DHS goes fully fascist in plain sight

As detailed in The New Republic, the Department of Homeland Security's recent social media recruitment drive has sparked controversy and outrage. The implications of this campaign run deeper than "edgy" or "mean" government messaging. What appears to be a crude online marketing for immigration enforcement positions uses neo-Nazi dog whistles, imagery, and white nationalist propaganda. All of this is very calculated.

Obvious red flags abound

The most egregious example came in a recent post from @DHSgov featuring an AI-generated cartoon of Uncle Sam choosing between road signs labeled "Cultural Decline," "Homeland," "Invasion," and "Opportunity." The caption read "Which way, American man?"—a direct reference to the 1978 white nationalist foundational text, Which Way, Western Man?

William Luther Pierce III wrote this book, which was published by neo-Nazi press National Vanguard Books. Pierce also wrote The Turner Diaries. This racist novel inspired the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and influenced the January 6 Capitol insurrection.

This wasn't an isolated incident. Other recent DHS posts have included:

• A message calling immigrants an "existential threat" accompanied by a militaristic video aesthetically reminiscent of the darnker Batman movies
• A post featuring the 1872 painting "American Progress," depicting white settlers displacing Indigenous people
• A caption with language eerily similar to the neo-Nazi "14 Words" slogan about securing white children's future

When questioned about these posts, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin dismissed criticism. She said the administration is "unapologetically proud of American history and American heritage."

Willful blindness

DHS knows exactly what these references evoke. The agency has historically monitored domestic violent extremism, including white nationalist groups. The department has downplayed white supremacist threats, while focusing enforcement on Muslims, immigrants, and left-wing activists. Even as white supremacists have perpetuated the most terror attacks in the U.S.

This bias was evident as far back as the 2017 Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally. Despite being advertised as the largest far-right gathering in recent memory, DHS's intelligence bulletin characterized it as a "free speech event" and identified "anarchist extremists" as the primary threat, not the thousand white nationalists who actually attended.

Law enforcement "stood back and stood by," as one observer noted, until James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens.

I've stood on Heather Heyer way. I have friends that work at the CDC. I've been to Charleston. I've been to Pittsburgh. I live in Atlanta, where Eric Rudolph perpetuated multiple attacks. The source of all these attacks? Radical white supremacists.

Congress also has ignored this trend, focusing on Muslim extremism, where no has really existed here. The agency's 2009 paper warning about domestic violent extremism was later repudiated and the team behind it disbanded. Every part of government has ignored the white supremacist threat. And now they use it.

Built to a purpose

DHS's current behavior isn't an aberration—it reflects the agency's fundamental nature. Created as part of the "global war on terror," it was designed from the start with an exclusionary mindset. As legal scholar Patricia J. Williams observed in 2001, the very term "homeland" sounded exclusionary and was calculated to "denationalize and fuse enemy status with that of domestic criminality."

The agency didn't reluctantly accept weaponization under the current administration; it eagerly embraced the mass deportation mission, adopted its language, and became its online standard-bearer.

When the White House responded to the criticism by declaring they "won't apologize for posting banger memes." This has revealed how this casual cruelty has become normalized. This isn't just about poor social media judgment (there is plenty of that to go around though)—it's about a federal agency actively recruiting from and appealing to white nationalist networks while systematically downplaying the very threats these groups represent.

The masked agents and brutal enforcement tactics should have made this clear already, but DHS's unhinged online propaganda confirms how proud our government has become of dehumanizing people—and how desperately it wants others to join in.

And many will eagerly heed this call if the history of this country has taught us anything at all.

Non in cautus futuri.