Museums Under Siege: Trump’s War on History and Why It Matters

 

Museums have long been sanctuaries of truth, education, and cultural memory. They preserve not just artifacts, but the very narratives that define who we are as a people—our achievements, our struggles, and our collective journey. But in 2025, these institutions find themselves under direct assault from Donald Trump, who has repeatedly attacked the Smithsonian and other cultural bodies as “woke” for refusing to sugarcoat America’s history. His recent executive orders and public statements reveal a chilling agenda: to censor uncomfortable truths and replace them with a sanitized, nationalist narrative designed to glorify his vision of America.

This is not new. Across history, dictators and authoritarian regimes have recognized that controlling the past is a powerful means of controlling the future. From Stalin’s purges of Soviet archives to Hitler’s manipulation of German museums, and from the doctored history of Maoist China to today’s state-run museums in North Korea, authoritarian leaders have consistently sought to erase, rewrite, or distort history to fit their ideology. Trump’s push to “restore truth and sanity to American history” by scrubbing away slavery, racism, and his own impeachments from the historical record is not patriotism—it is part of this same authoritarian playbook.

Trump’s Campaign Against the Smithsonian

In March 2025, Trump signed Executive Order 14253, directing a sweeping review of the Smithsonian Institution and other federally funded museums. The order demands the removal of so-called “improper ideology” and insists that exhibitions highlight “American greatness” rather than divisions. On the surface, it may sound like a call to celebrate national pride. But in practice, this order is a blueprint for censorship. It gives the White House extraordinary power over how history is presented, essentially politicizing the nation’s largest and most respected museum network.

Trump followed this order with escalating rhetoric. In August 2025, he publicly denounced Smithsonian museums as “out of control” for focusing too heavily on slavery and the darker chapters of American history. He insisted that museums should instead highlight “success, brightness, and the future.” His lawyers were dispatched to apply the same kind of ideological reviews to the Smithsonian as were already being imposed on universities, sparking alarm among historians and museum professionals alike.

The consequences are already visible. In July 2025, the Smithsonian removed references to Trump’s impeachments from an exhibit on the American presidency, claiming the display was outdated. Many saw this as a politically motivated erasure—an effort to rewrite history at the request of those it reflects poorly on. If this trend continues, museums could cease to be independent guardians of memory and become propaganda machines tailored to appease those in power.

Echoes of Authoritarian History

History offers sobering lessons about what happens when governments dictate historical narratives. In Nazi Germany, museums became showcases for “Aryan pride” while Jewish history and culture were systematically erased. Stalin’s Soviet Union rewrote history textbooks, erased political opponents from photographs, and curated museum content to present the illusion of unified socialist progress. In North Korea today, museums glorify the Kim dynasty while silencing any trace of dissent or failure.

These regimes understood a dangerous truth: whoever controls history controls identity, morality, and ultimately the future. Museums are not neutral—they are battlegrounds of memory. Trump’s attempt to bend the Smithsonian to his vision of America is not merely political meddling; it is a dangerous step toward authoritarian cultural control.

Museums as the Last Bastion of Real History

Museums remain one of the few institutions where facts are preserved and presented with honesty, even when they are uncomfortable. They are the last bastion of real history, unfiltered and unmanipulated. Exhibits on slavery, civil rights, Indigenous dispossession, and other painful truths are not designed to shame America, but to ensure that these injustices are not forgotten and not repeated.

Calling these exhibits “woke” is itself a form of propaganda—a way of discrediting truth-telling by framing it as ideology. But truth is not ideology. Slavery was horrific. Segregation was real. The struggles of marginalized communities are part of America’s history just as much as its triumphs. To erase these stories is to commit a second injustice, robbing future generations of the opportunity to learn, reflect, and build a better nation.

As someone who has worked and volunteered in museums, you understand this intimately. Museums are not political weapons; they are educational sanctuaries. They are where children encounter history not as myth, but as lived experience. They are where artifacts of oppression sit beside artifacts of innovation, reminding us that greatness comes not from ignoring our flaws but from overcoming them.

A Dangerous Distraction

It is no accident that Trump’s attacks on museums come at the same time as investigations into his own scandals, including renewed public attention to the Epstein files. By labeling museums as “the enemy,” he shifts the public debate away from accountability and into the terrain of cultural warfare. This is a distraction tactic—but a dangerous one, because it undermines one of the nation’s most trusted institutions in the process.

Trump’s cult-like base, driven by grievance and resentment of “educated elites,” cheers on these attacks. But the broader danger is to democracy itself. Once history becomes subject to political approval, no institution is safe. What begins with museums can quickly spread to libraries, schools, and archives, eroding the very infrastructure of knowledge.

Why Museums Must Be Defended

We are at a turning point. Museums cannot be passive in the face of these attacks. They must assert their independence, protect their curatorial integrity, and insist on presenting history in all its complexity. Professional associations like the American Alliance of Museums and the Organization of American Historians are already speaking out, warning that this interference could have a chilling effect across the entire sector. Citizens, too, must raise their voices—because once history is rewritten, the truth may be lost for generations.

Museums matter because they tell the whole story. They are not “woke”; they are honest. They are not “divisive”; they are inclusive. They do not exist to comfort fragile egos but to challenge, teach, and preserve. Trump’s attempt to weaponize history against the truth must be resisted, not only for the sake of our museums but for the sake of democracy itself.

Closing Thought

The late historian David McCullough once said: “History is who we are and why we are the way we are.” To erase history is to erase ourselves. Trump’s war on museums is not just about artifacts and exhibitions—it is about identity, memory, and power. If we allow him to succeed, we risk becoming a nation that forgets its past, and in doing so, condemns itself to repeat it.

Museums are not the enemy. They are the guardians of truth. And in times like these, truth is something worth fighting for.