The Trump administration has launched a direct attack on the historical exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution museums in Washington, D.C., opening a new front in the ongoing Culture Wars.
“The US president, who has sought to root out ‘wokeness’ since returning to power in January, accused the Smithsonian of trying to rewrite history on issues of race and gender. In an executive order entitled ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”, he directed the removal of ‘improper, divisive or anti-American ideology’ from its storied museums,” according to The Guardian.
Trump’s executive order claims that “Once widely respected as a symbol of American excellence and a global icon of cultural achievement, the Smithsonian Institution has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology. … This shift has promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”
“The move was met with dismay from historians who saw it as an attempt to whitewash the past and suppress discussions of systemic racism and social justice. With Trump having also taken over the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, there are fears that, in authoritarian fashion, he is aiming to control the future by controlling the past.”
Historians across the United States are responding to President Trump’s executive order and its anti-democratic aims of establishing presidential control over the presentation of the history of the United States in the Smithsonian museums.
‘”It is a five-alarm fire for public history, science and education in America,’ said Samuel Redman, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. ‘While the Smithsonian has faced crisis moments in the past, it has not been directly attacked in quite this way by the executive branch in its long history. It’s troubling and quite scary,'” according to The Guardian.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture seems to be at the center of the Trump administration’s assault on historical education. Lonnie G. Bunch III was the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and is now President of the Smithsonian Institution.
The Guardian reports that “David Blight, a historian and close friend of Bunch, the Smithsonian’s secretary, said: “I haven’t talked to him yet. I’m sure he’s trying to decide what to do. I hope he doesn’t resign but that’s probably what they want. They want the leadership of the Smithsonian, the directors of these museums, to resign so they can replace them.'”
“Blight, who is the current president of the Organization of American Historians, was ‘appalled, angry, frustrated but not fully surprised”, when he read the executive order. ‘There have been plenty of other executive orders but this is a frontal assault,’ he said. ‘I read it as basically a declaration of war on American historians and curators and on the Smithsonian,'” according to The Guardian. “‘What’s most appalling about this is the arrogance, or worse, the audacity to assume that the executive branch of government, the presidency, can simply dictate to American historians writ large the nature of doing history and its content.'”
David Blight is correct to point out that “I take it as an insult, an affront and an attempt to control what we do as historians. On the one hand this kind of executive order is so absurd that a lot of people in my field laugh at it. It’s a laughable thing until you realise what their intent actually is and what they’re doing is trying to first erode and then obliterate what we’ve been writing for a century.”
Trump’s executive order is also linked with broader authoritarian aims of altering and controlling historical records in the libraries and archives of the United States by withholding funds and dismantling the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
The Trump administration and its DOGE team are currently dismantling the Department of Education and disrupting educational grants. The Trump administration is attempting to influence educational curricula in universities, colleges, and high schools across the nation by withholding research grants and educational funds.
Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives 