News outlets in the US and around the world cover the second administration of Donald Trump extensively. Amid this deluge of information on current events, film directors Demid Sharonkin and Cain Dunder take a step back to assess the state of freedom of expression and democracy in the US with their new DW documentary, “Democracy Under Attack: Cain Dunder and Trump’s America,” which premiered on April 14. Human Rights Film Festival Berlin.
Dunder, a Turkish journalist and author living in exile in Berlin, explained at the film’s premiere that as he developed the project, he faced the challenge of finding an angle that could withstand Trump’s turbocharged news cycle.
“We decided to focus on the situation of academia as a kind of microcosm reflecting the attacks on democracy,” he explains.
Scholar faces death threats, doxxing and interrogation at airport
Mark Bray, one of the university’s professors, was interviewed in the documentary, one of the most high-profile cases of academics targeted by the far right.
As the author of the book “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” the Rutgers University history professor was added to an online list of academics known as the “Professor Watchlist” launched by the far-right organization Turning Point USA in 2016.
Following the assassination of the organization’s founder Charlie Kirk in September 2025, Trump signed an executive order designating the Antifa movement as a “domestic terrorist organization”. Since then, death threats against Bray have intensified, as students from his university’s Turning Point USA chapter condemned him for promoting political violence.
When Bray’s home address began circulating in the emails of his tormentors, the scholar – who does not define himself as a member of the highly decentralized antifa movement – decided to uproot his family and relocate to Spain.
In the documentary, Bray and his wife describe the harrowing obstacles they faced before being able to leave the country – including the mysterious cancellation of their flight reservations to Spain without explanation.
AmericaFest: An Unreal Ideological Battleground
The most intense scenes in the documentary were shot at AmericaFest 2025, Turning Point USA’s first annual convention held after Kirk’s death. The 30,000 attendees celebrated him as a martyr.
DW Filmmaker Demid Sheronkin was troubled by the surreal atmosphere of the event. “It felt like it was a mix of a political rally and a Christian service; a battlefield and a festival.”
The documentary shows conservative speakers riling up the MAGA crowd by giving one fiery speech after another. “We are at war,” said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. “We are in a political and ideological war.”
Rutgers University student Ava Kwan, who petitioned to remove Bray from his position, was also celebrated as a star on stage. Interviewed in the DW documentary, he said his initiative was aimed at ensuring the safety of students. Although she said she was saddened that Bray faced death threats, she did not feel responsible, adding that her personal information had also been doctored online.
But beyond the busy atmosphere of the AmericaFest conference, the ideological divide can be felt everywhere in the country. Although research shows that academics generally have more liberal leanings than the general public, the film provides a reminder that voices representing the far-right extreme of the political spectrum also exist among scholars.
Amy Wax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Cary Law School, shares her white supremacist views in an interview in the documentary. Due to controversial statements, Wax was suspended at half pay and removed from teaching for the 2025–26 school year, but did not lose his tenure.
Drawing lessons from direct experiences of oppression in Türkiye
As the film’s host, Can Dunder draws from the oppression he has experienced firsthand in his home country.
A Turkish investigative journalist became a global symbol of press freedom after being jailed for his reporting. He survived an assassination attempt and was eventually forced into exile from his home country, landing in Berlin in 2016.
Dündar, considered a fugitive by Turkish authorities, did not travel to the US for the documentary project, following the advice of his lawyers. “I didn’t want to be a nice gift from Trump to Erdogan,” he said.
But Dunder traveled to Canada for another interview. There too, because of his “terrorist” label, authorities interrogated him for several hours upon arrival. In Toronto, he met another expert on fascism who decided to flee Trump’s America, Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley.
Stanley, whose parents were Holocaust survivors, is very pessimistic in his assessment of the situation: “America is not in a temporary crisis. America as a project is over.”
For Dunder, the warning signs should definitely be taken seriously. “I feel as if a new wave of authoritarianism has been tested in Turkey, and it is now spreading all over the world; I can smell it, I can feel it,” Dündar told DW. “We are seeing the same signs: the destruction of the rule of law, attacks on media freedom… these are the beginning.”
The worrying developments in America mirror what has already happened in Türkiye, the journalist said. “So I want to say ‘be careful,’ because everything else is really, really painful.” Dunder said Europeans also need to be more cautious. “Democracy should not be taken for granted.”
Edited by: Brenda Haas