Jon Husted fires political director after use of Nazi imagery

the guy had SS soldiers as a Facebook profile photo. Not a “history interest.” Not an edgy meme. It’s the uniform of a regime that murdered millions, used as a personal badge. If you’re running a Republican campaign in 2026, you don’t get to be “linked to Nazi content” and keep your job. Period.

So yes, Jon Husted fired Stephen Woytek. Good. You cut the cord fast or it wraps around your campaign’s neck. Republicans spend enough time batting away lazy smears. We don’t need to hand Democrats a gift-wrapped talking point because somebody thought a Rhodesia nostalgia playlist was a clever bit of internet posturing. People can argue about intent all day, but campaigns are judged on what they tolerate.

Still, let’s not pretend this is only a PR problem. When a political professional is comfortable curating Nazi imagery and white-supremacist-adjacent content in public, that’s not a “youthful mistake” or a misunderstood joke. It’s a signal. There’s no place for this in a serious GOP operation. The right doesn’t have to borrow the ugliest symbols in history to be tough on borders, crime, or China.

The next step is just as important as the firing: Husted should be blunt about why it happened, and his team should tighten their hiring and vetting so this doesn’t repeat. If the left wants to paint every conservative as a closet extremist, fine, that’s their favorite sport. Our job is to make it easy to see the difference between America First politics and creeps who are obsessed with racial fantasies. This was the right call. Keep it that way.