More History To Be Erased As Trump Strips Smithsonian Funding For Anything ‘Anti-American’
Anything that doesn't jibe with Donald Trump's white male-centric worldview must go. Whatever is deemed woke" - no matter its basis in factual history - must be excised. If tossing aside DEI means pretending blacks, women, and other non-white, non-male people never contributed anything to this country, so be it. If stroking off the far right and its quasi-theocracy aspirations means turning the US into King George's Great Britain, I guess that's just the price we have to pay to live in a free" society.
The latest assault on history by this administration is a bit more horrific than its previous efforts. Wiping out DEI initiatives caused considerable (and deliberate) collateral damage to documentation of the contributions of immigrants, non-whites, women, and LGBTQ+ to the rich tapestry that is American history. This one is more targeted, but that only means there will be no collateral damage. Everything harmed here will be deliberate.
In this recent executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution, Trump plainly states he's here to rewrite US history in his own image.
The Order directs the Vice President, who is a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to work to eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology from the Smithsonian and its museums, education and research centers, and the National Zoo.
The Order directs the Administration to work with Congress to ensure that future Smithsonian appropriations: (1) prohibit funding for exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans by race, or promote ideologies inconsistent with Federal law; and (2) celebrate women's achievements in the American Women's History Museum and do not recognize men as women.
The Vice President will work with congressional leaders to appoint members to the Smithsonian Board of Regents who are committed to advancing the celebration of America's extraordinary heritage and progress.
That's from the fact sheet accompanying the executive order. And, unfortunately, there's a stooge right there waiting to be activated: JD Vance, who - as Musk's understudy/nominal Vice President - is granted a position on the Smithsonian's board of regents. It's a government entity, but one that has rarely seen direct federal government interference in its day-to-day work.
The second paragraph of the fact sheet is extremely disturbing. It targets things that degrade shared American values" - a list that would certainly include America's century of slavery and the several decades of segregation that follows it. It would also include anything detailing the United States' treatment of Native Americans, which includes genocide, rampant racism, and ongoing attempts to strip away what few rights Native Americans still possess. It might also highlight the routine abuse of immigrants, wartime internment camps, war atrocities, CIA coup attempts, police violence, child labor, and the refusal to treat all citizens as equal for most of Americas history. All of these things are part of American history. And every single one of these could be described as degrading American values" and promoting ideologies inconsistent with federal law."
And yet, those are things most likely to be removed first or, at the very least, denied funding by Trump and Vance. While there's a bone being thrown to women (although I doubt Trump is here to champion abortions rights or the success of the women's suffrage movement), it's only there to ensure that men" do not get recognized as women."
Why is this such a problem? And why does Trump think the Smithsonian should be stripped of funding for exhibits straddling this men/women thing that seems to unduly trouble the world's last consumer of whatever is the Aqua Net of spray tanning agents? It's all explained (I guess?) in the actual executive order. And that order opens with a sentence that proves the adage every accusation is an admission."
Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation's history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light. Under this historical revision, our Nation's unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.
Over the past decade?" From what I've seen, it's only been over the past three months that I've witnessed a concerted" effort to rewrite our Nation's history."
The stuff making Trump so angry someone else wrote up an entire diatribe, called it an executive order," and asked him to drag his Sharpie across the signature box, includes all the things people say about Trump, his loyalists, his cabinet, and his voters. And, to a person, they'll agree with these assertions when hanging out with their own. But, once again, everything listed as problematic is just something Trump doesn't actually think is wrong.
For example, the Smithsonian American Art Museum today features The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture," an exhibit representing that [s]ocieties including the United States have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement." The exhibit further claims that sculpture has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism" and promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social construct, stating Race is a human invention."
The National Museum of African American History and Culture has proclaimed that hard work," individualism," and the nuclear family" are aspects of White culture." The forthcoming Smithsonian American Women's History Museum plans on celebrating the exploits of male athletes participating in women's sports.
The only way to read this is to take Trump at his word. The only reason he would want this removed or censored is because he truly believes white people should be able to do what they want to whoever they want, especially if those on the receiving end aren't white and male. He doesn't have a problem with the US government using race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement." He actually wants white culture" to be the dominant force in America. And he seems to have a particular hard-on for something that happens so infrequently it doesn't even amount to a statistical rounding error: male athletes participating in women's sports.
Contrary to what some commenters believe about me, I actually think the United States is a great nation, or at least has the potential to become one. It isn't one at the present and I don't have a whole lot of hope for its future, given how things have gone over the last 15 years. But it's a deeply flawed nation that has, historically, at least tried to eliminate its worst traits. But Trump wants to bring all the bad stuff back, and he wants to erase our history of improvement on the civil liberties front. It's far more than disappointing. It's sickening. It's a retcon in which all the things that make this country better than it was will be buried and all the things that held us back will be treated as peaks of achievement, rather than the valleys of failure they always were and always will be.