Statement on the Normalization of Nazism in the U.S Government

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention and Human Security is deeply concerned by a dangerous and accelerating pattern within the United States government in which rhetoric and symbolism associated with Nazi ideology and white supremacist extremism is increasingly given political legitimacy. Entire government agencies, especially the Department of Homeland Security, as well as senior officials and other influential actors now regularly tolerate and even echo language and imagery historically rooted in Nazism and genocidal movements, eroding democratic norms and cultivating an environment that actively drives extremist mobilization and politically driven violence.

From the first day of President Donald Trump’s return to office, the Lemkin Institute identified clear early warning signs of this trajectory. On 21 January 2025, we issued a Red Flag Alert after Elon Musk, then one of the President’s closest advisors, twice performed the Nazi salute during his inauguration speech. In a ceremony symbolizing the transfer and consolidation of state power, this gesture carried profound historical weight. By allowing such imagery to go unchallenged, the Administration signaled permissiveness toward symbols inseparable from an ideology responsible for genocide and mass atrocity.

On the same day, President Trump’s first official act further reinforced these concerns. He issued pardons to nearly 1,600 individuals convicted for their roles in the 6 January Capitol attack, among whom were known extremist and Nazi-affiliated supporters. By granting political absolution to perpetrators who sought to violently undermine democratic institutions, the Administration demonstrated tolerance toward actors who openly embrace ideologies linked to historical and contemporary mass violence. This decision sent a message of impunity and emboldened extremist networks across the country.

Beyond symbolic acts, the Administration has pursued structural policies that systematically deprioritize white supremacist violence as a national security threat. It weakened or dismantled programs designed to prevent targeted violence and domestic terrorism, redirecting resources toward its extremist border enforcement programs instead of addressing ideologically motivated extremism. The Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3), the primary federal unit tasked with identifying the root causes of radicalization and preventing violent extremism, saw its staff reduced from 45 full-time employees and dozens of contractors to only a handful. The FBI similarly reassigned agents from its Domestic Terrorism Operations Section and redirected agents from its Joint Terrorism Task Forces away from national and international counterterrorism work to support the Administration’s immigration agenda. These decisions severely degraded the government’s capacity to detect and prevent extremist violence, leaving the country increasingly vulnerable to ideologically motivated violence.

This deliberate reallocation of investigative and preventive resources, combined with political discourse that minimizes the danger posed by far-right militancy, has created a permissive environment in which extremist groups operate with growing confidence. Neo-Nazi organizations have already exploited this climate to expand recruitment and visibility. The Aryan Freedom Network, a group that openly advocates preparation for a so-called “racial holy war,” now reportedly counts between 1,000 and 1,500 members. The Base, a neo-Nazi terrorist organization largely dismantled through FBI action under the previous administration, is rapidly rebuilding. Recent images shared on social media show armed gatherings that appear to represent the group’s largest American assembly in over a year, signaling renewed organizational capacity and operational ambition. These groups increasingly view the Administration’s retreat from policing far-right extremism as an opportunity to reorganize, and potentially to escalate violence.

We also observe, with mounting concern, a pattern of official decisions and nominations that trivialize or indirectly validate extremist ideology. A particularly illustrative case is the White House nomination of Paul Ingrassia, formerly a liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, to lead the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. In leaked private communications, Ingrassia reportedly admitted to having “a Nazi-streak,” prompting widespread condemnation and bipartisan calls for his withdrawal. While his eventual withdrawal represented an important corrective measure, the fact that such a candidacy advanced within the federal nomination process reflects the alarming proximity of extremist attitudes to institutional power.

Similarly troubling are recent reports that the U.S. Coast Guard intended to revise its internal policy to reclassify historically hateful symbols, including the swastika and nooses from hate symbols to merely “potentially divisive.” Had this change proceeded, these emblems would no longer have automatically indicated extremist intent but instead be judged under a vague standard of general divisiveness. Although the Coast Guard reversed course following public outcry, the proposal itself demonstrates a dangerous shift in the threshold of what government institutions consider unacceptable.

This normalization now reaches the highest levels of the Administration. When Vice President JD Vance dismissed reports of a “Young Republicans” group chat containing misogynistic and Nazi content – including messages explicitly praising Hitler, such as “I love Hitler” – by calling the participants “just kids,” he downplayed the severity of ideological radicalization and trivialized openly genocidal and violent ideologies. By portraying these expressions as harmless youthful behavior, despite the participants being adults aged 24 to 35, Vance reinforced a dangerous narrative that excuses extremist discourse.

The Lemkin Institute is gravely alarmed that the normalization of extremist rhetoric has reached the point where U.S. government agencies are now posting thinly veiled Nazi slogans on social media. On 10 January, the U.S. Department of Labor published a tweet stating: “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage. Remember who you are, American.” This slogan is neither innocent nor accidental. It appears to be a deliberate echo of a popular slogan in Nazi Germany: “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer” (“One People, One Empire, One Leader”).

Nazi allusions have appeared with disturbing frequency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees both Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). DHS has openly engaged in messaging designed to resonate with men aligned with supremacist ideology. It has referenced a neo-Nazi anthem in a recruitment advertisement, circulated imagery invoking exclusionary white nationalist slogans, and repeatedly employed language long embedded in extremist propaganda. In October 2025, DHS posted an image of George Washington on horseback accompanied by the phrase “America for Americans,” a slogan historically associated with the Ku Klux Klan. In August, DHS published imagery referencing the book Which Way, American Men? written by the neo-Nazi ideologue William Gayley Simpson and later published by the far-right press National Vanguard Books.

Following the tragic killing of Renée Good, who was shot at point-blank range by an ICE officer, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem refused to condemn the killing,to commit to an investigation, or to call for national unity. Instead, she appeared at a press conference behind a podium bearing the slogan “One of ours, all of yours.” Holocaust scholars have warned that this phrase invokes the doctrine of collective responsibility and collective punishment, an authoritarian principle central to Nazi political ideology and historically deployed to justify large-scale violence against targeted populations. This choice of language was not incidental. In Minneapolis, recent video footage appears to show Border Patrol commander Gregori Bovino performing what resembles a Nazi salute while wearing a trench-coat style uniform evocative of those worn by SS commanders. The violence being unleashed by ICE against residents of Minneapolis, including the killing of another American citizen on January 24, demonstrates that these actors are not merely reproducing the aesthetics of Nazism, but are increasingly engaging in practices reminiscent of the Gestapo.

Together, these developments illustrate a broader process of normalization in which public officials tolerate and reproduce language and symbolism rooted in genocidal ideology, dulling collective awareness of its harms and desensitizing society to its violence. The rehabilitation of authoritarian rhetoric and the minimization of white supremacist violence as a national security priority do not occur in isolation; they reflect the steady erosion of moral, legal, and institutional safeguards designed to prevent atrocity. We therefore call for active resistance to all forces that seek to make hatred ordinary.

While the administration has thus far relied on indirect symbolism rather than explicit declaration, the Lemkin Institute warns that history offers a clear and repeated lesson: the normalization of dehumanizing rhetoric and extremist symbolism within state institutions almost always precedes mass atrocity. The current trajectory suggests that this transition may be imminent and it is imperative that we do everything in our power to prevent it.

When societies allow violent and dehumanizing discourse to masquerade as legitimate political expression, they create the conditions for persecution, exclusion, and ultimately mass atrocity. In the United States, this trajectory places Jewish communities, people of color, migrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other historically targeted groups at heightened risk, while undermining the rule of law and democratic accountability.

As a nation that helped shape the post-Holocaust international human rights system, the United States bears a particular responsibility to confront and reject all expressions of Nazi ideology. International legal instruments, including the Genocide Convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination ( ICERD), impose binding obligations on states to prevent incitement to hatred and violence and to address the structural and rhetorical conditions that enable such harms before they materialize. These instruments make clear that governments must act at the earliest stages of risk, addressing dangerous rhetoric and normalization processes before they escalate into mass harm, rather than merely responding once violence has already occurred.

The Lemkin Institute recognizes that the Trump Administration is unlikely to engage in any actions that would begin to limit and contain the growing power and violence of extremist groups because the Administration is, apparently, in the hands of people sympathetic to those groups. We remind President Trump, his advisors, and the foot soldiers of genocide in ICE and CBP that totalitarian supremacist projects never end well for the perpetrators.

We call upon U.S. government officials and U.S. political representatives who do not wish to be complicit in fascism and genocide to:

Unequivocally identify and condemn Nazi symbolism, rhetoric, and white supremacist ideology in all forms, especially when it appears in the U.S. government;
Restore and strengthen federal mechanisms dedicated to preventing violent extremism;
Reprioritize white supremacist violence as a critical national security threat;
Ensure accountability for officials who legitimize or reproduce extremist discourse;
Invest in civic education, and public awareness initiatives that reinforce the dangers of genocidal ideology.

We salute the Americans who are courageously showing up to protest the rapid radicalization of the U.S. state towards totalitarianism and genocide. All protest in the U.S. today is also genocide prevention work. Humanity will one day recognize the value and the heroism of people standing up and risking their lives every day.

In light of the seriousness of these developments, we urge readers to consult the sources below to fully inform themselves.

References

NYT: Ex-Proud Boys Leader, Pardoned by Trump, Helped Initiate Capitol Riot (20 January 2025)

THE GUARDIAN:Energized neo-Nazis feel their moment has come as Trump changes everything | Far right (US) | The Guardian (26 January 2025)

REUTERS: Exclusive: FBI scales back staffing, tracking of domestic terrorism probes, sources say | Reuters ( 21 March 2025)

THE GUARDIAN: Trump administration is minimizing white supremacist threat, officials warn (24 May 2025)

REUTERS: Trump administration gutted program aimed at preventing targeted violence | Reuters (15 June 2025)

REUTERS: American Nazis: The Aryan Freedom Network is riding high in Trump era | Reuters (8 August 2025)

POLITICO: Vance downplays group chat messages: ‘Kids do stupid things, especially young boys.’ ( 15 October 2025)

BBC NEWS: Trump nominee Paul Ingrassia withdraws after offensive texts allegedly emerge (22 October 2025)

TWP:iCoast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses as hate symbols - The Washington Post (20 November 2025)

THE INTERCEPT:DHS Used Neo-Nazi Anthem for Recruitment After Fatal Minneapolis ICE Shooting (13 January 2026)

NBC NEWS: Some Trump administration social media posts mirror extremist rhetoric (17 January)

THE ATLANTIC: The Trump Administration Is Publishing a Stream of Nazi Propaganda - The Atlantic (21 January 2026)