DHS hires social media propagandist who promotes white supremacism
The Department of Homeland Security has hired a social media manager from the Department of Labor for a key communications job, despite posts he made on Labor Department media accounts that raised internal alarms over possible white-nationalist messaging.
Peyton Rollins, 21, was hired this month to help run Homeland Security’s social media accounts, which have become public bullhorns for President Trump’s mass-deportation efforts and come under scrutiny of their own for appealing to right-wing extremists.
Tricia McLaughlin, the Homeland Security spokeswoman, said her public affairs office had “no personnel changes to announce at this time,” but Mr. Rollins has put his new position on his personal website. He is now digital communications director, according to screenshots of a Homeland Security staff directory reviewed by The New York Times. At the Labor Department, he was digital content manager.
Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman for the Labor Department, said only, “The department does not comment on internal or personnel matters.”
Mr. Rollins has spent most of the past year giving the Labor Department’s social media pages a makeover in Mr. Trump’s image. Current and former employees said career staff members had been pushed aside after Mr. Rollins’ arrival and rarely, if ever, crafted social media posts once he took control. Instead, Mr. Rollins personally posted social media content, which he has included on his personal website.
Agency posts of late have used evocative imagery, some reminiscent of the 1920s and 1930s, with phrases like “Restore American Greatness” and “the globalist status quo is OVER.” An image of Mr. Trump, with bombers flying overhead, was accompanied by the message, “One of one.”
Mr. Rollins has also claimed credit for a massive banner with Mr. Trump’s visage that has hung from the Labor Department’s headquarters.
During the period when those posts were made, the department’s social media following exploded, even as colleagues warned superiors that the department’s accounts could be seen as promoting white-supremacist rhetoric, Nazi imagery and QAnon conspiracy theories. [Continue reading…]