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The Orlando Sentinel published a report this week with a headline that was brutal, but accurate. Highlighting the several factors dragging down Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Republican presidential campaign, the Sentinel told readers, “DeSantis campaign mired in controversies over slavery, anti-gay video, alleged Nazi symbol.”
It’s quite a trifecta. As the GOP governor struggles to get his operation on track, DeSantis generated national attention with his woeful defense of Florida history standards that, among other things, downplay the horrors of slavery. The same week, the public learned that it was DeSantis’ campaign that was responsible for a homophobic video that circulated earlier this month. The plan, evidently, was to make it appear as if it was generated independently, but the Republican’s operation screwed it up.
But it was that last part of the Orlando Sentinel headline that might’ve caught some by surprise: The DeSantis campaign is mired in a controversy about an “alleged Nazi symbol,” too?
Actually, yes. As The New Republic summarized the controversial video this week:
The short clip, reportedly first posted by the Ron DeSantis Fancams Twitter account, shows a “doomer” looking unhappy as he reads news stories on things like Donald Trump’s inaction on immigration, his promotion of Covid-19 vaccines, and his support for the LGBTQ community. Then DeSantis enters (through an eerily small doorway), and the doomer is happy.
Over the course of the 68-second video, viewers are confronted with a series of images — including rockets, bikinis, alligators, the space shuttle and at least one drag queen. But as The New Republic’s report added, the video concluded with “an image of DeSantis, a Nazi symbol interposed over the Florida flag, and soldiers marching toward it.”
This would be offensive enough if it’d been created by some random supporter, but it was a paid member of the Republican’s political operation that was responsible for putting it together.
I won’t pretend to be a campaign professional, but I’d generally advise White House hopefuls to avoid overseeing a campaign team that creates videos with Nazi symbols.
On Tuesday, as DeSantis’ unfortunate “reboot” continued to unfold slowly, the governor parted ways with the aide responsible for the video. NBC News reported:
The staffer, Nate Hochman, had retweeted the video over the weekend before he deleted the post, a screenshot shared with NBC News showed. Hochman, a communications staffer who has written for The New York Times, National Review and other outlets, is considered by some to be an up-and-coming thinker on the right. “Nate Hochman is no longer with the campaign,” a campaign official said. “And we will not be commenting on him further.”
Hochman was not alone: As of this week, according to an NBC News tally, DeSantis’ campaign has fired more than 40% of its original staff.
That report went on to quote a Republican strategist who is not working for any of the 2024 campaigns, who added, “You can’t last this many media cycles with a reboot story. You’re going to start seeing movement away from him of donors and supporters.”
With that quote in mind, the Orlando Sentinel also reported on Tuesday that Nelson Peltz, a billionaire hedge fund manager from Palm Beach, was planning to support DeSantis, but Peltz is now “rethinking his support.”