The Trump Administration Has a Nazi Problem

Do you think I’m exaggerating? Consider the vast amount of evidence

Which way, man of the west?

That was the title of a racist pamphlet published in 1978 by William Gayley Simpson, a former left-wing Christian pastor who became one of the most influential neo-Nazi ideologues in American history.

The book helped radicalize an entire generation of white supremacists in the US, with its virulent anti-Semitism, opposition to all forms of immigration and open praise of Hitler.

The aim of the book, Simpson wrote, was “to reveal organized Jewry as a world power entrenched in every country of the white man’s world, operating freely beyond the borders of all nations, and engaged in a relentless war for the destruction of them all.”

In recent decades, the phrase “Which way, Western man?” has become a popular meme – but only on the far-right fringes of the internet.

Until, of course, Donald Trump returns to the White House. Last August, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) The DHS caption? “Which way, American?”

Shocking? Yes. Coincidence? No. Earlier this month, the official White House Twitter account published a cartoon of Greenland huskies with Danish flags on their sleds, faced with a choice between the White House on one side and the Great Wall of China and Red Square of Russia on the other. The White House legend? “Which way, Greenland man?”

It should be one of the biggest news stories in the United States, if not the world. Eighty years after Hitler’s death and the defeat of Nazi Germany, the US government, in the form of the Trump administration, has a Nazi problem.

Do you think I’m exaggerating? Consider the vast amount of evidence. On social media, as recent investigations by CNN, NBC News and PBS NewsHour have confirmed, official government accounts continue to post Nazi images and memes, use dehumanizing language about immigrants and adopt a fascist aesthetic.

The Department of Labor published a video with the caption “One Country. One People. One Heritage”, recalling the Nazi slogan “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer” (“one people, one empire, one leader”). Another tweet from the Department of Labor announced that “America is for Americans,” which sounds a lot like another notorious Nazi slogan: “Deutschland den Deutschen” (“Germany for the Germans”).

And Nazi rhetoric goes far beyond internet memes.

Earlier this month, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem spoke at a podium with the phrase “One of ours, all of yours” — an expression that “appears to be related to the practice (although not the explicit policy) of collective punishment used by the Nazis against their enemies,” according to Holocaust historian Page Herrlinger.

Last year, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller gave a demagogic speech at Charlie Kirk’s funeral that sounded as if it had been plagiarized from Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels’ 1932 speech titled “The Storm Is Coming.” Even the fact-checking website Snopes couldn’t help but “note the similarities” between Miller’s fascist rhetoric and Goebbels’.

Then there is the question of the team. In February 2025, it came to light that James Rodden, an ICE prosecutor in Texas, maintained a social media account praising Hitler and declaring that “America is a white nation.” This is a federal prosecutor – not a teenager or a troll – propagating Nazi ideology. He was removed from his position after the news came to light, but apparently returned to work this month. When the Texas Observer, which broke the story, contacted Rodden for comment, he declined to comment and referred reporters to his press office.

Then we have Paul Ingrassia, former White House counsel to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who now serves as acting general counsel at the General Services Administration (GSA). He reportedly stated in a group chat: “Every now and then I admit that I have a Nazi side.” In June 2024, he was also seen at a rally in Detroit led by Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. (In a statement to Politico, Ingrassia’s lawyer said of the alleged leaked text messages: “It appears that these messages may have been manipulated or are being provided with context omitted. However, even if the messages are authentic, they clearly read as self-deprecating and satirical humor, poking fun at the fact that liberals absurdly and routinely call MAGA supporters ‘Nazis’.”)

There’s also Ed Martin, Trump’s Justice Department pardons lawyer, who attended several events with one of the January 6th protest participants named Timothy Hale-Cusanelli and referred to him as an “amazing guy,” an “extraordinary leader,” and a “great friend.” Hale-Cusanelli was described by federal prosecutors as a “Nazi sympathizer” who went to work with a “Hitler-style mustache.” (Martin has since distanced himself from Hale-Cusanelli after being questioned and condemned her views.)

How does this rhetoric and behavior from Trump administration officials and social media accounts not constitute a normalization of Nazis and Nazism? And how can we, the rest of us, think this is normal?

As always, corruption starts at the top, with Trump himself. His vice president even suggested that he could be the “American Hitler” (of his scathing criticism of Trump, he later said: “I was wrong”). Trump’s first wife said he kept a book of Hitler’s speeches in a closet next to his bed. (Trump said he “got the book from a friend”). Trump has repeatedly used language straight from the pages of Mein Kampf, denouncing his political opponents as “vermin” and accusing immigrants of “poisoning the blood” of the nation.

In 2022, he hosted Ye, an admirer of Hitler, and Fuentes, the Holocaust denier, for dinner at Mar-a-Lago. (Although Trump distanced himself from Fuentes, he stopped short of condemning or denouncing him.) During his first term, the president’s own former chief of staff claimed that Trump spoke of Hitler with admiration and said he did “some good things.” (In a lawsuit against CNN, Trump claimed that any suggestion that he “would be like Hitler in any future political role” is “false and incendiary,” as is suggesting any association between [ele] and Hitler. The case was archived.)

To be clear: this is not about calling everyone with whom the left disagrees a Nazi, as Trump administration spokespeople like to claim; it’s about recognizing when real Nazis are not just right in front of us, but in power. So here’s a simple rule for Trump and his allies: If you don’t want to be called Nazis, stop hiring Nazis, quoting Nazis, and posting Nazi images.

But don’t expect that to stop anytime soon. In his first term, the president praised neo-Nazis as “very good people,” and his followers spent years desperately denying that he had done so. Today, there is very little denial, shame or regret. The United States government under Trump made the deliberate, calculated and shameful decision to encourage and empower Nazi-glorifying elements within its party; to elevate and amplify the Nazi message.

Don’t just take my word for it. Last year, Dalton Henry Stout, founder of the neo-Nazi Aryan Freedom Network, said out loud what many already thought: “[Trump] it awakened a lot of people to the questions we have been raising for years. He’s the best thing that happened to us.”

Stout went even further: “Our side won the election.”

Originally published by The Guardian on 01/22/2026

By Mehdi Hasan

Mehdi Hasan is the editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo.