It’s been impossible to ignore the Nazification of official government social media accounts run by the Trump administration. It’s a sea of AI slop openly promoting white nationalism and anti-immigrant sentiment. However, we don’t often get to put a name or face to the people who push this racist garbage, because our government is now a black box.
Somehow, though, The New York Times learned that the Department of Homeland Security just picked up Peyton Rollins to help run their social media. However, in keeping with the opaqueness of our government, even as DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin was saying there were no new personnel changes at the agency, Rollins was slapping his new title on his LinkedIn, which actually says he’s been at DHS for a month.
Did we mention he is 21 years old?
Previously, Rollins was at the Department of Labor, where his singular achievement seems to have been getting the creepy fascist banner of Trump hung on the Department’s headquarters. His tenure at the DOL also involved pushing aside career staff so that he could use DOL social media accounts to promote xenophobic fawning garbage about Trump.
His colleagues at the DOL were, understandably, completely weirded out. Here’s Helen Luryi, who was on the communications team for the Women’s Bureau at the DOL until April, telling the NYT: “We’re used to seeing posts about things like apprenticeships, benefits, and unions. Then all of a sudden, we get white-nationalist rhetoric.”
Luryi wasn’t alone. Multiple DOL employees repeatedly raised concerns about young Rollins’ social media efforts, including that he seemed to be posting QAnon material, but that did not stop his white nationalist posting jamboree.
And why would it? The administration doesn’t care what the Department of Labor actually does. It cares about using everything at its disposal to push a particularly violent version of white supremacy and fascism.
Social media for government accounts used to be an actual job, where career communications staff highlighted the department’s ongoing work. But these days, the Cabinet agencies aren’t really doing anything except helping Trump usher in full fascism, and you don’t need a communications staff for that.
However, Rollins’ talents were of course wasted at the backwater of DOL. DHS is where he belongs, the perfect place for a 21-year-old edgelord Nazi to thrive.
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We can’t know, of course, what posts Rollins is personally responsible for, so who knows if he is behind “Remember what they did to our country,” illustrated with border crossers or the repeated stone-cold lies about ICE, but there’s no question Rollins is down with all of that.
Installing Rollins, whose only claim to fame seems to be a facility with getting whatever AI program he is using to reliably pump out nationalist sentiments, is as ridiculous as the continued employment of Big Balls, but it’s well in keeping with the administration’s devotion to full employment for racist youth.
Fortunately for Rollins, this gig doesn’t require Senate confirmation, so he won’t have to go through the same humiliation as fellow Nazi-curious unqualified hire Paul Ingrassia, whose nomination to head the Office of Special Counsel got yanked after his comments about having a “Nazi streak” emerged. Never fear, though. Ingrassia got a different high-level administration job as deputy general counsel of the General Services Administration.
The administration might as well hire every one of the New York “Young” Republicans who let loose in a racist group chat last fall. They’re racist, homophobic, antisemitic, and 100% already down with “jokes” about sending people to gas chambers. They’ll fit right in with Rollins.
Lisa Needham
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