In addition to its recent layoffs of employees, Florida Republican Governor. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign severed ties with Nate Hochman. The former National Review writer is now being blamed for an online video that attacked President Donald Trump’s support for LGBTQ rights.
Hochman, who left National Review for the Florida Republican Party in March, then moved to the Governor’s Campaign where he worked as part of the DeSantis War Room Social Media team and was a member of the rapid-response team.
The New York Times reported that a source said the Trump-LGBTQ Video, which was criticized as homophobic and homoerotic by many, was made by a member of the campaign team, who then sent it to another account. The campaign then retweeted it, as if the video had been discovered.
Hochman retweeted a second video that has since been deleted from the DeSantis War Room Twitter account. It showed a character called “Feels Guy”, who was depressed over Trump, but became excited when DeSantis came into power, with the Florida seal changing to an ancient Nazi symbol, known as a “Sonnenrad”, according to Weigel & Talcott.
Axios claimed that Hochman created the Sonnenrad videos:
Nate Hochman is a speechwriter for the DeSantis Campaign and a former National Review writer. He created the video himself and shared it via a pro-DeSantis Twitter page, according to someone familiar with the situation.
A video was tweeted on Saturday by @desantiscams. This anonymous account, which is followed by several members of DeSantis’ campaign, criticizes former President Trump for failing to build a border wall, and for promoting COVID-19.
The video hyped up DeSantis with Kate Bush’s song “Running up That Hill” (A Deal with God) and ended with a picture of DeSantis at the center of the Florida state seal, which then transforms into a rotating Sonnenrad.
The Anti-Defamation League describes the Sonnenrad as follows:
The Nazi Party, SA, and SS used the Sonnenrad symbology in Nazi Germany at various times. This has led neo-Nazis and other white supremacists of today to adopt these images. White supremacists are fond of a particular Sonnenrad design: two concentric rings with crooked, ray-like rays extending from the inner circle out to the outer circle. White supremacists often place another hate symbol such as a Swastika in the middle of the inner circle.
Hochman’s Twitter profile, as of press time still identified him as a DeSantis member with the following quote: “Good Things are easily destroyed but not easily created.”
