic] Ocasio-Cortez, who’s publicly calling for a socialist revolution…you understand that the Democrat party has been taken over by radicals,” Gorka said, without backing his claims up with data.
