Hungarian White Supremacist Headlines Lee Zeldin Campaign Rally

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Do you remember the last time a sitting Long Island Congressman invited a far-right Hungarian fugitive with personal and family ties to neo-Nazi figures and political groups to headline a campaign kickoff fundraiser? I don't, because it never happened.

But if you bring a hundred bucks to the Smithtown Elks Lodge tonight at 6 p.m., you can say that you remember the last time our representative invited a Nazi-linked speaker to his fundraiser, because that's exactly what's going down at tonight's campaign rally for Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin.

Zeldin's campaign kickoff will feature Rep. Chris Gibson, former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (Donald Trump's Baghdad Bob), and ex-White House "deputy assistant" to the President and Breitbart Editor, Sebastian Gorka.

Or as he's known in the Ph.D program at the political science department of Corvinus University in Budapest, aka Hungary's version of the University of Phoenix Online, "Doctor."

Here is a quick rundown on Sebastian Gorka, and why you probably shouldn't invite him to your next fundraiser:

• Was wanted in Hungary on weapons charges back in 2016.
• Noted Islamophobe.
• Alleged to have lied about aspects of his service to the British Army, otherwise known as "Stolen Valor".
• His Mother, Susan Gorka, worked as a translator for a disgraced British historian who was ruled to be a Holocaust denier by a British judge
• His father, Paul Gorka, was a lieutenant in Vitezi Rend, a far-right Hungarian political organization founded by an anti-semite, was once "under the direction of the Nazi government" according to the U.S. State Department, and has been linked with Nazi ideology for all of its history.
• Sebastian Gorka himself wore his father's Vitezi Rend medal at Donald Trump's Presidential inauguration, and was confirmed as a member of the organization by three Vitezi Rend officials.
• Condemned by the World Jewish Congress and Ann Frank Center for Mutual Respect.
• Is a fraudulent foreign policy "guru".
• Supported the creation of a neo-fascist paramilitary guard by the far-right Hungarian political party Jobbik.
• Was forced out of the White House, along with Steve Bannon, by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.

That last bullet is striking on a number of levels. When John Kelly, the guy who helped create the border policy of separating children from their parents, locking them in cages, and shipping them off to foster care as a border crossing deterrent, decides that he can't work with you because your links to hate groups and far-right politics is a professional liability, and then DONALD FREAKING TRUMP agrees and signs off on the pink slip because your level of bigotry and foreign policy fraudulence is a bad look for him too...that's probably a good time for you to take a hard look in the mirror and ask yourself, "Am I human garbage?"

Now let's also consider that the other guy who was fired by Trump for being too comfortable white supremacy and xenophobia, Steve Bannon, is different from Gorka only in that Bannon is not Hungarian, and did not wear his dad's Nazi-ish medals to the Presidential inauguration. To my best recollection, he simply wore a barn coat.

Bannon and Gorka might be the only two figures on the extreme right wing that Donald Trump is ashamed to be associated with, and both have had the distinction, post-White House firing, of headlining a Lee Zeldin fundraiser.

That is remarkable.

Think about it: Suffolk County's local hate groups, such as the Loyal White Knights of Hampton Bays, have not been as successful in attracting high profile bigots to their events as Lee Zeldin. If you're a member of the Loyal White Knights, that has to be embarrassing.

Zeldin's amazing staff (and let's give them credit here, folks; they landed Bannon and Gorka!) have out-worked the local KKK's event management team, and in one calendar year brought more human garbage to speak on behalf of their boss than the Grand Imperial Wizard could ever dream.

Laugh if you must, but this is all true. 10 years ago, Bannon and Gorka would have been regarded as fringe figures and not allowed within 100 ft of a Republican Party event. But in this age of Donald Trump, they are establishment intelligentsia, ideological yeomen of alt-right politics, sought for guidance by today's degenerate GOP the way that Reaganite politicians in the 1980s craved the knowledge of George Will, Irving Kristol, and William F. Buckley. The Republican Party's collective brain-trust has migrated from think tank intellectuals to internet hucksters.

And few Congressmen have recognized and adjusted to that change like Lee Zeldin.

Elected by the swing voters of NY-1 on the basis of his military record, and the idea that he would be a centrist/lean-right Republican who would advocate for lower taxes but also protect the environment and advocate for labor rights, the Lee Zeldin of 2018 is a different animal than what voters thought they were getting in 2014.

Of course, the idea that Lee Zeldin would become a dignified statesman who focused on solving his district's problems was always a fantasy, and some of us knew that all along.

Zeldin was always an ultra right wing thug at heart, but he was forced to cultivate a happier image until Donald Trump emerged, changed the landscape, and allowed people like Lee Zeldin the freedom to be their true selves.

Now, instead of having to pretend that he cares about serving his constituents, Zeldin spends most of his time on FOX News and Twitter, role-playing as a cartoon villain of the alt-right, because spitting in people's faces makes him cable-famous, fills his campaign account, and is just plain fun when you believe you are insulated from facing any consequences. How else do you explain a Jewish Congressman and Veteran of Foreign War, inviting an alleged fraudulent soldier with anti-semitic ties to speak at his event? Only in a post-truth, post-Trump world does this make sense.

Perhaps the only sitting member of Congress who has stopped lower than Zeldin is Iowa Rep. Steve King, who retweets hate groups without apology. But then again, I don't know that Bannon and Gorka are flying in for that guy's events.

What I do know, is that when disgraced ex-White House officials can no longer show their face in Trump World because their dubious white supremacist affiliations have made them too toxic even for the Presidential Crown Prince of Political Pollution, they call Lee Zeldin's office and ask, "What time is the party?"

That would be 6 p.m., Elks Lodge in Smithtown.