The Trump Regime's Perverse Relationship With MAGA Media: A Video Roundup
Our early-January collection of clips on how the right-wing information ecosystem serves as the president's propaganda arm
Dear Readers:
The modern right-wing media ecosystem doesn’t just cover power. It feeds it, flatters it, and increasingly helps script it. Outrage is manufactured, cruelty is reframed as resolve, and governance itself becomes secondary to signaling dominance over perceived enemies.
This week’s video roundup looks at how that ecosystem functions less like a collection of commentators and more like a self-sustaining organism, one that generates justification for state action, excuses incompetence, and rewards loyalty over legitimacy.
Watch the videos, and then follow/subscribe to our YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram pages to get our latest clips as soon as they’re released.
Landry Ayres
Senior Producer
The Perverse Influencer-Administration MAGA Complex
Jan. 11, 2026
For years, the far right has insisted that social media influencers are simply “telling it like it is,” bravely exposing truths the mainstream won’t touch. In reality, many of these figures operate inside a loose but powerful feedback loop with the state.
In our first video, we examine how right-wing influencers generate viral outrage around immigration and public disorder, outrage that conveniently aligns with the Trump administration’s most draconian instincts—no marching orders required. Consent is manufactured not through persuasion, but through repetition, spectacle, and fear.
Watch the video below or on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram.
Trump Is Selling Favors to Hollywood for a Melania Biopic
Dec. 6, 2025
The final video brings the ecosystem’s logic to its most naked conclusion: rewards. As Trump returns to office, loyalty is no longer just praised, it’s paid. We break down how Trump leveraged his influence to help revive the long-dead Rush Hour franchise, rehabilitating disgraced director Brett Ratner, a political ally who also happens to be directing a glossy documentary about Melania Trump.
It’s a vivid example of how the right-wing media and political machine doesn’t just defend power. It distributes it, selectively and personally, to those willing to flatter, fund, and fall in line.
Watch it below or on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram.
Bongino Quits FBI, Returns to Conspiracy Theorizing
Dec. 30, 2025
The story of Dan Bongino leaving his FBI post to return to full-time podcasting is revealing, not because it’s shocking, but because it’s predictable. Bongino was never there to build institutions or improve governance. He was there to posture, provoke, and validate an audience primed to see the state as a stage for ideological combat. When governing proved more difficult than performative grievance, he chose the microphone over serving.
Our video contributor, Jeremiah Johnson, uses this moment to argue that a movement obsessed with power but hostile to liberal norms cannot govern effectively—it can only critique, sabotage, and then monetize the fallout.
Watch the video below or on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram.
© The UnPopulist, 2026
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I'm concerned about how and who are employing artificial intelligence (AI) to spread disinformation. It's getting so bad that I don't know what to believe anymore.