(RepublicanDaily.org) – DeSantis speechwriter and conservative journalist Nate Hochman was let go by the DeSantis campaign earlier this week after making a pro-DeSantis video featuring Nazi imagery. According to reports, Hochman had made the video himself and then shared it out through a DeSantis social media account where he retweeted it and deleted the link shortly after.
Hochman, however, couldn’t delete it before savvy internet users froze the frame featuring a spinning sonnenrad (literally “sun wheel”), a form of the black sun Third Reich imagery commonly used both ironically and earnestly among many neo-Nazis and far right racist groups.
Hochman’s video begins by showing a “wojack,” a comic cartoon representing the downtrodden everyman who becomes depressed about former President Trump not following through on his promises to build a border wall or stand up for conservative Americans. The wojack becomes excited, however, after seeing DeSantis following through on promises and the video cycles through imagery and videos of marching combatants.
At the end, it showed DeSantis in front of the Florida state seal which then transformed into a turning sonnenrad. It’s clear that Hochman was trying to capitalize on online meme culture by tying into a semi-ironic interpretation of DeSantis as a based “red caesar” type, but his inclusion of the Nazi imagery led other conservatives such as Rod Dreher to quickly turn on him and point out that he had crossed a line.
This isn’t Hochman’s first brush with controversy, as he has previously spoken highly of far-right Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes, calling Fuentes “based.” Previous videos which raised a stir in the media from the DeSantis campaign had been created in-house and then shared via other accounts to try to make them look independent of the campaign. Hochman has worked previously for the conservative Claremont Institute and the National Review and has widely been seen as a leading young voice in the “new conservative movement.”
The DeSantis campaign said they won’t be “commenting” on the firing of Hochman, as the campaign experiences a significant amount of upheaval. In fact, as funding runs short DeSantis’ team let around 30% of its staff go last Tuesday.
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