January 16, 2026—In a column on The Dispatch, conservative journalist Jonah Goldberg writes about a notable change in what defines America under the Trump administration.
Goldberg reviews the Labor Department’s digital marketing campaign and finds a consistent theme: it emphasizes a fight for “patriots” born in the United States, features photos of white workers, and mixes them with references to “heritage” and “homeland.”
Fascist Flavor?
Goldberg looks at specific phrases and notes the resemblance to 1930s-style propaganda in fascist European countries like Germany and Italy. Looking directly at the DOL feed, you can see that the department’s messages are clearly anti-immigration, including H-1B visas, and anti-globalist. Goldberg notes the tone in the messaging.
“And what seems irrefutable to me is that the geniuses behind this campaign are utterly untroubled—indeed tickled—by the fact that many people will reasonably conclude that fascists are running things in the Trump administration,” he writes.
Comments on the article reflected feelings that the MAGA era is less of a rewriting of values and more of an “unmasking” of “nationalism, imperial nostalgia, racism, antisemiticism, and sexism” that some commentators suggested had always existed in the conservative movement.
What’s telling is the overall observation of the change of what it means to be American. We see a shift away from identifying American ideals as constitutional rights, equal protections under the law, civil liberties, and free markets.
Trump, Then and Now
It is helpful to recall the theme of nationalism over globalism is the overriding factor that first brought President Donald Trump. When he won the November 2016 election, he spoke to “the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”
The GER noted at the time, “In all his brash ways, Trump stood for going back to the basics of defining a nation within its borders and among and for its citizens. He spoke to the millions of Americans left out of the benefits of trade, technological advancement and globalization, ignored by political elites and the media and angered by the corruption and political stagnation in Washington and Wall Street.”
The difference today is that Trump is no longer promising to represent all Americans, as he did in his 2016 victory speech. He is only supporting “patriots” loyal to him while vowing to defeat—and perhaps even wage war against—those who oppose him politically.
