The Smithsonian’s Anti-American History Museum
In addition to convincing other nations that America is not an ally worth having, our flagship museum is teaching our children that America is not a country worth preserving.
Last week, I wrote about the Smithsonian’s efforts to effectively erase America from its National Museum of American History.
As I mentioned in that column, since 2019, the museum has removed “American history” from its mission and instead adopted a pledge to highlight the “infinite richness and complexity of our past.” The museum’s director said the change was an explicit effort to move away from “the ‘America First’ mentality.”
Similarly, our founders’ stories have mostly been replaced with moral indictments of their various flaws — many of which are related to the facts of living in the late 18th century. And much of the story of our founding itself has been similarly laced with presentist judgement and progressive criticism.
The founding virtues on which our country was built are treated as a footnote at the bottom of a long letter of apology. While the rest of the nation recently celebrated 250 years of independence, the Smithsonian currently describes the two most crucial events in early American history — Christopher Colombus’ discovery of the New World in 1492 and the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 — under the heading “Unsettling the Continent.” In a real sense, the flagship museum for our national history is calling into question whether our nation should even exist.
As I wrote last week, this projects a terrible message to our enemies and allies alike. But the most damaging effect will be on our own people. The Smithsonian National Museum of American History has taken overtly political, unpopular ideological stances and appears to be seeking to spread its apologist, defeatist worldview to future generations of Americans.
In fact, for roughly four years, the museum’s own training manual reportedly described itself and other similar institutions as tools to promote white supremacy — along with ideas such as “objectivity,” and “individualism.” To correct this self-perceived evil, a group within the institution developed new training materials to recreate the museum into a “site for social action” and an “anti-racist” institution.
In pursuit of its new ethos, the museum developed curriculum aimed at school children (prekindergarten through 12th grade) which taught America was stolen from Native Americans and that “there is no single American culture, language, or narrative.” This is only surprising until you realize the head of the museum’s educational program has publicly called for the repatriation of land back to Native Americans and criticized the logical and moral foundation of Western Civilization. (As an aside, there is something deeply ironic about a public museum official denigrating the civilization which created the public museum.)
Further, the Smithsonian created its “Center for Restorative History,” which included a project to travel around the country and into Mexico specifically to interview illegal aliens (a term the museum has scrubbed from its material) and activists who call for open borders and the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
I do not yet know how much this project (or the museum’s “Tell Me What Democracy Looks Like” program) cost taxpayers. But why should the National Museum of American History spend any of its limited resources traveling around the country interviewing people who are, by definition, not Americans?
Of course, no one should be surprised that our progressive, activist academic system has produced progressive, activist museum officials. However, there’s a real reason to be concerned about the Smithsonian’s direction.
In addition to convincing other nations that America is not an ally worth having, our flagship museum is teaching our children that America is not a country worth preserving.
It is time to replace these anti-American Smithsonian officials with people who love America and its history.
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45-50 years ago I watched the Smithsonian remove the entire section on CREATION. Beside it had been a smaller section called The Theory of Evolution. They completely removed any reference/exhibit to creation and renamed the entire area EVOLUTION. Likewise, every other Biblical exhibits were removed. Other than the scriptures etched in stone on monuments and buildings, they worked to completely erase our Biblical history! Pure evil and lies!
Can the Executive fire the museum heads? How about Doug Burgham? I know he’s been actively addressing this issue at all our national landmarks and parks.