Andrew Torba’s Occupied Nation
In “An Occupied Nation: The Menorah on the Lawn - Gab News” (link at end), CEO of Gab.com Andrew Torba presents arguments for intolerance of Jews and a Christian Theocracy in America.
As a Christian, an American Christian, I’m compelled to parse and deconstruct this essay while offering what seems to me the more sensible view.
Mr Torba opens with Allegheny County vs. ACLU, SCOTUS 1989, devaluing Jews as a “tiny” minority, then concluding that the White House being legally unable to display Nativity while able to display Menorah is “a humiliation ritual of a conquering tribe over a conquered nation.”
He may be right to criticize the SCOTUS decision on the basis of the Equal Protection clause of the US Constitution, but instead of laying blame squarely where it belongs, at the feet of the deciding judges, he blames the “conquering” Jews.
He goes on to criticize Trump for saying “it’s true” he is a Jewish president, neglecting the fact that Trump’s daughter converted to Judaism for love and marriage and that he has supported Israel in both terms by moving our embassy to Jerusalem, forging Abraham accords, seeking peace in the middle east through the ties and incentives of trade, and taking on common miscreant enemies like Iran.
Instead Mr Torba stretches like Inspector Gadget to create a strawman that, by these words, Trump “governs as a Jewish president” and states his administration serves the God of Jews and Judaism alone.
Mr. Torba contorts to equate celebrating Hannukah, a Jewish tradition celebrating the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, to honoring “a sacrificial system that His [Christ’s] sacrifice ended”. Yet Jews don’t believe Christ was the Son of God, which is why they are Jews and not Christians.
Mr Torba piles on saying Jews picked up stones against Jesus during Hannukah, as if a murder on Tuesday is Tuesday’s fault.
He may have a point to be critical of Christians who conduct Hannukah celebrations but he stretches like Mr. Fantastic to say that wishing a Jewish friend “Happy Hannukah” is “apostasy with a smile” rather than simply wishing someone enjoy a holiday of their religious tradition.
Mr Torba then provides a chart of the usage of the term “Judeo-Christian tradition” through recent decades, lambasting the term in another strawman that conflates a nation founded on common values with the purported simultaneous practice of two religions by individuals: “They cannot both be true, and pretending they represent a shared ‘tradition’ is either ignorance or deception” and “Christianity is not a branch of Judaism”.
Mr Torba dangerously misses the point when he writes:
The effect of “Judeo-Christian” language is to Judaize the faith. It implies that Christianity is incomplete without Judaism, that the Church needs the Synagogue, that Christ’s finished work on the cross must be supplemented by ongoing deference to those who reject Him. This is theological nonsense and dangerous nonsense at that.
Mr Torba rhetorically asks “who benefits” from the use of the term, answering himself “it transforms Christian piety into a blank check for a foreign nation and a domestic lobby.”
Mr Torba stretches again to claim “we are an occupied nation” whose “foreign policy is made in Tel Aviv” while suppressing “any resistance, any dissent, any recognition of what is happening”.
His remedy is to conclude “Christianity does not need Judaism”, forgetting the Ten Commandments entirely.
He advocates for “liberation” from “bondage” through a process that begins with believing that we are occupied, controlled, and oppressed by Jews.
Mr Torba wraps it up by promoting a mono-theocracy when he says “Christ is King not one king among many, not a junior partner in a Judeo-Christian alliance, but the King of Kings and Lord of Lords before whom every knee shall bow.”
This sounds to me eerily like the path chosen by followers of Sharia.
Mr Torba has a right to his beliefs, both religious and political. We live in America. This means freedom of religion. It also means freedom of speech.
Even contemptible speech may be aired, but it’s spark should be met not with oxygen and fuel but with a soaking wet cold towel.
I herewith offer that towel to smother yet another spark of antisemitism.
https://news.gab.com/2025/12/an-occupied-nation-the-menorah-on-the-lawn/