Activist with far right ties fronts Marco Rubio-linked anti-immigration effort
Source: The Guardian
Sat 21 Sep 2024 14.12 EDT
The rightwing activist Nate Hochman, who was fired last year by the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, for employing neo-Nazi imagery in a campaign video, is now the face of a Marco Rubio-linked thinktank’s efforts to spread anti-immigrant panic from Ohio to Pennsylvania. Videos featuring Hochman recorded in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, have been boosted on X by a range of rightwing figures including the platform’s owner, the tech billionaire Elon Musk.
In recent days Hochman, 26, has recorded several videos on location in Charleroi for America 2100, a rightwing thinktank where he is an adviser, according to his biographies on X and at websites where he has published articles. Hochman is also a staff writer and podcaster at the rightwing website the American Spectator, where his recent output has mostly consisted of anti-immigrant messaging.
Like Springfield in Ohio, Charleroi has attracted a community of Haitian migrants. The borough manager, Jim Manning, told CBS News on Wednesday that immigrants including Haitians “have been a benefit to the town”. He added: “They come here. They buy property. They open businesses. They work here. They pay taxes. So for us, at the end of the day, it has been a benefit.”
At the time of reporting, Hochman had only published interviews with older white residents of the town, who have variously complained that the newcomers do not speak English and that migrants have taken “American jobs”. One interviewee appears to concede that the Haitians are in Charleroi legally but dismisses the importance of that fact.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/21/nate-hochman-marco-rubio-anti-immigrant-thinktank-america-2100