This is a shallow fake video of Donald Trump reading from Hannah Arendt’s seminal book The Origins of Totalitarianism. He reads Section One of Chapter 11, "The Totalitarian Movement: Totalitarian Propaganda." The video was created using available AI tools found online, including TopMediaAI for text-to-voice emulation, and Wav2Lip, a free-to-use open source software available through Google Colab.

In the mid-20th century, political theorist Hannah Arendt published her landmark study of the twin regimes that most brutally eradicated human dignity in the modern era: Nazism and Stalinism. The book quickly became essential reading, revealing how propaganda, isolation, and assaults on reality itself form the preconditions for totalitarian rule. In 2025, artist Joseph DeLappe—long known for his subversive media interventions—brings together one of the most contentious political figures of our time with one of its most volatile technologies. Using deepfake technology, he meticulously re-engineers the image and voice of Donald Trump, recently re-elected as U.S. President, to create a 25-minute video in which Trump appears to read an entire chapter of The Origins of Totalitarianism from the Oval Office and the press briefing room. Here, the medium and the technology are themselves the message. By showing just how easily our shared reality can be manipulated, the work delivers a chilling warning about the conditions in which a 21st-century totalitarianism could take root.

The unabashedly totalitarian and fascist leanings of Trump, the Republican Party, and Project 2025, led me to consider how best to approach creating this work. I arrived at the concept to have Trump do a reading from Hannah Arendt’s highly influential 1951 book, “The Origins of Totalitarianism”. The intention was to create not a “deep fake” but perhaps a “shallow fake”, utilizing newly available, open-source software options which have enabled me to realize the work, that is purposefully rough, revealing the processes of AI technology rather than celebrating them.

• ProducerJoseph DELAPPE
• Screenplay Joseph DELAPPE
• Cinematography Joseph DELAPPE
• Edit Joseph DELAPPE
• Production Design Joseph DELAPPE
• Sound Joseph DELAPPE

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