There has been a rash of ads released by various government departments since Trump was elected, and many of them resemble propaganda posters from the 1930s and 1940s.
This isn't openly thought about much, but that era lives rent-free in the mind of today's society, and even young people seem to have at least enough knowledge about it to understand the aesthetics of that time. Moreover, something about the styles of that period resonated so well that it still evokes positive feelings of patriotism and duty today.
Here's one that was released by the Department of Labor on Saturday, featuring a handsome man standing in front of a digger at a construction site. "YOUR NATION NEEDS YOU!" stands out in bold text at the bottom. It's clearly AI-generated, and you can notice the AI imperfections that usually come with these images if you look close enough, but otherwise, it looks like your standard 1940s era propaganda poster.
We need YOU to help unleash the Golden Age of America.
— U.S. Department of Labor (@USDOL) August 16, 2025
https://t.co/IuqkysM2kp pic.twitter.com/iBDsyFcPFk
Now, without even telling you, I bet you can deduce what the left's reaction to it was. Godwin's Law came on strong right out of the gate, to say the least.
This is nazi propaganda https://t.co/P6IELa6iwH
— Organizermemes (@OrganizerMemes) August 16, 2025
It's hard to take any kind of pearl-clutching or hyperbolic accusations seriously from people like this, seeing as how they think everything that doesn't complement leftist doctrine or support leftist agendas is Nazi propaganda. I mean, there were even leftists who became furious over the Japanese McDonald's ad featuring a nuclear family watching their daughter happily enjoy a meal as racist advertising.
But is there any merit to the idea that these ads are in the realm of Nazi propaganda?
Yes... But also emphatically no.
This style of propaganda poster was very common across the globe. They featured idealized people looking heroic and determined. They captured men and women, both looking confident and strong. Even today, some of the iconic images like the U.S.'s "Rosie the Riveter" or posters encouraging British women to "come into the factories" were utilized to encourage women to help with the war effort. Pin-up girls were drawn in this style on the side of military aircraft to uplift and encourage men, as it helped to remind them what they were fighting for, and a beautiful woman is a very inspiring sight to the male eye.
Bro would've called this Nazi propaganda back in the day... or likely would've been one himself. https://t.co/IH1zmGdcfp pic.twitter.com/qIRV0tLbI2
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) August 18, 2025
Nazis, Russians, Japanese, U.S., U.K., all used this style of poster to encourage and inspire people to chip in to the effort to strengthen their country, both from within and without, during a time of war and economic uncertainty. It worked wonders in many ways.
So why is this poster considered Nazi-inspired, despite that style being a globally embraced style during that era? Because the man in the picture is white and blond. When you pull back on this automatic categorization, you'll see how it's a common pattern of the left, and I don't just mean toward white people. The left loves to put people in boxes based on how they look, and this includes black people, too.
All blond-haired, white-skinned people are Aryan, and presenting them in any positive light is automatically a nod to Nazism. Sydney Sweeney is also a great example of this.
But you'll often find the left policing black people's behavior as needing to be a certain way or else they aren't "black." I can remember articles written in the legacy media asking if Barack Obama was black enough because he acted too white.
The thing is, the leftist media had programmed their adherents to think that ads that only feature white people are faux pas, un-progressive, and nod to a more racist time. They're not, but identity is everything to the left, and being a blond-haired, blue-eyed, white man is the wrong identity to have. They've been pushing that kind of person as an oppressive identity for a very long time, and they've hooked that identity to Aryanism.
I can say without any doubt that the reason the Trump administration is releasing ads like this is two-fold.
For one, from a marketing perspective, if you're going to try to get the most people to your product/cause, you want to cast the widest net possible. White people still make up the vast majority of the U.S. population at just under 60 percent. Hispanics are around 20 percent, black people between 12 and 14 percent, and Asians between five and six percent.
If you're trying to get as many people as you can through the door, you aim your ad at the largest population possible. Then, you take the WW2 approach of idealizing him, making him look like he means business, and you have an inspiring ad that appeals to a large base. It's a simple formula that was pretty well understood for decades until the post-modern era, when a "good ad" meant putting a morbidly obese woman in ill-fitting clothes and an "I'm better than you" look on her face in front of people.
And it's working. The DHS, which has released similar ads, has seen a surge in applications. ICE alone has received over 80,000 applications.
And that's ultimately what the left hates most about all of this. It's working. They're empowering the Trump administration, which is, in turn, empowering America. It's getting the country away from the propaganda that hurts the country, lowers its standards, and causes division. It inspires people to get up and act for something bigger than themselves.
The left doesn't hate Nazism like they say they do. Just look at their anti-Israel attitudes and how they worship the ground Nazi-adjacent terrorist groups in the Middle East walk on. No, what they hate is Trump or America succeeding in any capacity. These ads help with that, and thus, they lose their minds over them.
It's that simple.
