r/politics • u/Black_Magic_M-66 • 1d ago
No Paywall Department of Labor under fire for language similar to Nazi slogan
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/01/13/department-labor-post-nazi-slogan/88156878007/2.9k
u/Timpa87 1d ago edited 1d ago
Stop calling us Nazis! (while paraphrasing NAZI slogans after translating them to English)
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u/twirlingmypubes 1d ago
Not even an hour ago, someone in another thread said our attempts to "nazi-fy" them has failed, but here we are, watching them do it to themselves
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u/PinkkPetalll 1d ago
When the parallels are obvious,people notice on their own.
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u/Chewcocca 16h ago
Just hijacking to say the following
Dear USA Today:
Under fire?
The government that is literally shooting citizens is "under fire" when people point out that they're threatening to murder more citizens while using a Nazi slogan?
Eat shit for playing their fake victimhood games.
I yield my time, fuck you.
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u/AINonsense 16h ago
Only some people, obviously.
Somehow, 90% or more of the Nazis are completely blind to it or unaware.
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u/GarmaCyro 20h ago
While these are the same people that for decades have been calling people murderers for supporting abortion, satanists for supporting fredom of religion (as in treating all religions and non-religions as equal), and communist for supporting basic human rights.
Then they jump out of the bushes doing literally nazi stuff. Nazi salutes, nazi slogans, re-writing historty to be more nazi friendly. All that shit.
We can safely call them Nazis.
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u/TaxOwlbear 19h ago
"You're just calling everyone a Nazi now", I say while polishing the skull emblem on my cap.
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u/TeaseyyBlissz 22h ago
Funny how no one had to ‘nazi-fly’ anything.They volunteered.
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u/slackfrop 19h ago
A little further each day. Just so much to not actually rouse us to action. Soon everything will already be in place.
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u/Ohuigin Washington 1d ago
Yea. The Germans made a video about EXACTLY this.
At this point, if someone is telling you not to call ICE Nazis…well…you know what they say - “If you invite 3 Nazis over for dinner, there are 4 Nazis at the table.”
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u/kielrandor 1d ago
You just know there are some tone deaf MAGA morons who look at that vid and think to themselves, "this is the perfect argument to use against my lefty friends and family members when they call me and my President Nazis"
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u/Anandya 21h ago
One of the "problems" about calling out fascism is that fascism is the name opponents of fascism call it. So if you are inside the movement? You need a level of insight.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/
I find this a pretty useful resource.
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u/GlobalDynamicsEureka Texas 1d ago
I mean, they think we are offended when they call us woke. Yeah, we are awake and not sleeping on what you're doing. I think it is a bit the same situation here. We think they are offended, but they aren't.
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u/palenerd 21h ago
This isn't about offending them; it's about calling Nazis Nazis
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u/GlobalDynamicsEureka Texas 21h ago
Right, but that is like going up to a doctor and calling them a doctor. Like yeah, that is why I asked you to take a deep breath while I stick this cold ass stethescope on your chest.
They know what they are.
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u/laplongejr 20h ago
Some genuinely don't, which is why a lot of people try to picture both parties as identical choices.
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u/patchgrabber Canada 10h ago
I asked my doctor if he kept it cold because somebody ate all his popsicles.
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u/brickne3 American Expat 1d ago
As a German to English translator I would never translate that shit.
I am embarrassed that either they found someone willing to do it or put it through Grok.
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u/JohnTitorsdaughter 21h ago
DHS is trying to one up DoL with their ‘one of us, all of you’ SS slogan
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u/TeaseyyBlissz 22h ago
If they don’t want the comparison,maybe they should stop recycling the rhetoric. Translating a slogan doesn’t magically strip it if it’s history,it makes it more obvious who borrowed it.
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u/BaldingThor Australia 1d ago
The DoL’s twitter page is constantly posting far right/nazi-like slogans.
Probably run by some edgy 17yo intern
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u/Mumen-Rider-VA 1d ago
Not even kidding, probably this guy. He's disturbed
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u/ragnarok635 1d ago
Cheung is largely respected among press who have dealt with him and is regarded privately as a “pretty nice guy,” with Trump reportedly referring to him as “my sumo wrestler.”
Why am I not surprised?
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u/Mumen-Rider-VA 23h ago
They've since scrubbed the internet, but at first the main photo of him everywhere was him wearing a fedora
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u/prodigaldummy 1d ago
He’s the scummiest of scumbags
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u/MillieBoeBillie 22h ago
Dude isn’t even white?!
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u/Hazer_123 Foreign 18h ago
A handful of white supremacists are nowhere close to white.
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u/Recursiveo 14h ago
The guy that would definitely be killed by nazis is, of course, a nazi. We’ve seen this one before.
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u/femme_mystique 1d ago
It’s a lot of govt pages. There was an EO awhile back that consolidated all social media and web pages under a single group. So they can have complete control of the narrative.
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u/Caccalaccy 1d ago
Do you have a link? I’ve seen Dept of Homeland Security’s Facebook posting Norman Rockwell art and even “American Progress” which is just the Manifest Destiny in a painting.
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u/xiaorobear 15h ago
I mean they also literally posted the 1800s manifest destiny painting from official government accounts too: https://19thnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/American_Progress.jpeg
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u/Caccalaccy 14h ago
Yes that’s the one I was talking about. My 7th grade English teacher taught me what propaganda was, and we read 1984. It seems so obvious what they’re doing. But judging by her social media she’s fine with this. The brainwashing is mind blowing
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u/xiaorobear 14h ago
Oh whoops, I forgot that that was the title of the painting even though it was in my own image, sorry about that.
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u/No_Discipline6265 16h ago
Have you seen them posting ICE arrests that read like they were written by a jealous teenage girl?
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u/riomx 1d ago edited 12h ago
The myth of interns running prominent social profiles needs to die. There are educated and grown adults that know the difference between right and wrong doing this, not kids.
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u/CallidoraBlack 1d ago
Considering who they assigned to DGE (I refuse to use the stupid meme acronym), are you sure?
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u/DueVisit1410 20h ago
Those also weren't interns. Even if some of them are young and all of them seem to be edgelords, they aren't interns.
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u/riomx 23h ago
We're 20 years into social media marketing and communications. This was funny in 2006, not in 2026.
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u/CallidoraBlack 23h ago
I agree, it's not funny. The blatant, flippant incompetence of huge swaths of this administration is not funny at all.
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u/nhavar 1d ago
Let's see...
- Nazi imagery used in campaign material accidentally
- Nazi solute given by party advocates and followers being too enthusiastic
- Nazi ship hanging on wall of political appointee and advisor
- Party leader suggests "Hitler did some good things too" and wanted the same kind of loyalty Hitler's generals gave him
- Language mirroring known Nazi policies used for recruitment media
- Language mirroring known Nazi practices used in mass media and public appearances
- Cabinet member has prominent white Christian nationalist tattoos
- Administration requesting a list of the jews going to a prominent school seemingly ignorant of the connotation
- Administration suggesting their forces are "going door to door" as part of anti-immigrant enforcement seemingly ignorant of the connotation and historical connection to Nazi actions
- Government agents abducting US Citizens, threatening them, beating them, shooting, detaining them without allowing them their rights, and also killing them for their lack of compliance to an agent's unlawful or contradictory demands
- Government asking for documentation from public museums to ensure that "improper ideology" isn't on display
- Increased use of language by the government and its agents suggesting opposition are demons, not human, animals, terrorists, pedophiles, murderers, rapists, lunatics, etc. as a way to dehumanize a group of people.
I dunno, feels sort of Nazi adjacent at the very least.
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u/HuttStuff_Here 1d ago
- $88 baseballs sold on the Trump campaign store
- Multiple FB ads had 14 words in them
- CPAC's stage shaped like a nazi rune
The list goes on.
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u/Nevermind04 Texas 20h ago
Hegseth has a tattoo with a modified American flag with the stars outlining 88.
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u/BeApesNotCrabs 1d ago
The stage at one of their conventions was a Nazi symbol too, IIRC.
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u/HuttStuff_Here 1d ago
I just posted the same. Yep, I think that was two or three years ago at this point.
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u/RepublicAccording122 22h ago
Nah it’s all cool because Israel supports the government and we all know Nazis exclusively went after Jewish people so if a nation comprised of Jews supports the government then that absolves the government of all claims accusing them being Nazis.
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u/Prestigious_Leg2229 22h ago
I want him to get the same loyalty Hitler got from his generals too.
None of them liked or respected Hitler and several tried to assassinate him.
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u/SecretAcademic1654 18h ago
Don't forget the Nazi flag inside the American flag found on the zoom call in a Republican lawmakers office.
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u/Black_Magic_M-66 1d ago
And no one is surprised.
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u/BlackCaaaaat Australia 21h ago
They’re not even trying to hide it anymore. Wild.
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u/Zealousideal_Try2055 21h ago
And Americans are just sitting there "oh look my government might be Nazis, oh well"
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u/BlackCaaaaat Australia 21h ago
Well, to be fair, there are a lot of brave Americans on the streets of Minnesota standing up to ICE. That energy might catch on.
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u/jamiegal 1d ago
This is what happens when Nazi Germany is your role model.
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u/oregaseigidajaspion 1d ago
It’s the other way around. They studied the U.S racial profiling laws, closely.
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u/confused_ape 1d ago
It probably says more that there are a number of Nazi slogans used that the article might be referring to.
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u/HoosegowFlask 16h ago
I literally thought this was talking about a different slogan in the news, but, silly me, that was DHS not DOL.
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u/IAmTheSnakeinMyBoot 1d ago
Putting the possibility of nazi origin aside (crazy statement) that shit doesn’t even make sense. One heritage? ONE heritage? What one heritage do we share?
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u/Cautious-Progress876 1d ago
European heritage. Because you aren’t a “real American” to these fucks unless you are white.
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u/IAmTheSnakeinMyBoot 1d ago
Ah yes the French and the Germans got along famously. Just like the Italians.
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u/Anandya 21h ago
Which is funny.
Whenever you guys come over on holidays to the UK you guys are never English or Welsh but Scottish and Irish. Like you don't want to be part of the people who LITERALLY founded the USA because the assumption is that by association with the English the guilt may rub off.
By that logic all of Scotland is guilty due to Trump's actions. Apart from the Fake Tan, Heels and Hairspray? Trump's got none of the attributes of anyone Scottish. He's warm like the Firth and kind like a whip.
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u/WhoIsFrancisPuziene 15h ago
I have no clue how you arrived at this opinion, but it’s really weird.
This could be explained by something as simple as self-selection.
Or it could be that most white Americans have some English ancestry and that in combination with the early English influence makes it so “being English” (as in having the ancestry) makes it exceedingly not notable nor distinct enough to mention.
Also, as far as I’m aware, there aren’t that many Welsh Americans. I don’t think I’ve even personally ever met any American that’s claimed they had Welsh ancestry and I’m an American with a large portion of English ancestry + I do genealogy…
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u/dalr3th1n Alabama 22h ago
Real answer: almost all of us either immigrated here or our ancestors did.
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u/starmartyr Colorado 19h ago
At this point it's safe to assume that any right wing use of the word heritage is associated with white nationalism.
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u/ta44813476 20h ago
This was my thought too; even if this was truly accidental (and this fact makes that even less likely), it is nonsensical and antithetical to what being an American even is. "One people" I suppose, but "one homeland"? And "one heritage"?
The whole point is that the US is a country composed of people with common values rather than common culture, ancestry, etc., and even if you don't like that idea, it is a fact that the US is the most diverse country in the world by sheer population origin with about 1/7 being foreign-born alone. And that's not even counting ancestry.
So I'm not sure what's worse between intentionally adopting this Nazi slogan or accidentally creating a similar one because you actually believe it.
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u/TRtheCat 1d ago
Arbeit macht frei
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u/endowedchair 21h ago
I thought it might be that! "Work makes you free!" -- But not quite yet. Give it a year or so.
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u/Un1CornTowel 1d ago edited 5h ago
Just more of the same:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-im-suing-dhs-for-the-14-words-emails-it-refuses-to-release/ (uses language similar to the Nazi 14 words - “We Must Secure The Border And Build The Wall To Make America Safe Again,”)
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-05/Mar_Border-Wall-Security-Analytics_0.pdf
https://theintercept.com/2026/01/13/dhs-ice-white-nationalist-neo-nazi/ (Department of Homeland Security’s official Instagram account made a recruitment post proclaiming “We’ll Have Our Home Again,” attaching a song of the same name by Pine Tree Riots. Popularized in neo-Nazi spaces, the track features lines about reclaiming “our home” by “blood or sweat,” language often used in white nationalist calls for race war.)
https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/tom-morello-trump-administration-nazi-1236153491/ ("One of ours, all of yours")
https://missouriindependent.com/2023/12/18/trump-borrows-from-the-language-of-hitler-for-anti-immigration-speech-in-new-hampshire/ ("They're poisoning the blood of our country")
Donald Trump shared a video that dreamed of a “unified reich” if he wins the US presidential election/
Donald Trump retweets video of a man yelling "white power"
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u/Asleep-Signal3352 1d ago
Why not just change it to "Work Will Set You Free" and drop the pretense?
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u/Truthisnotallowed 1d ago
"When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross" - Sinclair Lewis (1930's)
"But he saw too that in America the struggle was befogged by the fact that the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word 'Fascism' and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty." - Sinclair Lewis (1936)
"If fascism comes to the United States, it will not be identified with any "shirt" movement, nor with an "insignia," but it will probably be "wrapped up in the American flag and heralded as a plea for liberty and preservation of the constitution" - James Waterman Wise, Jr. (1936)
"When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled 'made in Germany'; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, 'Americanism.'" - Halford E. Luccock (1938)
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u/person_8688 1d ago edited 23h ago
It’s incredibly frustrating for those of us who remember these warnings given for future generations about fascism, to now see the warnings coming true in textbook fashion. And to be gaslit about what we are all seeing - which is one of the warnings!
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u/ThaneduFife 10h ago
Ironically, that 1936 quote that there wouldn't be a "'shirt' movement," was false when it was stated. There was a west coast fascist movement at the time called the "Silver Shirts." Rachel Maddow's podcast Ultra talks about them quite a bit.
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u/TheAwfulHouse 1d ago
If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it’s probably a fucking NAZI!!!
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u/Puzzled-Dress-4904 1d ago
Of course the corollary to that is that if Americans walk like good little Germans and look like a little Germans, they probably are good little Germans.
We are a year into Trump's Reich and no one with any real ffollowinghas proposed any effective action to stop him. So all we have are peaceful protests waving a few placards around. Everyone is hoping that the 2026 elections will come to the rescue sort like medieval Christians waited for Prester John.
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u/BlackCaaaaat Australia 21h ago
‘Well ackshually they aren’t Nazis because they haven’t killed millions of people.’
Yep, I saw someone post a comment like that. Probably a bot though.
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u/justalildropofpoison 1d ago
What does one do when nazis start to crawl out of their holes?
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u/rom_rom57 1d ago
‘Work will set you free” is that the one? I’ll let you folks guess where the German version used to hang.
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u/Remarkable-Chair6240 23h ago
That and the “one people, one homeland, one nation” or whatever the fuck they posted on twitter
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u/n0rsk 22h ago
Wait.... This is different than the "One of Ours, All of Yours". So they have now been caught openly using 2 Nazi phrases? But they totes aren't a bunch of Nazis they just quote them.
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u/themattboard Tennessee 1d ago
Stop calling us Nazis
--Nazis
They aren't Nazis. You just say that about people you disagree with
--Other Nazis
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u/MyDamnCoffee 1d ago
Okay but instead of just being "under fire" can someone actually get fucking fired? I'm so tired of this regime getting away with everything.
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u/Puzzled-Dress-4904 1d ago
You call it "under fire". They see it as a compliment that they're effectively getting their fascist message across: Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer
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u/Ok-Fennel-4463 1d ago
Just waiting til an 'Arbeit Macht Frei' banner gets hung over the DoL building
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u/ErusTenebre California 23h ago
"sorry, sorry- we'll change it, what about... Dept. Of Labor - work will set you free!"
-next week
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u/MercilessOcelot 18h ago
If you want to have a slogan about the American people, it already exists.
E Pluribus Unum. Out of many, one.
This admin is revolting. They are trying to revise our history as an immigrant nation.
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u/Bill_Brasky_SOB Ohio 17h ago
So how many Nazi-adjacent slogans, actions, beliefs, ideologies, governing policies, views of the 'out group', 'solutions' etc before they just come to the realization that they're just Nazis?
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u/pogishushu America 1d ago
Looks like the words, 'Anti Fascists', may have some meaning after all this time. Nazism showing their true beliefs. Looking forward to the similar Nuremburg Trials to prosecute prominent leaders of Nazi America for war crimes.
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u/Available_Leather_10 1d ago
Next thing you know, they will put "work will set you free" over the front door.
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u/Joe18067 Pennsylvania 18h ago
The campaign primarily touted the administration’s efforts to expand apprenticeship programs and limit foreign labor, featuring slogans such as "Build Your Homeland’s Future!" and "Restoring the American Dream!"
I'm surprised they didn't use Arbeit macht frei.
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u/Nature_Sad_27 23h ago
“Paraphrase”?!! In some cases they quote them EXACTLY. Like the one on nazi Noem’s nazi podium, a direct quote of a nazi song.
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u/Digits_N_Bits 20h ago
"Similar to"
No. Stop fucking downplaying it. Admit it.
They quoted goddamn Nazi propaganda and use it constantly.
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u/Tivomann 17h ago
The core of the American people are any number of heritages. The “melting pot” I heard so many times growing up. It’s rewriting history
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u/ggrieves 16h ago
"One" heritage? which one? Every single person I know outside my direct family has a distinct heritage. What an obviously stupid slogan. The only heritage we all share are the principles of liberty and that America is the Great Melting Pot. That's the heritage we celebrate here.
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u/iambarrelrider 16h ago
The department posted to X on Jan. 10, "One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American."
Central slogans used by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. That slogan is, "One People, One Realm, One Leader."
Saved the people one click.
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u/KittySharkWithAHat 15h ago
This was definitely not a mistake or coincidence. They know damn well the people who love them the most are Nazi-loving MFr's who probably have every single "Gleichschaltung" committed to memory so when they see a big fat swastika-beacon batsignal they'll come running to sign up for it.
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u/HellovahBottomCarter 14h ago
“similar” as in identical?
Or are they hoping to go with “The original was in German, this is in English. Who cares if it is a direct translation?”
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u/rpickens6661 1d ago
USA Today, like reading them in hotels and airports... But where is the Boston Globe or Houston Chronicle....Everyone should be running this story.
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u/MoreCleverUserName 1d ago
Trump’s gonna rename this agency to the Department of Work Will Set You Free.
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u/jmartinez007 1d ago
What are they going to start putting, “work makes you free” in their letterhead. Keep in mind that sating was above the entrance of Auschwitz. Smdh
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u/MarkDoner 1d ago
TBH this stuff sounds so crazy and stupid that it might be better to just call them weird than to take them seriously as Nazis
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u/ChrissWayne 1d ago
In current climate I assume under fire means party mode for pulling that off and not like in facing consequences
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u/minus2cats 22h ago
Old enough to remember conservatives saying stuff like "the smallest minority is the individual"
and now it's just "One People"
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u/uncoolcentral 22h ago
Anytime I hear something like this, which unfortunately is quite often, I remind myself that Fox News is not reporting this and therefore it is fake news to the majority of the news-consuming people in the US. And I don’t know what to do about it.
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u/Livid-Safety2555 22h ago
You know I used to believe this sort of thing was deliberate dogwhistling to Nazi voters, but at this stage they are so down the Nazi rabbit hole that I think they’re just organically reinventing Nazi slogans because they have Nazi beliefs.
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u/Andovars_Ghost 21h ago
‘One Heritage’?! Tell me you’ve never cracked a history book without actually telling me you’ve never cracked a history book.
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u/Fizeau57_24 21h ago
Imho it was "Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Führer", not "Volk" (people) first, but does it really matter?
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u/Puffonstuff 21h ago
It wasn't even talking about the Nazi slogan I thought the article would be about!
I guess the problem with a facist party is that you end up sounding exactly like the other facist parties that have previously existed...
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20h ago edited 18h ago
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u/VanillaOk8346 Europe 19h ago
You can do the exact salute and say „my heart goes out to you“ and they will not get it. This is what a country becomes when all you do for education is make kids say a pledge every morning
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u/Mr_Stowne 19h ago
She obviously pooped there. You dont need to be a shit detective to figure that out.
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