© Joe Raedle/Getty Images North America/TNS
A sign near an entranceway to Walt Disney World on May 22, 2023, in Orlando, Florida.

ORLANDO, Fla. — The neo-Nazi demonstration seen over the weekend outside the entrance to Walt Disney World Resort – provoking widespread disgust and outrage – was the latest sign of rising antisemitism in Florida and across the nation, experts said Monday.

Over a dozen far-right demonstrators, including many waving swastikas and some hoisting signs promoting Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign, gathered outside the Disney entrance Saturday, a spectacle that quickly attracted viral attention on social media.

According to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, which responded to the incident, around 15 individuals were involved in the two-hour demonstration in the area of Vineland Road and Hotel Plaza Boulevard around noon Saturday.

In addition to the swastika and DeSantis banners, some had signs displaying antisemitic and white supremacist rhetoric. No arrests were made.

In an unsigned statement, a Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said the agency “deplores hate speech in any form, but people have the First Amendment right to demonstrate.”

“And while what these groups do is revolting and condemned in the strongest way by the Sheriff and the Sheriff’s Office, they did not on Saturday, to our knowledge, commit a criminal act,” the statement said. “They are looking for attention, and specifically media attention.”

The demonstration drew condemnation from prominent figures across Central Florida as well as several notable Jewish organizations.

Democratic state rep. Anna Eskamani of Orlando, who tweeted now widely-shared images and videos of the demonstration shared with her by others via social media, in a statement said Florida “is a state built on diversity and we will always stand against bigotry and hate.”

“It’s absolutely disgusting to see what has become a common presence of Nazis in Florida, and even more disturbing when they are holding signs and flags that signal support for people like Gov. DeSantis,” Eskamani said in a statement. “Every person, regardless of political ideology, should condemn this.”

Kathy Turner, spokesperson for the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida in Maitland, in a statement said the organization “strongly condemns all forms of antisemitism, hate speech and symbols, and is especially disturbed by yet another presence of Neo-Nazis in Central Florida outside of Walt Disney World.”

“We believe education is the key to making hate history, thus why we serve as a dedicated community resource committed to teaching the history of the Holocaust and to combating prejudice and discrimination,” Turner said.

Ben Popp, an investigative researcher at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center of Extremism who specializes in far-right extremism and white supremacy, said the group behind the gathering, known as the Order of the Black Sun, is relatively new. This incident may have been its first in-person demonstration.

The group, abbreviated OBS, “is a small white supremacist network based in the state of Florida,” he said.

“They formed earlier this year, from individuals who have been involved in other white supremacist groups and organizations in the state of Florida for the past couple of years,” Popp said. “So these individuals are well known to us.”

OBS and other similar groups “work together in the state of Florida in order to make themselves appear bigger than they are to both intimidate communities, but also to normalize their antisemitism and normalize their other forms of hate as well,” Popp said. “They want these sorts of things to be a common occurrence. So that people will get used to this and become desensitized. That’s really their whole goal is to desensitize communities to their hate.”

Popp said that while publicizing these groups can be dangerous, spreading awareness about OBS in particular is important because they are already active in spreading white supremacist propaganda throughout the state.

“We believe in educating the public, and while we don’t want to give these extremist groups more attention, we feel that it’s important that people understand what sort of hate is in their community, because that’s the only way that we can we can confront it, as in when we know what we face,” Popp said.

He also noted the increase in far-right extremism in Florida over the past several years.

“From 2020 to 2021, there was a 72% increase in extremist related incidents in the state,” Popp said. “And then from 2021 to 2022, that rose again, another 9%.”

Despite the presence of pro-DeSantis signs at the gathering, the governor had not yet openly condemned or commented on the incident as of Monday.

The circumstances are similar to one that occurred last January, in which far-right demonstrators waving swastikas at a UCF-area shopping plaza and on an Interstate 4 overpass on a Saturday were condemned by politicians across Florida, but went unmentioned by DeSantis until the following Monday, when DeSantis suggested Democrats were attempting to smear him and politicize the incident for political gain.

After the 2022 incident, DeSantis’ press secretary, Christina Pushaw, who now works for his presidential campaign, criticized those asking DeSantis to weigh in on the demonstrations.

The DeSantis campaign and Walt Disney World did not respond to requests for comment.

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