{"id":42147,"date":"2024-02-17T22:18:19","date_gmt":"2024-02-18T03:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=42147"},"modified":"2024-02-17T22:18:29","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T03:18:29","slug":"neo-nazis-return-to-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/02\/17\/neo-nazis-return-to-florida\/","title":{"rendered":"Neo-Nazis return to Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Democratic state legislator from Central Florida is calling attention to neo-Nazi demonstrators who once again are in Winter Park at the corner of Lee Road and Orlando Avenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cSad to report that Nazi scum and losers are back in Winter Park, holding their disgusting flags and banner. Working with local officials to see what options we have for accountability,\u201d posted Rep. Anna V. Eskamani<\/a> to social media on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group, photographed by a constituent of Eskamani\u2019s, was brandishing a Nazi flag, a Confederate battle flag, and signs that appeared to say \u201cWe must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children\u201d and \u201cJews love genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Florida Highway Patrol is said to be responding to this incident, and we will update if we get more information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purported Nazi demonstrations<\/a> have been on the uptick of late, with increased brazenness and visibility of the groups in Central Florida and elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were seen last summer near Disney World. In 2022, a group of neo-Nazis lined a bridge<\/a> in eastern Orange County, hanging the swastika flag and banners \u2014 including a banner with the pro-Donald Trump slogan \u201cLet\u2019s Go Brandon\u201d \u2014 and yelling profanities and antisemitic slurs at passing cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have reached out to the Governor\u2019s Office for comment. Of course, the Governor\u2019s political operation has been dealing with seemingly avoidable controversies regarding neo-Nazis for some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a tweet posted after the 2022 incident and later deleted<\/a>, former Gov. Ron DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw<\/a> responded to Twitter outrage over the Orlando Nazi demonstration by asking, \u201cDo we even know they\u2019re Nazis?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pushaw then sought to clarify that statement. \u201cI don\u2019t know what you mean by \u2018denying Nazis.\u2019 I was referring to this event in VA, when a group of Democrats dressed up as White supremacists to discredit a (Glenn) Youngkin<\/a> rally,\u201d she told Florida Politics at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar demonstrations<\/a> where people wore Nazi regalia and brandished pro-DeSantis flags have happened in recent years, but the Orlando event seemed to lack any material purportedly promoting the Governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, former senior aides to his presidential campaign oversaw the creation and distribution of a video featuring a Nazi symbol: the Sonnenrad, a circular symbol associated with Nazi Germany<\/a> that appears near the end of the clip as something of a halo around the Governor\u2019s head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis\u2019 campaign fired one aide, speechwriter Nate Hochman, who shared the video<\/a> and reportedly had a hand in creating it<\/a>. Hochman has since written a tell-all condemning the \u201cdownright embarrassing<\/a>\u201d campaign that let him go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeSantis claimed last year<\/a> that he was \u201csecond to none\u201d when it came to reacting \u201cswiftly and decisively\u201d to neo-Nazi protests when asked to respond to claims from Rep. Randy Fine, a former supporter of his who now backs Donald Trump, that DeSantis\u2019 Florida turned a deliberate blind eye to neo-Nazi threats in recent months and years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Washington Times<\/a>, Fine wrote that he was \u201cjumped by a Nazi in Florida\u201d two weeks ago, and that\u2019s \u201cno big deal\u201d in DeSantis\u2019 Florida. DeSantis said Fine was just looking for his \u201c15 minutes of fame.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest neo-Nazi sighting comes as issues involving flags and the Confederacy are stalling out in the Senate. President Kathleen Passidomo told reporters a bill banning Pride flags from government buildings stalled out in committee and likely had no path, and that she likely wouldn\u2019t bring a measure protecting Confederate monuments to the Senate floor since it was \u201cweaponized\u201d by opponents and proponents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Democratic state legislator from Central Florida is calling attention to neo-Nazi demonstrators who once again are in Winter Park at the corner of Lee Road and Orlando Avenue. \u201cSad… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[7598],"class_list":["post-42147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-neo-nazis-return-to-florida"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}