Labor Dept. accused of echoing Nazi slogan in social media post

A controversial social media post from the Department of Labor has poured gasoline on already-smoldering accusations that the Trump administration is amplifying rhetoric and imagery linked to extreme right-wing ideologies.

The video in the post, shared Saturday, features a quick-cut slideshow of artworks depicting glorified scenes of American history, foregrounded by a statue of George Washington.

The caption above that video reads, “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American.”

Social media users quickly noted similarities – in word, form and sentiment – between the Labor Department’s post and a slogan used by the Nazi Party.

“US Government posting a version of ‘Ein volk, ein reich, ein führer,'” said Terry Virts, a former NASA astronaut and current Democratic congressional candidate, in an X post. “I don’t see how this ends well.”

The slogan “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer” translates to “One People, One Country, One Leader.” It was “one of the central slogans used by Hitler and the Nazi Party,” according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The two messages are not a word-for-word match, to be sure. But while experts caution against jumping to conclusions, many see numerous other examples of the Trump administration — including the Labor Department — echoing White supremacist language, ideas or aesthetics online.

Bill Braniff, executive director of American University’s Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab, said he believes that, “When you look at this one post in the context of all the others, it’s not an accident.”

Even at face value, the post raises red flags, Braniff said in an interview. The assertion of Americans having “one heritage,” for instance, clashes with the nation’s history of taking in people from all over the world and establishes the idea of an “in group” and an “out group,” he said.

Jon Lewis, a research fellow at the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, agreed.

“You don’t want to try and ever read into the tea leaves on something that might not be there,” he told CNBC. But “at a certain point, you have to ask how many times until it’s not a coincidence anymore.”

“At a certain point, you can’t even really call it a dog whistle, it’s just a whistle,” Lewis added in an email. “How many times will official [U.S. government] accounts post openly white supremacist content without any repercussions?”

The Labor Department, led by Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment. A spokesperson for the department previously said, “The social media campaign was created to celebrate American workers and the American Dream.”

That comment was given in response to The Guardian’s report on union leaders denouncing the Labor Department over the post.

“It is no surprise that a fascist regime would post fascist propaganda on a fascist social media network like X, but it remains concerning to see the DOL making posts that serve a fascist, white supremacist agenda,” Puneet Maharaj, executive director of National Nurses United, the country’s largest nurses’ union, told the outlet.

Labor’s post is hardly the first time the Trump administration has been accused of spreading far-right or White nationalist propaganda through social media. But in recent weeks, the government has appeared to double down on some of the same controversial messaging.

On Wednesday, ahead of diplomatic talks on President Donald Trump’s increasingly aggressive efforts to acquire Greenland, the White House shared a possibly AI-generated cartoon showing two dog sleds at a crossroads, with one path leading to the U.S. and the other leading to Russia and China.

“Which way, Greenland man?” read the text above that image, which was posted on the White House’s official X account.

Critics have accused the account of echoing “Which Way Western Man?,” the title of a 1978 book defending Hitler and advocating for a White nationalist and antisemitic worldview. The book was written by William Gayley Simpson, said to be a member of neo-Nazi group the National Alliance.

The phrase in recent years has gained popularity on the far right. It has been used in memes in which an image purporting to represent modern society is contrasted unfavorably with an image representing tradition.

The White House’s post wasn’t the first time a version of the phrase had appeared on government social media accounts. 

Five months earlier, the Department of Homeland Security had posted an ICE recruitment image captioned, “Which way, American man?” 

Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin at the time called reporters’ questions about that post “embarrassing.”

In response to questions about the posts from the White House and Labor Department accounts, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told CNBC, “It seems that the mainstream media has become a meme of their own: the deranged leftist who claims everything they dislike must be Nazi propaganda. This line of attack is boring and tired. Get a grip.”

On Jan. 8, the Labor Department posted a photo of a saluting Trump under the words “trust the plan” – a recurring phrase among followers of the far-right conspiracy known as QAnon.

Last Friday, DHS’ official accounts posted an ICE recruitment image declaring, “We’ll have our home again.”

That phrase echoes the title of the song “By God We’ll Have Our Home Again,” the lyrics of which have been “credited to a U.S. fraternal neo-Nazi group,” according to the Toronto Holocaust Museum’s Hatepedia.

McLaughlin, asked on CNN about DHS’ use of phrase, accused critics of “manufacturing fake outrage.”

“There are plenty of poems, there are plenty of songs, there are plenty of books with the same title. And the fact that people would like to cherry pick something of White nationalism … it’s no wonder we’re seeing such vast, rampant assaults against our law enforcement,” she said.

The DHS post, which also featured a stealth bomber and a cowboy riding horseback at the foot of a snowy mountain, came two days after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Nicole Good during an altercation in Minneapolis.

The Southern Poverty Law Center said that the administration’s turn toward allegedly White nationalist content on government social media channels may have begun last June, when DHS shared a cartoon of Uncle Sam calling on Americans to “report all foreign invaders” to ICE. 

Some of the most scrutinized posts have generated the heaviest engagement online. The Labor Department post from last weekend, for example, has tallied nearly 23 million views on X alone, possibly making it the account’s most-seen post.

But they fit into a broader messaging strategy that frequently promotes images and slogans evoking classic wartime propaganda posters and idealized depictions of Americana and U.S. history.

The Labor Department has recently taken to sharing historical paintings captioned with, at times, overtly Christian messages. It also recently launched a social media campaign featuring AI-seeming illustrations of almost exclusively White men.

In November, the family of famed 20th-Century painter Norman Rockwell accused DHS of misusing their ancestor’s work “for the cause of persecution toward immigrant communities and people of color.”

Some extremism experts say the messaging has moved far beyond mere dog whistles.

One way to know that, said Braniff, is that “the neo-Nazis themselves have noticed” and are talking about the administration’s rhetoric.

Other extremism experts and scholars of fascism have also noticed, as have union leaders who have called out the Labor Department, he added.

“It has to do with both the frequency of content coming out, but also the backdrop,” Braniff said. “It seems quite overt at this point.”