Pedro L. Gonzalez – a vocal supporter of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign who is often boosted by official DeSantis staffers – has a known history of wildly racist posts, which he now blames on having once supported President Donald J. Trump. What is less known about Gonzalez, however, is where he came from, and why he now feels the need to attack right-wing conservatives online in his pursuit of political internet relevance.
In recent months, Gonzales has lashed out at Trump-supporting individuals such as Jack Posobiec, Charlie Kirk, and Laura Loomer, often accusing said figures of being bought and paid for.
Gonzalez, also recently supported DeSantis press secretary Jeremy Redfern’s calls to deport conservative reporters who disagree with him.
The tactic is perhaps less surprising when you learn of Pedro’s “former” Marxist past. A keen supporter of the authoritarian leftist Bernie Sanders, Gonzalez’s own Mexican father – also apparently named Pedro Gonzalez – is said to have stabbed a man, possibly to death, before fleeing Mexico for California in the 1940s.
Gonzalez, who has also admitted his parents are poorly integrated Mexican migrants who learned little English, is one of many California leftists who supported the far-left Sanders. But his journey into Trump world, before flipping once again to try and ingratiate himself with the Florida Governor, raises questions over his motives.
Nightmares From My Father.
Writing for a now defunct journal, Gonzalez has admitted to his father’s shady past, raising questions over Pedro Senior’s entry into America, and the status of Gonzalez as a possible “anchor baby” with “birthright citizenship” as a result. Asked about his background, Gonzalez has usually offered cagey responses, and he was especially shifty when asked to discuss his family during a YouTube interview in 2022:
“[M]y mom’s, she’s retired, you know. My dad kind of just worked until the day that he died, and so, uh, long life, long productive life, he worked a lot of different jobs,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t have, like, uh, a remarkable background… My parents were just, you know, like, typical, socially conservative, like, first-generation Hispanic immigrants.”
But “typical Hispanic immigrants” don’t tend to have a murderous – attempted or otherwise – background, with Gonzalez writing about how “all but one of [my father’s] five brothers had been murdered in Mexico” before relating an equally disturbing story about how his dad likely murdered a man before fleeing justice like a coward.
In 2020, he related what he called a “quixotic” tale about how his father “rode all throughout Mexico on his beautiful brown horse” before getting into “a knife fight over a woman” in the 1940s. Gonzalez himself was born several decades later, in the United States – an impossibility had his father murdered or tried to murder a man and then gain entry to America legally. As a criminal, he would have been refused entry.
“My father fled town not knowing whether he had mortally wounded his challenger,” Gonzalez explained in his essay. “The last words shouted by the man he stabbed in the chest, ‘Me mataste!’ (You have killed me!), rang in his ears as he galloped away.”
While some bracero laborers were allowed across the southern border in the 1940s and ’50s, the immigration system still strongly favored Western Europeans, with fugitive murderers and attempted murderers finding it suitably difficult to secure visas.
Having been made aware of The National Pulse’s interest in his family history, Gonzalez hurriedly posted a story to his Substack and X account last night, insisting “I’m not an anchor baby” and claiming the story of his dad is now just “family lore.”
Gonzalez also omitted other details, such as how his family apparently never integrated into America, and failed to explain whether migrants like his parents would be allowed into the country under his latest political crush, Governor Ron DeSantis.
Under an ideal immigration system, would an unskilled laborer with no English and a history of stabbing people in the chest be allowed to stay in America, and should his U.S.-born progeny receive citizenship? The answer is obviously no.
Nazism… Like, Really.
Gonzalez’s open endorsements of racism and anti-Semitism, clear from various leaked messages, are clearer still in light of comments made to fellow DeSantis booster David Reaboi concerning his grandfather-in-law.
During the conversation, Gonzalez boasted that his wife’s grandfather “served in the German military in World War II,” spinning an unlikely tale about the Nazi soldier dying when the Allies bombed Dresden because, “he was helping people get into a bomb shelter, and he… stayed outside and made sure the doors were closed.”
In his aforementioned racist messages, Gonzalez also said he chose a German wife because Germans are the “master race,” advising fellow group members to “keep it hwhite [sic]” when dating.
While it is clear Gonzalez harbors deep racial resentment and perhaps even shame over his own family history, what remains unclear is to what extent the U.S. authorities knew about his father’s murder, or attempted murder, just a few years before entering America. Gonzalez appears more than happy to attack others on the basis of background, but when it comes to his own, he remains awkwardly imprecise.
