An employee of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-Florida) presidential campaign was fired on Tuesday after he produced a video featuring Nazi imagery and posted it on Twitter.
Nate Hochman, who served as a speechwriter for the DeSantis campaign and previously wrote for the right-wing publication The National Review, created a meme-filled video promoting DeSantis and disparaging former President Donald Trump, the GOP frontrunner for the 2024 presidential nomination. He then shared the video with a DeSantis-supporting Twitter account, which posted the video on its profile. Shortly after Hochman retweeted the video, it was removed from the original account.
The first half of the video, which is still viewable on some accounts, portrays Trump as not being far enough to the right. The second half of the video features positive headlines — from a far right perspective — of DeSantis, praising him for enacting legislation targeting LGBTQ people. The video also includes militaristic imagery, depicting soldiers marching alongside DeSantis.
At that point, DeSantis’s head is placed in the center of a Sonnenrad, an ancient European symbol that was appropriated by the German Nazi Party and that is frequently used today by white supremacists.
When asked about the incident by Axios, a spokesperson for the DeSantis campaign acknowledged Hochman’s video but refused to comment further.
“Nate Hochman is no longer with the campaign. And we will not be commenting on him further,” the spokesperson said.
DeSantis has continually showcased his fascistic leanings as governor, historians have pointed out.
“I don’t use the F word, the fascist word, too often,” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on fascism and authoritarianism, said last month. “But Ron DeSantis, I have called him many times ‘the Florida fascist.’ He will make himself to be anything he thinks will help him to get ahead. This is what Mussolini did.”
Ben-Ghiat then cited the DeSantis administration’s moves to limit the teaching of factual history, particularly about the role of racism and white supremacy in the U.S.
“When a child or a college student reads about racial discrimination, they may feel a spark of injustice and want to do something about it,” Ben-Ghiat said. “That’s what Ron DeSantis doesn’t want to happen. He wants to create a kind of passive, ignorant population.”
Historian Barbara Ransby echoed these sentiments in an op-ed for Truthout in January.
“In attacking African American studies, DeSantis has taken one more step toward not only a full-on embrace of white nationalism and authoritarianism, but also toward situating himself in a truly ‘alternative reality,’ where facts don’t matter, research is irrelevant, expertise is sidelined, and young people are scurrilously miseducated,” Ransby wrote. She added:
DeSantis’s dangerous actions are textbook proto-fascist measures. … [His] actions are about intimidation, silencing potential dissident voices, preempting critical thinking from young people that might lead to informed political action, and flexing his muscle to silence voices that do not echo his own.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy