OSHKOSH – A recently elected Oshkosh Common Council member is expressing regret about a part of his political past.
Six years after a contentious time at Fordham University in New York, Jacob Floam said he is remorseful for being involved in a pair of controversies in college, including being pictured holding a flag that represents white nationalism.
Someone with knowledge of the photo emailed it to the Northwestern before a Northwestern investigation revealed Floam also received an academic sanction for his role in a “free speech” altercation at a university coffee shop.
In a sit-down interview with the Northwestern, Floam, who also serves as campaign manager for U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, a Republican seeking reelection Nov. 5, said he wished he “was never wrapped up in those things.”
“I’ve absolutely grown from those incidents, and those situations at college are not who I am as a person,” said the 26-year-old former Winnebago County Board supervisor.
“I understand there is a lot of rhetoric about politics out there, but I don’t view myself as a hateful person. I’ve never felt that way at all,” he said.
Both incidents are directly tied to the Fordham College Republicans during the time when Floam served as secretary.
According to reporting done by the college newspaper, the Fordham Ram, both incidents have direct connections to the Fordham College Republicans during the time a then 20-year-old Floam served as the club’s secretary.
In a planned “free speech” exercise, members of the College Republicans, including Floam and President Sebastian Balasov, incited a verbal confrontation with Rodrigue’s Coffee House management by wearing Make America Great Again (MAGA) hats into the coffee shop.
During the university’s investigation of the altercation, a photo then surfaced online of Floam, Balasov and eight other students posing with a flag from the fictional country of “Kekistan” following the completion of an intramural soccer match.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization known for classifying hate groups, shows that “Kekistan” originated from the term “kek” in the gaming world and was first used to “troll” the identity politics of both the far left and right.
“Kek” and “Kekistan” were eventually absorbed into alt-right ideology.
The ‘Kekistan’ flag draws its origins from the German Nazi war flag and serves as a symbol of white nationalism.
The green, black and white “Kekistan” flag, which draws its origins from the German Nazi war flag, now serves as a symbol of white nationalism. It made prominent appearances at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.
Floam claims Balasov was the one who brought the flag “as a joke flag from an online meme,” and neither he nor the other eight students had any idea what the symbol represented.
Floam’s account appeared to be corroborated by The Current GA journalist Jake Shore, who reported on both incidents for the Fordham Ram while he was on campus.
Floam said, “For that flag specifically, one thing that I think is important to know is my father is Jewish, so I was very disappointed about that because my friends at the time took that flag knowing my background and put me in a picture with it.
“I felt betrayed by people I thought I trusted, and that’s a reason why we’re not friends anymore,” he said.
Efforts to reach Balasov and Fordham University Dean of Students Christopher Rodgers proved unsuccessful, but Shore and another former student who wished to remain anonymous painted Balasov’s leadership of the club as controversial.
“It was a very shocking turn for this Republican club that appeared to be creating a lot of strife,” Shore recalled.
“All of a sudden, they just popped up on our radar inciting a lot of strife within the first six months of [former president Donald] Trump’s first year.”
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The College Republicans hosted Roger Stone to speak on campus.
The “strife” apparently began in October 2017 when the club hosted controversial conservative political consultant Roger Stone to speak on campus, drawing the ire of several students and even prompting a Fordham Ram opinion piece.
At the time, Stone was banned from appearing on CNN and MSNBC after previous incidents in which he used offensive language to describe CNN political analyst Ana Navarro and CNN contributor Roland Martin.
A video of the coffee shop incident then went viral and was picked up by national media outlets after College Republicans member Michael Esposito and Rodrigue’s co-president Kristal Ho got into a verbal altercation.
The video shows someone who looks like Floam briefly engaging with Ho while standing near the counter. The Ram’s reporting of the incident quotes a member of the coffee shop saying eight College Republicans stood around the front counter blocking service.
Floam acknowledged that he, Balasov and Ho were sanctioned for their roles in the incident.
“There was this idea of us going into this coffee shop wearing these hats. I was 20 and I said ‘OK,’ but I didn’t expect the response to be as harsh as it was, to be honest with you,” Floam said of the incident.
“I look back at it now and I am thinking ‘why?’ This is something I wouldn’t do today.”
U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman and Oshkosh council member DJ Nichols believe Floam has learned from the incidents.
Grothman and Floam’s fellow Oshkosh council member DJ Nichols appear to share the sentiment that Floam has learned from the Fordham University incidents.
Nichols and Grothman said they were unaware of the flag and coffee shop incidents prior to speaking to the Northwestern.
Floam initially worked with Grothman as his driver in 2020 prior to becoming the congressman’s campaign manager two years later.
“Jacob has been an upstanding guy since I’ve known him and he’s expressed nothing but mainstream conservative ideas, so it would be smallminded to assume the worst of a picture some guy took when he was 20 years old,” Grothman said.
Like Floam, Nichols was recently elected to Oshkosh council in April and said he was surprised to hear such a “picture exists” after getting to know Floam over the last six months.
“Hate speech and hate symbols have no place in Oshkosh, [but] I have never witnessed a bias for or against any group by Jacob, neither on council nor in personal conversations, and I believe we will learn that this was a mistake by a college student that has followed him into adulthood,” Nichols told the Northwestern.
“As a community, we should hold our neighbors and leaders accountable for their actions, but be careful not to define them by their lowest moments.”
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Floam said he is focused on the issues facing Oshkosh.
When asked if he thought this news could impact any political aspirations, Floam said he didn’t have thoughts beyond focusing on the present issues facing council.
According to Floam, he never thought of running for office until his county board seat was left vacant in 2022.
Originally from Maryland, Floam acknowledged his mom, who is from Wisconsin, was always heavily involved in politics.
He spent his last college semester at UW-Madison, where he got to interact with Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos before interning on Capitol Hill in 2019.
Floam said it is his time on the Winnebago County Board and now the Oshkosh Common Council that has most shaped his life in public service.
And he wants Oshkosh citizens to know he is a drastically different person than the Fordham University college student.
“I want people to know that I [care]. I feel very, very strongly about their issues, and I care,” Floam said.
“In college, it was pretty partisan, to be honest with you, and now I believe in us working together because we’re all one community, and at the end of the day, the most important thing to know is that public service is my passion.”
Contact Justin Marville at jmarville@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Oshkosh Northwestern: Oshkosh council member Jacob Floam regrets holding Kekistan flag in college
