A Columbus-area restaurant announced Wednesday it has canceled a fundraiser it had agreed to host for a Republican governor candidate, citing the candidate’s comments regarding “Adolf Hitler, Nazis, and the Holocaust.”
Casey Putsch was set to hold an event at La Chatelaine, a French Bistro, on Friday. But the restaurant announced on Wednesday that the event was canceled.
Signal Statewide has reached out to La Chatelaine seeking comment for this story.
In a Facebook post, the restaurant said its owners didn’t adequately vet Putsch, who has a history of making winking allusions to Nazism and Hitler, before it agreed to host the event.
The post said the business’s owners have roots in Poland, France and Belgium – which Nazi Germany invaded and occupied during the World War II era – and have loved ones who witnessed and survived the resulting “atrocities and destruction.” For decades, the family wrote, they have hosted annual celebrations honoring American WWII veterans for their role in defeating the Nazis and liberating Europe.
“We unequivocally denounce those who express pro-Nazi opinions and beliefs, and will not host individuals who are at odds with our stance,” the restaurant’s owners wrote. “We acknowledge we should have more carefully researched him and his campaign before agreeing to host this event.”
Putsch’s campaign described the restaurant’s cancellation as a result of “extreme harassment from the left and Vivek SHILLS.” The campaign announced it would instead meet in a park in Columbus and then travel to a nearby “secret location.” It did not immediately return a message from Signal.
Putsch’s winking references to Nazism
Putsch, a Northwest Ohio car researcher and YouTube personality, is running for the Republican nomination for governor against billionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy in the May 5 primary election. The winner would go on to face Dr. Amy Acton, a Democrat, in the November election.
Putsch is widely seen as having little chance of winning. Wagers listed by Kalshi, the political betting website, imply Ramaswamy has a 97% chance of getting the GOP nomination.
But Putsch has attracted outsize attention thanks to his campaign communications, in which he at times has made references to Nazism, in part via his last name, which also is a German word for a coup d’etat.
Most recently, Putsch attracted controversy for touting a “beer hall rally” at a brewery in Toledo. Critics saw the use of the unusual term “beer hall” as intentionally referencing the Beer Hall Putsch, the historical name for Hitler’s initial failed attempt to seize power in Germany in 1923. Putsch told the Toledo Blade he couldn’t help what his name is, and said he wasn’t responsible for the name of his event.
But Putsch’s campaign has been promoting other events with transgressive names, such as an upcoming “savor a sacred cow” event scheduled for a steakhouse. The term is an apparent reference to Ramaswamy’s vegetarian diet and his Hindu faith, which venerates cows.
Putsch also posted a YouTube video last year in which he attempted to prompt Grok, an AI chatbot, to share positive aspects of Hitler’s management of Germany in the 1930s. He objected when the chatbot added Holocaust context to its answers and called the disclaimers “partial,” or biased. He described the video as a stress test of the model’s moderation limits.
Putsch attracts support from ‘groypers‘
Ohio’s governor’s race has attracted broader interest from the far right due to the presence of Ramaswamy, the son of Indian immigrants.
Ramaswamy has written about racist attacks he’s received because of his heritage during his campaign for governor. A New York Times op-ed that he wrote in December specifically referenced Nick Fuentes, a prominent white supremacist who has developed a following among some young conservatives and vowed to try to defeat Ramaswamy in Ohio.
Putsch, by contrast, has courted Fuentes’ followers. He was measured in his response when a podcaster asked him recently about the support his campaign has received from Fuentes and “groypers,” the term for Fuentes’ online following.
“I’ve heard him get called every name imaginable. But I’ve never heard him be called a liar,” he said of Fuentes.
Putsch went on to describe groypers as politically engaged, economically frustrated young Americans who are “thinking for themselves,” and said he takes personal offense at criticism of the movement.
“They’re hearing somebody talk about a thing that no one else has the courage to talk about,” he said.
“I’ve run into lots of them,” he later added. “They make up a huge portion of Gen Z. And it’s understandable why.”
He also didn’t push back when the host brought up likely Democratic gubernatorial nominee Amy Acton’s Jewish faith as a negative trait.
“Yes, there is that,” he responded. He went on to link Acton’s faith to her lack of public comments on Israel and Palestine.
