{"id":3544,"date":"2018-02-08T15:41:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-08T20:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/?page_id=3544"},"modified":"2024-04-02T15:57:48","modified_gmt":"2024-04-02T19:57:48","slug":"jewish-insider-rep-gonzales-right-wing-gop-challenger-posted-videos-featuring-nazi-imagery-songs-jokes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ajcongress.org\/jewishpoliticalguide\/jewish-insider-rep-gonzales-right-wing-gop-challenger-posted-videos-featuring-nazi-imagery-songs-jokes\/","title":{"rendered":"JEWISH INSIDER: Rep. Gonzales\u2019 right-wing GOP challenger posted videos featuring Nazi imagery, songs, jokes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Brandon Herrera<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Marc Rod<\/a>, Jewish Insider<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brandon Herrera, a 28-year-old Republican congressional candidate challenging Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) in next month\u2019s GOP runoff, has  posted as recently as 2022 YouTube videos replete with imagery, music and jokes about the Nazi regime and the Holocaust and was also active for years with a Sons of Confederate Veterans group in North Carolina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herrera is running against Gonzales from his right in a district that hugs the Texas-Mexico border from San Antonio to El Paso. Gonzales garnered 45% of the vote in the early March primary, outpacing Herrera\u2019s 25%. But since Gonzales failed to win an outright majority of the vote in the primary, he now faces Herrera in a May 28 runoff, where the challenger threatens to consolidate the right-wing vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herrera is a prolific YouTuber, also known as the AK Guy, with more than 3 million subscribers, primarily posting videos about guns. In one video<\/a> from 2022, he shows off the MP-40, a submachine gun developed in and widely used by Nazi Germany. He refers to it, seemingly jokingly, as \u201cthe original ghetto blaster\u201d \u2014 apparently alluding to the Nazis\u2019 killing of Jews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The video, which appears to take a sarcastic tone, includes a montage of Herrera and an associate firing the weapon, goose-stepping and showing off other Nazi weaponry, set to the song \u201cErika,\u201d which was popularized as a Nazi marching song and which has seen frequent use<\/a> in modern neo-Nazi and far-right propaganda. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The montage culminates with Herrera\u2019s associate, wearing a camouflage outfit with colors resembling a pattern used by the Waffen SS, beginning a Hitler salute before being stopped by Herrera, seemingly in jest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herrera\u2019s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herrera suggests in the video that he\u2019s aware of the connotations of \u201cErika,\u201d encouraging \u201cthe few people out there that realize there\u2019s absolutely nothing wrong with the song we just used and it\u2019s a bunch of soldiers singing about a pretty girl they miss at home\u201d to subscribe to his YouTube channel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the video, Herrera repeatedly acknowledges the potentially inflammatory subject matter, describing the montage as \u201cThe Forbidden LARP\u201d (an acronym for Live Action Role Play). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He adds later in the video that he made \u201creally f***ed up jokes,\u201d saying he did so to encourage his audience to learn from and not repeat history. He adds that he\u2019s \u201cnot really a big fan of fascism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later in the video, before firing the weapon into a case of beverages, Herrera yells, \u201cGestapo right there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herrera\u2019s YouTube account liked comments on the video applauding the \u201cghetto blaster\u201d joke and stating, \u201cbeen wanting to see you cover more funny mustache man Germany guns.\u201d \u201cFunny mustache man\u201d is a reference to Hitler used in some right-wing internet circles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herrera also played \u201cErika\u201d<\/a> in the background of a previous video from 2020, which also covered Nazi guns, along with other Nazi military marching songs, including \u201cSS marschiert in Feindesland<\/em>\u201d (SS marches in enemy territory) and \u201cPanzerlied<\/em>\u201d (Tank Song). Herrera\u2019s YouTube account liked several comments on that video praising his use of the Nazi marching songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herrera, who also owns a Fayetteville, N.C.-based<\/a> gun manufacturing company, has also been a member, over the course of numerous years, of the Fayetteville chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. In 2014, he filmed a video<\/a> for the SCV chapter to welcome and advertise to new members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe SCV\u2026 is a historical honor society dedicated to preserving confederate heritage and learning more about our ancestors who fought and died in the War of Northern Aggression,\u201d Herrera says in the video, wearing a shirt featuring a Confederate flag and using a term that places blame for the Civil War on the Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Herrera says in the video that the group\u2019s purpose is to \u201ccelebrate\u201d and \u201cprotect\u201d Confederate history. He adds that the group also holds an \u201cannual Yankee shoot,\u201d where the group uses antique rifles to shoot at \u201cposters of our favorite Yankees,\u201d as well as an annual ball honoring Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson and a summer camp honoring another Confederate figure. He also complains about a highway built next to the site of a major Confederate arsenal, which he said is \u201ctotally disrespecting the heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re here to protect sites like this, and stop things like that from happening,\u201d he continues, pointing at the highway. \u201cBecause those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In another 2014 welcome video, he refers to the Civil War<\/a> as \u201cthe war for Southern Independence.\u201d Herrera can also be seen in a brief clip included in a 2013 promo<\/a>for the SCV camp; that video begins with the line, \u201cwe learned to fire the cannons at the heathen Yankee horde,\u201d and also includes a reference to \u201ctrain[ing] to kill some Yankees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He remained active with the group until at least 2019: he\u2019s seen in one photo<\/a> from the July 2019 SCV National Reunion in Mobile, Ala., in front of a \u201cConfederate Dead\u201d monument, and also led the group in singing \u201cDixie,\u201d<\/a> an anthem of the Confederacy, in a video from that reunion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a February 2019 photo<\/a> also posted by the Fayetteville chapter, he appears with the group in full Confederate uniform as part of an \u201cHonor Guard.\u201d The photo is captioned \u201cpaying the last respects for a Fellow Compatriot.\u201d
A Brandon Joseph Herrera is also registered to vote from an address in Fayetteville, according to North Carolina\u2019s voter registration database. A Google Street View search for that address shows, as of January 2024, a Confederate flag and a blue flag with a single white star \u2014 briefly used by the Confederacy<\/a> \u2014 flying on a flagpole in the front yard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Marc Rod, Jewish Insider Brandon Herrera, a 28-year-old Republican congressional candidate challenging Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) in next month\u2019s GOP runoff, has  posted as recently as 2022 YouTube videos replete with imagery, music and jokes about the Nazi regime and the Holocaust and was also active for years with a Sons of Confederate Veterans… more JEWISH INSIDER: Rep. Gonzales\u2019 right-wing GOP challenger posted videos featuring Nazi imagery, songs, jokes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3545,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3544","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nJEWISH INSIDER: Rep. 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