His recent executive order to excavate “divisive ideology” from the famed visitor attraction and research complex follows a wave of efforts to keep culture and history defined on his terms, including his takeover of the national capital’s prestigious performing arts venue, the Kennedy Center.
“It’s a declaration of war,“ said David Blight of Yale University, who leads the Organization of American Historians.
Trump’s latest order also says monuments to the historic Confederate rebellion, many of which were removed in recent years in the wake of anti-racism protests, might soon be restored.
And Trump says a number of Smithsonian museums, including the distinguished National Museum of African American History and Culture, espouse “corrosive ideology,“ and are trying to rewrite American history in relation to issues of race and gender.
Margaret Huang -- president of the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate -- called Trump’s order “the latest attempt to erase our history” and “a blatant attempt to mask racism and white supremacy as patriotism.”
For critics like Huang and Blight, Trump’s push to tell a rose-tinted history of “American greatness” is a disservice to museum-goers in a complicated country built on values including freedom of speech -- but whose history is rife with war, slavery and civil rights struggles.
‘Stories about ourselves’
But his brand of culture war is much bigger than personal taste: in his second term, the president appears intent on rooting out what he deems too “woke.”
Critics say Trump’s extension of his grip to the Smithsonian represents an eyebrow-raising incursion into the programming independence of the more than 175-year-old institution.
The complex -- including the zoo, 21 museums and 14 education and research centers -- is approximately two-thirds federally funded, with the rest of its approximately billion-dollar-budget stemming from sources including endowments, memberships and donations.
‘Meaning and belonging’
“When you lose that, you begin to marginalize a lot of different groups.”
Trump’s attempts at cultural dominance in federal institutions are part of a broader package of control, McCoy said, a pattern that echoes research on how authoritarian regimes seize power.
“It’s not just political and economic institutions,“ he said. “It’s also the institutions that provide people with a sense of meaning and belonging -- that they’re American.”
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