The nefarious message behind the DHS 'manifest destiny' painting: 'four pillars of propaganda'

Earlier DU thread: danasinspired - Remember your homeland's heritage...

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Source: The Guardian

The nefarious message behind the DHS ‘manifest destiny’ painting: ‘four pillars of propaganda’

Amid sweeping immigration raids, the Department of Homeland Security posted art captioned: ‘Protect the Homeland.’ Experts say it perpetuates an American fantasy

Alaina Demopoulos
Wed 23 Jul 2025 16.01 BST
Last modified on Wed 23 Jul 2025 18.57 BST

In Morgan Weistling’s oil painting A Prayer for a New Life, a young, white pioneer couple sit inside a covered wagon, sharing a quiet moment with their swaddled newborn as prairie stretches out behind them. The work could be interpreted as a western take on the birth of Jesus; Mary and Joseph on the Oregon trail. One might imagine it decorating the oak-walled office of an oil executive in a Yellowstone spin-off show – though it is probably too schmaltzy even for that.

Last week, Weistling’s painting took on a darker meaning when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s official X account posted, to the artist’s consternation, an image of the painting with the caption: “Remember your Homeland’s Heritage.”

To some, the post seemed like authoritarian propaganda, similar to what was put out by Joseph Goebbels about Aryan motherhood in 1930s Nazi Germany. “In case you had any doubts about the white supremacist thing,” one X user responded to the post.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/jul/23/dhs-art-post-propaganda