It was yet another wink and nod to Nazism -- the original, German variety -- a move that was already present during Trump's campaign but has become increasingly ascendant since he entered office.
Consider a few examples:
- Another ICE ad running the slogan "Which Way, American Man?" -- a reference to the neo-Nazi tract "Which Way, Western Man?"
- E.J. Antoni, the Trump administration's new nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Standards -- an unqualified hack on any metric whose main appeal is clearly a willingness to manipulate the data in Trump's favor -- did an interview where he put a giant painting of the Nazi battleship Bismarck (sunk by the Allies in 1941) as his background.
- Fox commentator Greg Gutfield urging conservatives to "reclaim" the word "Nazi" ("with a hard 'I'"), leading his panel in such hilarious banter like "what up, my Nazi" and "Nazi please!".
- The Washington Times ran a story on army recruiting featuring a pink triangle (the Nazi symbol for gay men) with a "cancel" slash through it; Trump himself reposted it image and all.
I will pause here so we can all let out the collective "CAN YOU IMAGINE IF ILHAN OMAR!!!!" that's slowly been building to a breaking point.
Now, in all these cases, one can -- with extraordinary effort -- try to explain them away. The DHS' font is not technically called "the Nazi font" (it's "Fraktur"), it's just wildly popular with neo-Nazis (despite being banned by the Nazi Party in 1941!). We've already heard tale from Harlan Crowe about how enjoyment of Nazi paraphernalia doesn't make one a Nazi, just a history buff. Even Gutfield's gleeful embrace of being a "Nazi" was framed as "reclaiming" a slur.
That all of these excuses are dumb and unpersuasive is no barrier. Indeed, the foolishness is the point -- recall Sartre's famous discussion of how antisemites like to "play"; to force their adversaries to take seriously their frivolous assertions, then mock them for treating the frivolous as serious. The antisemites wink at their fellows with their choice of font, then say "dude, it's just a font!" with a smirk when the alarm is raised.
But also, it's easier to dismiss these cases when they're viewed in isolation. Put together, there's a pattern, and that pattern is a straightforward embrace of Nazi imagery as a key part of the MAGA aesthetic. This, of course, is coupled with the promotion of policy and personnel who also align with neo-Nazism and White Supremacism. And while the policies are obviously more concretely dangerous, the aesthetic choice is, in its way, more damning as evidence of who this administration is -- it cannot hide behind putatively neutral "policy debates", it serves no purpose other than to elevate bigots and haters. That's what it's designed to do, and that's what it is doing. The arrows all point in the same direction. And we should not hesitate to name what is happening.
