What Future Will We Build: Truth, Tyranny, or TikTok?
While Trump rewrites history in real time, one pop-up museum dares to scream the truth into the algorithm. Join the conspiracy.
In a move that feels ripped from a dystopian Netflix series, Donald Trump’s allies have executed a hostile takeover of American culture. At the Kennedy Center, Trump fired legacy board members and stacked the body solely with his supporters, turning a memorial to JFK into a partisan shrine to MAGA. They’ve literally tried to etch the Trump family onto the institution—House allies moved to rename the Opera House after Melania, and one bill even wants to rebrand the whole place the Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts. The Kennedy Center Honors, once above politics, have become a spectacle of sycophancy: Trump bragged he’s “98% involved” in picking honorees and “turned down plenty” of artists for being “too woke or too liberal,” cherry-picking a lineup of his favored celebrities (Sylvester Stallone, KISS, you get the idea). He even mused about renaming the honors the Trump/Kennedy Center Awards, as if the arts in America now come with his personal branding iron.
Meanwhile, Trump’s war on truth barrels through the Smithsonian Institution like a bulldozer in a china shop. In late March, he signed an Executive Order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which sounds benign until you read the fine print: it accuses the nation’s top historians and curators of pushing a “distorted narrative”1 and orders the elimination of “divisive narratives” from all national museums. In Trumpspeak, “divisive” means anything that doesn’t polish a mythical, flag-waving version of U.S. history. The Smithsonian’s crime? Daring to tell the full, complicated story of America. One exhibit about race and power in American art was condemned as unpatriotic for noting how sculpture upheld racist ideas. A planned women’s history museum got attacked before it even opened, simply because it might include the history of transgender women. This summer, Smithsonian staff quietly removed a placard about Trump’s two impeachments from a presidential exhibit – no doubt to avoid triggering the wrath of MAGA officials. Even that wasn’t enough. Trump took to his own social media and raged that “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL” for educating the public on slavery and injustice, blasting any exhibit that “makes America look bad” by telling the truth. The message from on high is clear: paint a flawless hero’s portrait of Trumpism, or else.
None of this is spontaneous or subtle – it’s an orchestrated campaign. The Heritage Foundation’s infamous Project 2025 blueprint literally opens by framing museums as battlefronts. It declares America split between “woke revolutionaries” and patriots, and calls on the White House to “retake control of museums, starting with the Smithsonian.”2 Trumpworld got the memo: they’re treating the Smithsonian like the Ministry of Truth. By August, Vice President J.D. Vance (yes, that J.D. Vance) was meeting with Smithsonian brass, armed with a mandate to purge “improper ideology” from exhibits. Federal funding is now a cudgel – toe the line or budgets get slashed. It’s autocracy 101, American edition, and it’s happening in real time.
If this sounds over-the-top, consider that 60% of Americans actually oppose Trump’s meddling in the Smithsonian. But public outrage means nothing if it stays on mute. A creeping fog of political apathy is settling in. After years of chaos, people are exhausted, doomscrolling past news of “another Trump thing” like it’s just a bad reality show. The censors are counting on that fatigue. They want a generation so desensitized that authoritarianism just blends into the background noise of the timeline.
Enter The Trumpsonian: A Pop-Up Rebellion
If the institutions won’t tell the whole truth, we’ll build a new one. This is the ethos behind The Trumpsonian, a renegade pop-up museum born as a counter-offensive in the culture war. The Trumpsonian is not your grandmother’s dusty history museum; it’s more like a traveling circus of truth, a sanctuary of savage facts and satire, determined to keep the receipts of the Trump era. Think of it as the Museum of Modern Absurdity. Immersive, in-your-face, and Instagrammable, it chronicles the controversies, scandals, and chaos of the last decade with unflinching honesty and wicked humor. If Trumpism is trying to airbrush the past, we’re spray-painting it back on the wall in neon colors.
Picture walking into a hall where a gold-plated toilet (yes, that golden toilet) overflows with simulated classified documents – a cheeky homage to the Mar-a-Lago bathroom stash. Around the corner, an AR-powered “Sharpie Gate” exhibit invites you to redraw a hurricane on a weather map (because reality is whatever you can marker it to be, right?). The Trumpsonian takes the viral meme format and weaponizes it for memory: it’s an experience designed to be shared as much as seen. We’ve taken cues from the wildly popular Museum of Ice Cream and given them a political twist. Selfie backdrops meet Senate hearing transcripts. TikTok-worthy set pieces meet tightly sourced truth bombs. Satire is our weapon, and we wield it like a flaming sword in the dark. As the creators say, this project isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity – a loud, chaotic answer to an existential threat. In an era of “alternative facts,” memory itself has become a battlefield, and The Trumpsonian fights back on the only terrain the censors can’t control: cultural virality.
They can ban books, but they can’t stop a million retweets of a striking exhibit. They can censor a textbook, but they can’t censor a viral spectacle shared by countless smartphone cameras. If the powers that be try to scrub archives, we’ll become the living archive – one that tours city to city like a rock concert of resistance. The Trumpsonian pop-up is history with receipts, served with a side of black comedy and a wink, making sure the next generation gets the unvarnished truth and a show to remember.
Inside the Carnival of Absurdity
Stepping through the doors of The Trumpsonian, you enter a dark carnival of American absurdity – equal parts theme park and truth bomb. Each exhibit is a visceral ride. The January 6th VR Room drops you into the chaos of that day, where you can experience the Capitol insurrection from the perspective of a panicked congressional staffer or a bewildered police officer holding the line. It’s harrowing and immersive – Grand Theft Auto: Insurrection Edition – and it ensures no one can claim it was “just a peaceful protest” ever again.
Just down the hall is the infamous Ketchup Room. Here, in a recreation of the White House dining room, visitors are handed a (rubber) plate to pitch at the wall. Watch it splatter in a cascade of ketchup, just like the Oval Office tantrum tale told by insiders. The sound of shattering china and dripping condiments plays on loop. It’s hilarious until it’s chilling – a reminder that a man who once had the nuclear codes also hurled porcelain in rage at his TV. Go ahead and film it for TikTok; this is catharsis through cosplay.
In the Hall of Ignorance, you’ll find an interactive “Authoritarian Checklist.” It’s a massive illuminated board tallying every classic move from the dictator playbook. Visitors can slap giant red X’s or green checks next to each step: Cult of Personality? (Trump’s face on everything – check). Attacks on the free press? (Enemies of the people – check). Purge the institutions? (Ask the Kennedy Center – check.) Rewrite history? (Smithsonian under assault – big check.) The checklist is nearly full, and it lights up like a warning siren in the dark. Families walk by wide-eyed as they realize how many boxes have been ticked in just a few years. It’s a selfie spot, sure – but one that might give you nightmares.
Other rooms ride the line between comedy and horror. The Fox News Funeral Parlor plays a bombastic eulogy for truth itself, delivered in Tucker Carlson’s voice from a casket of TVs. An “Apothecary of Quackery” gleams under glass, displaying bleach bottles and UV light wands as the miraculous COVID cures they never were. Feel free to “inject” yourself (virtually) with a healthy dose of satire. Around the corner, a Family Separation Maze forces you to navigate a labyrinth of chain-link fences while audio of children crying at the border plays. It’s gut-wrenching – as it should be. Not all absurdity is funny; some is simply tragic, and we won’t let it be whitewashed away.
Every corner of The Trumpsonian is designed to be shareable. Snap a photo tossing paper towels in our Puerto Rico Hurricane simulator. Record your “Stable Genius” cognitive test high score (Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV!). Post it, tag it, let the world know: you saw what really happened, and you’re not going to forget. In this museum, the truth is a performance art piece that hits you in the gut and then goes viral. It’s history told in memes and jump-scare exhibits, because that’s what it takes to cut through the noise in 2025.
Truth or Tyranny: No Room for Apathy
The stakes could not be higher, and the Trumpsonian makes sure you feel it. As you exit the final exhibit, you’re confronted with a choice, almost like one of those TikTok “choose your ending” stories. Except this isn’t fiction. This is our reality forked in two.
Down one path lies the nightmare scenario: a future where our children and grandchildren grow up in a carefully curated Matrix of lies. In that future, the next generation visits a gleaming “official” presidential library or museum that tells them the Trump years were a golden age, a triumphant saga of American greatness. They won’t hear about the tweets that fueled hate crimes, or the nights we lost sleep wondering if democracy would survive. They’ll see a statue of Trump with a caption calling him a savior of the republic. They’ll think the Smithsonian purge was just “restoring patriotism,” and that all those who opposed him were simply un-American. In that future, everything absurd we lived through becomes normalized. The kids swipe through propaganda on their devices, nodding along like it’s just another influencer’s feed. They won’t know what’s missing – the uncomfortable truths, the context, the dissent – because all of it will have been memory-holed. In that path, Trump wins the long game. Tyranny isn’t jackboots and marches; it’s a slow, quiet erasure of truth until nobody remembers things were ever any different.
But there’s another future. In the second path, we do something about it now. We expose the lies now. We preserve the evidence now. We fight back with knowledge, art, and yes, dark humor, until the truth is too loud to silence. In that future, our kids will walk through The Trumpsonian or institutions like it and learn the full story. They’ll cringe at the “Covfefe” Twitter crisis and laugh at the sheer insanity of Four Seasons Total Landscaping. They’ll step out of the January 6th VR and say, “Whoa, that really happened?” with clear eyes. And they’ll understand that none of it was normal – it was fought against every step of the way by people who refused to let the light of truth die out. Our children will know that there were Americans who didn’t just go along for the ride on the crazy train, but who hit the brakes and screamed for sanity. They’ll know we had a choice and that some of us chose to confront the tyrant in the mirror before it was too late.
There is no room for apathy in this fight. Every person numbed into silence by the firehose of scandals is a small victory for those who want to replace history with propaganda. “Just scroll past it” is exactly what they want us to do. The Trumpsonian is a loud, gaudy, can’t-look-away response to that creeping numbness. It grabs you by the eyeballs and says look! Look at what really happened. Feel it. Remember it. Because if you won’t, who will? We’re teetering between truth and tyranny, and the deciding factor is whether ordinary people give a damn.
Join the Conspiracy: Fight Back with The Trumpsonian
The Trumpsonian isn’t backed by billionaires or sanctioned by any government. It’s powered by us – the people who refuse to let Orwellian doublespeak win the day. This pop-up museum of dissent is a crowdfunded, crowdsourced labor of love and outrage. To keep it rolling, we need folks like you to join the conspiracy of truth-tellers. And in true Trumpsonian fashion, even donating comes with a side of satire.
Will you join us? Here’s how you can back the cause and get a little absurd keepsake for yourself:
“Classified Documents Starter Pack”: Receive your very own TOP SECRET folder (perfect for your bathroom stash of “sensitive” papers) – a cheeky nod to a certain Mar-a-Lago scenario. Great for hiding snacks or irony.
“The Emoluments Package”: A satirical pay-to-play kit complete with a faux commemorative coin and a Mar-a-Lago resort “bill” with your name on it. It’s like a political donor gala in a box – minus the actual corruption.
“Cabinet Appointment”: An unofficial certificate declaring you “Secretary of Whatever”. Frame it above your desk to prove you, too, can fail upward. (No experience necessary, just like the real thing.)
“Billionaire Tax Break”: We’ll send you a gold-foil “tax receipt” showing $0 paid – a tongue-in-cheek trophy for supporting our cause (and a reminder of how actual billionaires work the system).
And for the truly brave (or slightly crazy) supporters, there are higher-tier perks – rumor has it you could snag a satirical Ambassadorship to Nambia or even a fake Medal of Freedom (Loyalty Edition) if you really want to throw down. Because if our recent history taught us anything, it’s that every position and honor seemed for sale – so we’re selling them right back as parody. All funds fuel the museum’s tour and educational programs, helping us take this show on the road to wake up more citizens.
This is not just a donation; it’s an act of resistance wrapped in humor. By contributing, you’re literally building an ark for truth in an age of floods of lies. The Trumpsonian will use those funds to secure venues, build immersive installations, and amplify our message online (straight into the algorithm’s veins). We’re already planning to launch in Los Angeles for a 90-day run and then expand to cities like New York, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco – and swing states (with friendly governors) like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona. wherever people are hungry to experience reality unfiltered and un-“fixed.” With your help, we’ll shine a spotlight on the facts they want forgotten, and we’ll do it in a way that competes with the flashiness of the very propaganda we’re fighting.
Our call to action is simple: Don’t let them get away with rewriting our story. If you laughed, gasped, or seethed at any point reading this, you know what’s at stake. It’s time to turn that feeling into action. Support the Trumpsonian. Tell your friends about it. Post about it. Drag history’s skeletons into the light of the social media day. The algorithms might be fickle, but truth + tenacity can still beat the lies.
One pop-up museum isn’t going to save democracy on its own, but it can sure as hell rally those of us who will. It can make the truth go viral in a world increasingly allergic to reality. It can remind people that we are not crazy for remembering what happened, and we’re not alone. In the cacophony of disinformation, be a signal.
History is watching in real time, and so are our kids. The question now is: What future will we build for them – one of truth, or one of tyranny (and endless TikTok brain-rot)? The Trumpsonian has chosen its side. Have you?
Join the conspiracy, join the fight, and keep the receipts. Visit The Trumpsonian official website to learn more, experience the insanity for yourself, and if you can, chip in to help this wild project scream the truth from the rooftops. Our virtual doors (and actual doors) are open – grab a ticket, grab some merch, or grab a donation tier and become part of the story. Because in the end, either we write history, or the tyrants do. And we’re not about to let it be the tyrants.
Donate, spread the word, and let’s ensure the next generation knows what really went down. The Trumpsonian is the museum they don’t want, doing the work traditional museums can’t – and with your help, it’s traveling to a city near you.
The future is unwritten, but one thing’s for sure: we refuse to let it be a lie.
Learn more or donate at The Trumpsonian Official Site – your support writes a page of history.