How kitsch became the defining aesthetic of right-wing America

At the beginning of July, 2025, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) posted a painting by the late artist Thomas Kinkade across its social media channels. Titled “Morning Pledge”, the painting depicts an idealised American suburb, complete with white picket fences, retro cars and a prominent US flag.

About two weeks later, on July 15, the government department was caught “trad posting on main” yet again. This time, the painting was by Morgan Weistling, titled “A Prayer for a New Life” (although DHS mislabelled it “New Life in a New Land”). It shows two white American settlers – or colonisers – in a wagon, cradling a newborn baby. The DHS captioned the image: “Remember your Homeland’s Heritage.”

Before going any further, it’s worth noting that neither of the artworks was used with the artist’s permission. The Kinkade Family Foundation, which was formed after Kinkade died of an overdose in 2012, says it’s requested that DHS remove its post and is consulting counsel to determine next steps. “At The Kinkade Family Foundation, we strongly condemn the sentiment expressed in the post and the deplorable actions that DHS continues to carry out,” the Foundation writes. “We were deeply troubled to see this image used to promote division and xenophobia associated with the ideals of DHS, as this is antithetical to our mission.” On July 16, Weistling also published a statement on Instagram, calling the DHS post a violation of copyright. The artist writes: “I am amazed that they thought they could randomly post an artist's painting without permission.”

At the time of writing, however, both images remain on the DHS social media pages, including Instagram, X and Facebook. And, despite the condemnation from Weistling and the Kinkade Foundation, it’s worth asking why these artists’ works were chosen to represent the kind of country that the current Republican government supposedly wants to create. Is it simply nostalgia for small-town America, or the open plains of the frontier? Or does a darker narrative underlie the government’s embrace of an art style once described as “slickly commercial kitsch”?

Have a glance at the DHS Instagram, and the answer is immediately clear. Kinkade and Weistling’s paintings, tacky as they may be, sit alongside some truly horrible imagery. One AI-generated picture shows alligators in caps bearing the logo of ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement), in reference to the new immigration detention facility in Florida known as Alligator Alcatraz. Another post features a violent video titled: “WATCH: ICE Tip Sparks EPIC Takedown of 5 Illegal Aliens.” A third shows a meme that makes light of mass deportations. What place do sunny suburbs and cute cowboy fantasies have alongside these images of cruelty, desperation and xenophobic AI slop? Well, more than you might think.

In Germany in the 1920s and 30s, the Nazi Party elevated traditionally beautiful and sentimental artworks – depicting themes like the joys of motherhood, national heroism, and rustic rural life – as a contrast to the “degenerate” modern art that it deemed an “insult to German feeling”. This culminated in an exhibition of seized artworks, Degenerate Art, in 1937, which was shown alongside an exhibition of art that promoted Nazi values, titled Great German Art. As Dazed’s James Greig wrote in 2022, many members of the online far-right have adopted a similar stance on art in the last few years, as a way to express their yearning for a “lost halcyon age” of Western supremacy. 

Despite dealing with more difficult themes like civil rights and poverty later in his career, Norman Rockwell, the US painter and subject of numerous “kitsch” allegations, has been adopted as a figurehead of this conservative web culture, namely through his 1943 painting “Freedom of Speech”. If it doesn’t immediately spring to mind, the painting shows a blue-collar worker standing to address a room of men in suits. Originally inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 speech that argued in favour of US involvement in WWII, it’s now used as a meme to air controversial or inflammatory views, particularly on X. Technically, these views can span the political spectrum, but because it’s so popular on X, they often tend to skew pretty right-wing, including retrograde opinions on race, gender and sexuality.

See also: JD Vance depicting himself and Trump as the parents in Rockwell’s Thanksgiving picture “Freedom from Want” (1943).

“Of course, not everyone who lionises ‘beauty’ and ‘tradition’ is a fascist,” Greig noted back in 2022. “But even though there isn’t always a direct line between the Nazis and the present-day traditionalists, there are nonetheless some disturbing parallels to their views on art.”

The fact that these parallels have now bled into the promotional materials of actual government agencies might be seen as simple pandering to conservative voters. But the DHS is actually doing something much more dangerous. The online right has typically evoked a muddle of different art movements and aesthetics – a Roman bust here, a Dutch landscape there – that’s more based on conjuring a vibe than sending a coherent political message. The DHS, on the other hand, seems determined to create (or curate) a more specific mythology about the foundations of America itself, albeit one shaped by contemporary fears and conspiracies like the “great replacement theory”.

Again, the link between kitsch and totalitarianism goes way back. In 1984, the Czech novelist Milan Kundera (who was an outspoken critic of totalitarian regimes, after fleeing one in the 60s) also made this connection in his book The Unbearable Lightness of Being. “Kitsch is the absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and the figurative senses of the word,” he wrote. As an aesthetic, it represents “a world in which shit is denied and everyone acts as though it did not exist”.

In other words: kitsch denies the messy, diverse realities of actually living in the world, in favour of a simplified utopia. This might explain why paintings like Kinkade’s, Rockwell’s, or Weistling’s feel so uncanny or unpleasant to some people. It also explains why they’re so appealing to totalitarians – or an administration that’s comfortable with locking people in alligator-infested detention camps, so that its first-class citizens can enjoy living in a “high trust society” where everyone looks like them.

Unfortunately for right-wing conservative politicians and their followers, kitsch rarely survives contact with the real world. And historically, it’s proven very dangerous to pretend that it can, since getting rid of the figurative “shit” – everything that’s unpleasant to look at, or inconvenient to admit – involves incredible violence and cruelty. As Kundera wrote: “We can regard the gulag as a septic tank used by totalitarian kitsch to dispose of its refuse.” Nazis used concentration camps.

Are a couple of paintings on the DHS Instagram enough evidence to claim that this is what the West is currently heading toward, that we’re circling back to full-blown totalitarianism, led by Trump’s America? Maybe not. But when the government is sending people, with no criminal charges, to an “inhumane” facility described by journalists and politicians as a “concentration” or “internment” camp, and pitching it as a path to this idealised future (with tacky merch), then it seems like a question worth asking.