John,
Donald Trump just signed an executive order that targets one of America’s most treasured institutions, the Smithsonian. It’s called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” but don’t let the Orwellian title fool you.
It’s a full-blown assault on historical truth, demanding that the Smithsonian purge exhibits about slavery, systemic racism, and the lives of transgender Americans. The intent is clear: to whitewash our past, muzzle our present, and control our future.
Institutions like the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the yet-to-open American Women’s History Museum are in the crosshairs. Their “crime”? Telling the truth about racism, gender inequality, and the long fight for civil rights in America. And who’s supposed to enforce Trump’s propaganda? A Board of Regents that includes VP JD Vance.
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch has already spoken out, saying the institution won’t bow to partisan pressure. Now it’s time for us to speak out too. The Board of Regents, including members of Congress, Chief Justice Roberts, and others, needs to hear loud and clear: We will not accept a whitewashed America.
Tell the Smithsonian Board to reject Trump’s censorship and defend the truth.
This order doesn’t just threaten scholarship, it threatens funding. Trump’s directive would withhold $1.3 billion in federal funds unless the Smithsonian bends to his ideological demands. That includes funding already approved by Congress. It’s a direct attack on all 21 Smithsonian museums, 14 research centers, and the very idea that truth should not be filtered through partisan politics.
If Trump succeeds in rewriting history to serve his political ends, it won’t stop with museum exhibits. It will trickle into textbooks, classrooms, and public discourse. And it won’t just be the Smithsonian that gets bullied, it’ll be every institution that dares to tell the truth.
The National Museum of the American Indian, the African American History Museum, the LGBTQ+ collections all face potential erasure under this order. This is authoritarian censorship dressed up in patriotic language.
But there’s a firewall: the Board of Regents. And the majority are not Trump loyalists. They can resist. They can push back. And if enough of us demand it, they will.
Stand up now and tell the Smithsonian’s Board to defy Trump’s attack on history.
Together, we can defend truth, protect our history, and stop Trump’s censorship campaign in its tracks.
- DFA AF Team
