A new campaign from the Trump Administration’s U.S. Dept. of Labor has drawn sharp comparisons to Nazi-era propaganda, raising alarms about the racial and gendered vision of America it promotes.
The glossy, retro-styled posters feature White men in hard hats, lab coats, and muscle shirts alongside slogans such as “America’s Future” and “Your Nation Needs You!” Critics note the deliberate absence of women and people of color, with only one poster including them — placed literally beneath a white man towering above.
Nostalgia or Grooming?
At first glance, the campaign might appear to be a harmless throwback to World War II recruitment posters. But as The Black Wall Street Times reports, its messaging is anything but neutral. The aesthetic centers white masculinity as the symbol of national strength, evoking imagery used by Nazi Germany to elevate Aryan men while erasing women and minorities from public life.
In the 1930s, Joseph Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda popularized posters of blond, muscular men as the “ideal German worker.” Women appeared only as mothers, while Jews, Roma, and others were erased altogether. The Trump Administration’s posters, Nehemiah D. Frank writes, follow a chillingly similar script: White men as the emblem of loyalty, patriotism, and progress.
The Reality They Ignore
This imagery starkly contrasts with the real face of the American workforce. Women make up nearly half of U.S. workers and dominate fields like health care and education. Black, Latino, Asian, and Indigenous workers sustain industries from construction to agriculture to logistics. Immigrant labor powers much of the nation’s infrastructure.
By erasing these contributions, the campaign signals that their work — and their future — are expendable. “The continuity with Nazi aesthetics isn’t coincidence,” Frank warns. “It’s cultural grooming.”
Why It Matters Now
The posters also arrive during a wider rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, alongside rising white nationalist rhetoric in politics and culture. In this context, centering white men as the nation’s destiny isn’t just inaccurate — it’s dangerous.
History shows how propaganda normalizes exclusion long before violence enforces it. “Silence in the face of propaganda is complicity,” Frank concludes.
The Trump Administration’s Labor campaign may be packaged as patriotism, but its message is clear: it narrows who belongs in America’s story, and in doing so, echoes one of history’s darkest playbooks.
Chairman Carr just posted similar material on the FCC FaceBook page.
When I first encountered these images, I thought the site was a parody. I don’t believe most Americans understand what a dangerous predicament we are in. Project 25 is in full swing. The Republic teeters on a knifes edge. Bannon yesterday stated that the intent to stay in power after 2028 because “America needs it…”
People the world over look, laugh and lament the lame ideas that the adminstration think it worth pursuing. We recognize that North Americans are dreamers and believe in imagery, but really this?
Like all of the opposite propaganda found in Hollywood. Against the blonde hair, blue eyes person. Against people who dont conform to changing how they identify themselves, to the people who dont agree with the recent attempt at sexualizing children through the porn in elementary schools, the Balenciaga campaigns and the removal of womens rughts by having men as women take over our world from modeling to sports to how we are identified in health policies aka birthing people not women. It has cultivated deep hatred for me and I have nothing to do with this crap.