What Kind of Country Is Trump Turning America Into? A Video Roundup
Our late-October collection of clips on how Trump has stripped America’s institutions of their ethical core
Dear Readers:
Donald Trump’s agenda, especially in his second term in office, has involved commandeering institutions built to safeguard the public good and rebranding them in his own image. Courts, museums, the military, and even the office of the presidency itself have been treated no differently than assets during a takeover.
This isn’t merely corruption in the financial sense (though there’s plenty of that, too). It’s a deeper kind of decay: the deliberate substitution of civic principle with self-interest. The president seeks not to destroy America’s institutions, but to hollow them out, repurpose them in his image, and wear their reappropriated symbols like trophies. That’s the pattern that emerges in this week’s roundup of clips.
Watch them, 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
Trump Wants His DOJ Buddies to Help Him Loot Taxpayers
October 23, 2025
Donald Trump has put in a request to the Department of Justice, where he has installed his buddies in senior positions, to hand over nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in restitution to him. What is the basis of his claim? Apparently, the government violated his rights by investigating his campaign’s collusion with Russia and his whisking away of classified documents to Mar-a-Lago, both crimes for which there was ample evidence.
The DOJ is charged with enforcing the rule of law. Under Trump, it had already been turned into an office of retribution against his enemies and rewarding criminal friends and allies with pardons. But now he is also using it to settle his personal scores and line his pockets by bilking taxpayers. He is turning it into his personal ATM machine.
Watch my video documenting all of this below or on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram.
Trump’s Anti-Woke Regime Comes for the Holocaust Museum
October 20, 2025
Trump has issued a directive to museums to eliminate content that is “divisive” and “anti-American.” This has been widely interpreted to mean anything that might offend MAGA sensibilities by being too critical of the U.S. and its past sins. Many are worrying that this edict might cause the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s “Americans and the Holocaust” exhibit, which has been suspiciously shut down for upgrades, to nix or in some way soften its depiction of America’s treatment of Jews during World War II, when many of those who flocked to U.S. shores in an attempt to flee Nazi Germany were turned away.
The Trump administration has not been shy about trying to reshape how Americans remember history—emphasizing nationalist pride over moral reckoning. What was built as a promise to never forget is now subject to forces that hope we never truly remember.
Watch my video on this story below or on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram.
The People Trump Honors Reveals His Dark Vision for the Country
October 8, 2025
As Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza warned at our Liberalism for the 21st Century conference, who a leader honors tells you everything you need to know about where he wants to take his or her country. It also tells you about the moral vision—or lack thereof—that he wants the nation to embody. And what is Trump’s vision for America? One where violence, domination, oppression, and injustice reigns.
Watch my video, below, showing some of the figures this administration has chosen to officially valorize, or on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram.
© The UnPopulist, 2025
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