DHS Hires Apparent White Nationalist As Communications Director

Do you ever think about how the Trump administration is so insane that you can read the headline “DHS Hires Apparent White Nationalist As Communications Director” and not feel an ounce of shock? Horror, disgust, disappointment, sure, but is anyone really surprised that the Department of Homeland Security hired a dude who blatantly used white nationalist rhetoric while managing the Labor Department’s social media pages as their new communications director? 

According to the New York Times, 21-year-old Peyton Rollins has been placed in charge of DHS’s social media accounts. Rollins was previously a social media aide for the Labor Department, and his tenure there was contentious to say the least. Despite being a young, relatively inexperienced aide, he was essentially given carte blanche to remake the Labor Department’s social media pages in Trump’s image. 

“We’re used to seeing posts about things like apprenticeships, benefits, and unions,” Helen Luryi, who was on the communications team for the department’s Women’s Bureau until she left in April, told the Times. “Then all of a sudden, we get white-nationalist rhetoric.”

More seasoned employees at the Labor Department warned their superiors that Rollins’s posts could be seen as promoting white-supremacist rhetoric, Nazi imagery, and QAnon conspiracy theories. Egan Reich, who worked with the Labor Department for 15 years before leaving last April, said that during his brief overlap with Rollins, he witnessed career staffers being completely shut out of the decision-making process for the department’s social media pages. 

“It’s incredibly chilling and disappointing, and I do feel it diminishes the work my colleagues and I did over the years to educate people about the government,” Reich told the Times. 

From the New York Times:

In a December email, a public affairs official at the Labor Department told a supervisor that one department post had received hundreds of negative comments because it used Confederate imagery and a font reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

The typeface in the post, called Fraktur, had been used in early Nazi government documents and on the original cover of Hitler’s book, “Mein Kampf.”

The email also flagged negative feedback relating to imagery in the same post that showed 11 stars, the same number as appeared on one of the Confederate flags. 

In early January, a colleague sent an email flagging what the email called nearly 20 instances in which department posts included phrases associated with QAnon, an internet conspiracy theory. It also noted violent language and a recurrent antisemitic trope.

DHS’s social media pages have already come under fire for their blatant racism and unhinged propaganda promoting ICE’s mass deportation efforts. Did DHS feel they weren’t saying the quiet part loud enough, so they hired Rollins? 

The timing of this is odd, considering that the majority of the population disapproves of ICE and the Trump administration’s approach to immigration. Instead of calming down the rhetoric, the hiring of Rollins seems to point towards a doubling down. Two things can be true: white America historically has an alarmingly high tolerance for violence against Black and brown bodies, but, ugh, I hate that I’m doing this, but not all white people are okay with blatant white nationalism. 

We need only look to the massive economic blackouts that have taken place in Minnesota and throughout the country after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot by ICE agents. MAGA is a minority that consists of weirdos and the proudly ignorant. We’re seeing in real time how the blatant white nationalism of the Trump administration is receiving pushback from a wide range of people, including white folks. 

By allowing Peyton Rollins to say the quiet part with a megaphone, the Trump administration is feeding the die-hards while alienating literally everyone else. A bold move for a historically unpopular president to make. 

Let’s see how it works out in the midterms.

SEE ALSO:

DHS Uses Black Teen’s Video To Falsely Depict Black Youths As ICE Agent Hunters

Department Of Homeland Security Claims ICE Doesn’t Engage In Racial Profiling