The United States continues to receive losses as President Donald Trump pushes the national debt deeper, invoking fear apparel on selected individuals, including legal citizens, and misusing his authority for personal interests.
One of the vital national necessities he wants to dismantle is education, to prevent freedom of critical thinking and to suppress the country’s progress towards a better future. And as the Trump administration continues receiving backlash, educational influencer Dave Jorgenson published a clip compilation on Jan. 19. It compared their 2025 return to the 1943 US short film, Don’t Be A Sucker.
What Did Don’t Be A Sucker Teach?
Don’t Be A Sucker is an educational film presented by the US Board of Education to help children identify fanaticism, two years before World War II ended. The global definition of fanaticism is portraying an extreme belief or interest to an unreasonable degree. According to the US National Archives, the film’s guide is a Hungarian refugee from Germany.
He shared his insight with a Freemason, a member of the brotherly love organization. The first reel demonstrated a scenario of an American agitator who wants to abolish legal immigrants and other selected minorities (African Americans, Catholics, and Freemasons). It presented how easily a person can manipulate others into their interests until they become the target.
The second reel transitions to the Hungarian refugee’s explanation to show how fanaticism can root into other ideals, such as fascism and communism. He informed the Freemason that Adolf Hitler became the foundation of Nazi Germany by using the same agitation tactics to fuel an army of “pure-blooded Germans.”
Recruiters first prepared using false promises, like high wages and a surplus of food. Then, they depicted the nation’s ideal appearance through their blue eyes, tall, slender physiques, and blonde hair. And finally, separate the selected minority groups from the believers, or in this case, the suckers.
Don’t Be A Sucker does not sugarcoat the consequences of the results of reckless actions either. Aside from 7.5 million casualties, Hitler and his comrades, the Axis Powers, attempted to silence everyone who saw through their lies. These included rational idealists, scientists, writers, religious leaders, and even educators. The most powerful scene is when a German professor presented and explained to his students that war did not come from an outsider. It came from an enemy in Germany who sought to impose his views on the rest of the world.
Nazi officers later barged into the classroom and interrupted his lesson, which gave him an idea. The professor told his students, “There are many differences between individuals. We each have different capabilities, backgrounds, views of rights and wrongs, like the differences between me and these gentlemen who just arrived. But that is not the difference in race; it is a difference in the way we think. And remember that there is no master race. That is a scientific truth. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.” He gets slapped and is taken into custody.
The Hungarian refugee ends his explanation with the importance of preserving the United States’ ideals of freedom and righteousness. He watched as the Freemason quietly tore the agitator’s pamphlet. He also reminds him that America was built by minorities.
How Does It Match Dave Jorgenson’s Compilation?
Since 2025, social media and news networks are on a constant battle over how they can inform the public after Trump returned to the White House for his second term. Some appeased MAGA and the Republican Party through partnerships, used censorship to maintain video monetization, and helped spread disinformation.
There are those who refused to submit and give up their morale to meet the president’s demands for his America. Jorgenson has risen to the challenge and consistently reports news headlines and presents credible evidence to inform about the damage his second administration has caused to the US.
His recent YouTube short introduced his audience to Don’t Be A Sucker, matching certain scenes to the impactful events of Trump’s second attempt to make America great again. The comparisons are very convincing of what the nation’s previous generation entailed about fanaticism. The president mirrors the agitator, who believes pure Americans are losing their jobs to immigrants who are claimed to be illegal aliens by 107%. Vice President JD Vance also presented this behavior by absorbing his ideals as knowledge.
Jorgenson further established the disturbing parallels to the Nazi soldiers who devoted themselves to Hitler’s communism with ICE. The 80,000 people who took Trump’s words alone applied to detained suspected illegal Latin Americans. And like the Hungarian refugee told the Freemason, they became the suckers who stripped their nation’s liberties. Many of ICE’s detainees experienced unwarranted investigations, unnecessary violence, and unregulated deportations.
Jorgenson even highlighted how the Nazis advocated to undermine education, just like the Trump administration attempted to back in March 2025. Members boldly implied that closing the US Board of Education will drastically improve by facilitating authority over schools, including censorship of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). And the Don’t Be A Sucker comparisons continued until the classroom television’s input switched to the DVD player.
The YouTube short reached over 1.8 million views and received over 155,000 likes. The majority of Jorgenson’s viewers agreed that Don’t Be A Sucker should be presented in schools in the current era. The educational film still holds significance in the US after 82 years of its release.
America’s previous generation presented the value that made the country a symbol of freedom to the world since publishing the Declaration of Independence back in 1776. With the Trump administration continuing to neglect it, there’s a chance these films could soon be erased. You can find it here on the official US National Archives channel.
