The New York Times reports that President Donald Trump on Friday ordered warning signs and exhibits installed outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to alert the public that the museum does not, in his view, accurately reflect American history.
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The executive order is “an escalation of the president’s dispute with the Smithsonian and its history museum, which was the subject of a recent 162-page report,” said the Times. “The report accused the museum’s director, Anthea M. Hartig, of ‘radical activist ideology’ and the museum of undermining ‘faith in American institutions.’”
Trump’s EO directed the signage to “notify visitors that the museum exhibits should be renovated … and direct visitors to locations and resources for accurate information regarding America’s history.”
“Because the museum has failed to appropriately honor the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence during this 250th anniversary year of the founding of our country,” the order continues, government agencies “shall install temporary exhibits or signage on N.P.S.-maintained sidewalks, walkways, and land used by the public that corrects inaccurate information presented in the museum.”
Critics immediately hounded Trump for his hard feelings on social media, claiming the president is still stinging from his earlier failed attempts to whitewash U.S. history by removing records of its uglier moments — primarily those instigated by white people upon others.
“Snowflake behavior,” spat one commenter on X.
“Trump just ordered warning signs and exhibits to be installed outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to alert the public that the museum does not, in his view, accurately reflect American history. For the record: It does,” complained MS NOW producer Kyle Griffin.
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Other hecklers noted Trump’s darker ultimate goal.
“Before you can rewrite history, you have to destroy it,” warned one critic on X.
While others were quick to point out the MAGA hypocrisy of demanding historic figures be portrayed by white actors.
“The people demanding a historically accurate Greek myth are perfectly fine with Trump doing this,” said another X user.
Director Hartig recently defended the museum saying the museum was simply representing complex history, and the Times notes historians criticized Trump’s attempts to overhaul the Smithsonian as ideologically motivated.
“I cannot recall a single instance where exhibits have been directly wrestled with by the upper echelons of the federal government,” University of Massachusetts Amherst history professor Samuel J. Redman told the Times.
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