One critic, a dean at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy, ventures that he had never heard of Gorka before — the implication being that he can’t be that important if the dean had not bumped into him at some conference. This turns things upside down. Academics become relevant and important by knowing White House personnel, not the reverse.

Finally, anyone advising the president is, by definition, not a fringe character, but a player in the center of the action. Fringe views are the ones that are not even considered by those in power.