\n<\/p>\n
Union leaders have accused the Trump administration of a \u201crhetorical shift towards white supremacy\u201d after social media posts by the US Department of Labor drew comparison with a Nazi slogan.<\/p>\n
Recent posts from the agency include a video captioned \u201cremember who you are, American\u201d, with the phrase: \u201cOne Homeland. One People. One Heritage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Users of X, formerly Twitter, and Grok, the platform\u2019s AI tool, highlighted a similarity with the Nazi slogan: \u201cEin Volk, ein Reich, ein F\u00fchrer\u201d (\u201cone people, one realm, one leader\u201d).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe similarity to that Nazi slogan is bad,\u201d Christopher Hayes, a labor historian and professor at Rutgers University, told the Guardian, expressing alarm over \u201cthe motivation behind it, the message, the sentiment and desired outcome\u201d.<\/p>\n
Jimmy Williams Jr, general president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, said the labor department had repeatedly imitated \u201cfar-right and fascist imagery\u201d online: \u201cWhen people tell you who they are, believe them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Puneet Maharaj, executive director of National Nurses United, the largest nurses\u2019 union in the US, added: \u201cIt 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Department of Labor did not comment on the agency\u2019s specific rhetoric on social media. \u201cThe social media campaign was created to celebrate American workers and the American Dream,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
The campaign has triggered a chorus of criticism, alarmed historians and senior figures in the labor movement, and concerned workers inside the agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole point is to demonize the foreign worker, to convince the white working-class vision of the guy who loves Trump,\u201d said Hayes. \u201cThe point is to convince that guy [that] he is the real American, he has been all along,<\/strong> and people like him made this country, and only people like him, so only people like him belong. It\u2019s the same thing the Nazis did.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Nazi propaganda featured \u201cidealized smiling Germans with these grandiose slogans \u2026<\/strong> about what your country is doing, how great your country is, what you can do for it, and it erases the other,\u201d said Hayes. \u201c<\/strong>The other, in the case of Germany, was the Jew.\u201d<\/p>\n Under Trump, the labor department has published artwork, apparently generated by artificial intelligence (AI), depicting only white male workers. \u201cPrimarily here we have a lot of others, and they\u2019re all erased in those montages,\u201d added Hayes.<\/p>\n Other posts by the labor department frequently cite \u201cAmericanism\u201d, decry \u201cglobalism\u201d and tout misleading claims that all US job gains under Trump have gone to \u201cnative born\u201d Americans.<\/p>\n Maharaj, of National Nurses United, said the agency\u2019s posts form \u201cpart of a broader rhetorical shift towards white supremacy that many federal departments and agencies are undergoing under the Trump administration\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are no words strong enough to condemn the propagandistic use of federal departments and their social media channels towards the administration\u2019s ends, which are clearly to harm working people and to benefit billionaires, regardless of immigration status for either,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Williams Jr, of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, said: \u201cThere is a very clear through-line between the administration\u2019s fascist imagery and their violent behavior, like what we all just saw in Minneapolis when Renee Good was killed by an ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agent.\u201d<\/p>\n Inside the labor department, the agency\u2019s rhetoric has also caused consternation.<\/p>\n A labor department employee, not authorized to speak publicly, described the recent social media activity as \u201cradical and ideological\u201d, and said they feared such posts undermine trust in the agency.<\/p>\n \u201cFear reduces reporting, cooperation and early resolution. Those outcomes harm workers first and weaken the agency\u2019s mission,\u201d they said. \u201cPolitical tone on official channels creates discomfort for career staff and weakens credibility with workers and employers. I wish the Department of Labor would remember who they are and what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n A former labor department staffer, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said the rhetoric is \u201cdisturbing and harkens back to a whites-only era\u201d, adding: \u201cWhen they publish posts that decry \u2018globalism\u2019, as a Jew, I recognize that as an antisemitic dog whistle.\u201d<\/p>\n Another former official at the agency, who also requested anonymity, citing fears of harassment, said the department\u2019s social media profiles were previously a place where workers and employers could find important information, developed by policy experts.<\/p>\n \u201cNow it\u2019s a place where they can find AI slop developed by a 23-year-old,<\/strong> with no discernible insights on work or workers,\u201d they said. \u201cWhat a difference a year makes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Union leaders have accused the Trump administration of a \u201crhetorical shift towards white supremacy\u201d after social media posts by the US Department of Labor drew comparison with a Nazi slogan. Recent posts from the agency include a video captioned \u201cremember who you are, American\u201d, with the phrase: \u201cOne Homeland. One People. One Heritage.\u201d Users of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[10075,794,807,1186,3101,573,22124,81,2719,10719,2168],"class_list":{"0":"post-41599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-accuse","9":"tag-administration","10":"tag-leaders","11":"tag-online","12":"tag-posts","13":"tag-shift","14":"tag-supremacy","15":"tag-trump","16":"tag-union","17":"tag-unions","18":"tag-white"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}