Which Way Western Man

The phrase originates from *Which Way Western Man?*, a book written by William Gayley Simpson and first self-published in 1978 through his own Yeoman Press imprint in Cooperstown, New York4. Simpson was a former left-wing Christian activist and Franciscan who shifted toward Nietzschean philosophy and eventually white supremacist ideology4.

The book argues that "World Jewry" is conspiring to destroy Western civilization, advocates for the deportation of all Black people and Jewish people, and describes Christianity, communism, capitalism, and democracy as Jewish plots4. Simpson cites antisemitic texts including *The Protocols of the Elders of Zion*4. The original edition runs 758 pages. William Luther Pierce, founder of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, was impressed by the book and distributed it through the organization's publishing arm4. Pierce advertised it alongside *Mein Kampf* as a book "every responsible, racially conscious White person must read"4.

A revised second edition of over 1,000 pages was published posthumously by National Vanguard Books in 2003, fulfilling a promise Pierce made to Simpson before Simpson's death in 19914. Despite the book's poor sales due to its extreme length, it influenced prominent white supremacist figures including John Tyndall, Ben Klassen, David Duke, and Robert Jay Mathews, leader of the neo-Nazi terror group The Order4.

The phrase migrated to internet spaces in the 2010s, adopted as a meme format on platforms like 4chan and Telegram, where users paired the caption with fork-in-the-road imagery6.

The meme's adoption by official U.S. government accounts in 2025 marked one of the most discussed examples of extremist internet rhetoric entering institutional communications. Six academics consulted by NBC News, all of whom had spent their careers studying extremism, identified the posts as references to far-right ideology connected to the Trump administration's immigration enforcement push1.

The ADL's criticism was particularly notable because the organization had been relatively measured in its criticism of the Trump administration, making its public objection stand out3. The controversy drew coverage from major outlets including NBC News, NPR, Haaretz, CNN, and The Guardian123.

The Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles was flooded with inquiries after DHS used John Gast's "American Progress" painting in a related post2. Museum director Stephen Aron described the painting as offering a "whitening vision of the West" that erases conflict and violence from westward expansion2.

The episode also raised questions about the administration's broader social media strategy. The DHS and White House accounts had been posting a steady stream of meme-format content celebrating immigration enforcement, including an "ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight" video and promotion of a detention facility dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz"2.

The path from obscure white nationalist text to mainstream political controversy spans nearly five decades. Simpson began writing in the 1970s, drawing on his rejection of Christianity and his adoption of biological racism4. He joined Pierce's National Alliance and found his ideas championed within that network. The book's first print run was distributed by the National Alliance, and it was reissued multiple times: by the NA in 1980, by Willis Carto's antisemitic Noontide Press in 1986, and again by the NA in 19894. It was one of only four books directly sponsored by Pierce, alongside Pierce's own novels and *Serpent's Walk*4.

In the book's contents, Simpson identifies Jews as "Enemy No. 1" and claims a "hard core within world Jewry," specifically the Rothschilds, conspired to take control of Europe and then the world4. He promotes a new "European religion" to replace Christianity, which he calls "an alien, Oriental, Jewish infection"4. He advocates eugenics and racial segregation, arguing that the "Nordic" or "Aryan" race is biologically superior4.

The phrase's jump to internet culture happened gradually. Far-right online communities adopted "Which way, Western man?" as a rhetorical framework for memes that stripped the book's ideology down to a simple visual binary6. These memes circulated through platforms with minimal content moderation, building a visual language that could be read as innocent commentary by outsiders while signaling specific ideology to insiders6.

The August 2025 DHS posting campaign marked an inflection point. The agency was in the midst of a massive hiring push, seeking over 10,000 new ICE agents fueled by a budget influx from Trump's tax and spending bill2. The social media strategy accompanying this recruitment effort mixed retro-style Uncle Sam posters, patriotic artwork, and videos of armed agents conducting raids2. Ryan Milner, a professor of communication at the College of Charleston, told NPR the approach "speaks to the people who enjoy the irreverence, who enjoy the cruelty, who enjoy the 'owning the libs'"2.

DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin defended the posts, telling CNN that "Calling everything you dislike 'Nazi propaganda' is tiresome" and describing the Uncle Sam image as simply depicting America "at a crossroads, pondering which way America should go"3. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson responded to NPR's inquiries by stating: "The White House consistently posts banger memes"2.

Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, argued the posts conjured a narrative "that we had a wonderful white civilization and culture that has been decimated by these people who don't belong here, who just happen to not be white people for the most part"2. The Labor Department also drew scrutiny for posting "One Homeland. One People. One Heritage," which critics compared to the Nazi slogan "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer"1.

Jessie Daniels, a professor of sociology at CUNY's Hunter College who has studied far-right extremism for over three decades, said there was "zero doubt" the posts were intended to signal allegiance to white supremacist ideology1. The controversy highlighted how effectively internet meme culture could move extremist language into official government communications, blurring the line between ironic shitposting and sincere ideological signaling6.