Is President Trump’s recent executive order to reform the Smithsonian Institution a bold step towards reclaiming American history, or just another skirmish in the culture wars? For those who believe in the truth and an America-first approach, the answer is clear: it’s a righteous and necessary action. This is a move to wrest control from an elite group intent on reinterpreting American history through a lens that paints our nation as irredeemable. But let’s dissect what’s truly at stake here.
Progressives, predictably, are up in arms. The Washington Post and others have decried Trump’s order as an assault on history, claiming it’s Trump who’s rewriting the past, despite these left-leaning institutions already having embarked on that endeavor themselves. As President Trump explicitly states in the order, under the guise of revisionists, America’s illustrious history of advancing liberty is falsely reconstructed as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed”—a narrative that utterly defies the facts of our nation’s tremendous strides toward individual rights and freedoms.
What’s driving this leftist fury? Fear. Fear of losing the power to dictate the historical narrative—a power they have wielded through vehicles like the 1619 Project, which audaciously attempts to reframe American history by suggesting our nation was built primarily on slavery. The New York Times itself admitted that this endeavor was about “reframing the country’s history,” a claim echoed by the project’s architect, Nikole Hannah-Jones, who contended it would “corrupt and corrode” the American narrative.
Undoubtedly, restoring the Smithsonian’s mission to present history unmarred by ideological agendas is a formidable challenge. Current Secretary Lonnie Bunch pledged to embed the 1619 Project into the Smithsonian’s exhibitions. This approach mirrors decades of left-wing historical revisionism, akin to the overhauls that characterized the despotic regimes of Lenin, Mao, and Castro. Their shared aim was—and is—to present a history that erodes the foundational values supporting freedom and democracy.
When Remnick of The New Yorker describes Trump’s actions as a policing of the past common to autocracies, he conveniently ignores the left’s obsession with tearing down historical truths. President Trump is not out to police history but to defend it from those who would distort it. He seeks to preserve the integrity of American heritage by ensuring the Smithsonian isn’t a mouthpiece for ideology, but an institution dedicated to factual education and genuine pluralism.
The Left’s evangelical dedication to rewriting history is not random; it’s strategic. It’s about systematically dismantling the structures that uphold societal stability in favor of chaos that allows for radical change. Burke’s conservatism teaches us that progress should preserve what is valuable, not build upon a foundation made unstable by lies and half-truths.
The Smithsonian is a place where American stories should thrive based on facts, not distorted ideology masquerading as truth. We must challenge the leftist lie that our history is one-dimensional, a flawed tale of inequity and oppression. Instead, we acknowledge America has blemishes, but we also proudly recognize its role as the harbinger of the freedom countless people sought when they immigrated to this great nation.
Trump’s executive order represents a critical juncture in the fight for our national heritage. As Americans endured the rising clamor of historical distortions, the clarion call from President Trump is both welcome and essential. So let’s stand firm, echoing the sentiments of those who value the truth, and ensure our great nation’s history is preserved, accurately and boldly. Our children—in classroom after classroom across America—deserve nothing less than the authentic story of the land of the free and the home of the brave.
