The crisis of pro-Nazi ideology coursing through the conservative movement has grown so dire that it has even alarmed some Republicans into speaking out.
Just last week, Vice President JD Vance was asked about this crisis during a meeting with Jewish Republicans and he tried to deflect, baselessly claiming that immigrants and their “ethnic hatreds” were somehow responsible for rising antisemitism among white Americans.
In reality, the Trump administration has become a safe haven for people — men, in particular — known for associations with Nazism. The latest example is that of Nate Hochman, who is perhaps best known as the staffer who was let go from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign after his promotion of a video with Nazi imagery.
The New York Times tracked Hochman’s trajectory after his 2023 firing, as he went from a right-wing advocacy group to a gig working for a bigotry-spewing Senate Republican, Missouri’s Eric Schmitt — and, more recently, to a top role within the State Department.
But Mr. Hochman’s career was not over. Within a year, he was making videos with America 2100, a right-wing advocacy group with ties to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Then came a stint working for a Republican senator on Capitol Hill.
This year, Mr. Hochman took a position as a senior aide to one of the most powerful figures in the federal government. He joined the State Department under Mr. Rubio and now works as deputy director of the agency’s policy planning office. According to Mr. Hochman’s email signature, he is also Mr. Rubio’s chief speechwriter.
Mr. Hochman did not respond to a request for comment.
“Nate Hochman is a trusted and key member of the department who has worked tirelessly to advance the president’s foreign policy agenda,” Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman, said in a statement.
By the State Department’s own admission, Hochman is key in helping effectuate the Trump regime’s bigoted foreign policy agenda. And Hochman isn’t the only such example within this administration.
Paul Ingrassia, for example, remains a top lawyer at the General Services Administration despite saying he has a “Nazi streak.” And Peyton Rollins was reportedly hired as a key communications official for the Department of Homeland Security, at age 21, after producing social media posts for the Labor Department that mirrored white supremacist rhetoric and Nazi imagery.
Yet, conservatives are the ones attempting to portray liberals as extremist ideologues.
Federal agencies providing safe harbor to such employees is a crisis that GOP officials should have to answer for. In a just world: Under oath. At the ballot box. And in the media as well.
I long for a media environment where conservative lawmakers are asked to disabuse the literal Nazism linked to Trump officials like these — people with actual power over government policy — with the same ferocity that liberals get asked to disabuse the views of, say, podcaster Hasan Piker or some members of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Because we’re witnessing a real crisis of extremist ideology, not a theoretical one, finding a home in the federal government.
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