The president argues that he is “out of control” because, in his opinion, “there is only talk of how horrible slavery and how little the disadvantaged have achieved.”
Museums tell the story of a nation as much as books. The Smithsonian Institute, With his galleries in Washingtonis one of the world’s largest cultural centers. Now, His autonomy is under pressure: President Donald Trump ordered an “integral internal review” of eight roomswith the aim of ensuring that Its contents fit in the story of the Maga Movement (Make America Great Again) he leads.
The president He maintains that Smithsonian is “out of control” Because, in his opinion, “there is only talk of how horrible slavery and how little the disadvantaged have achieved.” In his social Truth network, he demanded greater emphasis on the “positive” and “American exceptionalism.”
Donald Trump presses Smithsonian to impose the magician story in his museums
The White House sent a formal letter to the director of the institute to notify what is sought eliminate “divisive or partisan narratives.” The Smithsonian responded with a brief statement in which he defended his “academic rigor and commitment to the objective presentation of the story”, although he agreed to collaborate with the review.
The measure aroused strong criticisms in the academic field. “It is typical of an authoritarian regime, of the Nazis or Franco’s times in Spain ”, Scott Manning, a professor of humanities at the University of Syracuse. “Everyone wants to control the story that tells the story.”
Trump-Va
For the historian William Deverell, the initiative reflects “a fantasy about an idealized past” and a “misunderstanding of history”, by omitting the social struggles that expanded rights in the twentieth century.
Trump’s pressures are possible because More than 60% of Smithsonian’s funds come from Congress and the Federal Budget. In May, the president had already fired the director of the National Portrait Gallery, after objecting an exhibition with a work in which a trans woman represented the statue of freedom.
The examples of pieces that could remain in the sight are several: the Greensboro counter, where the fight against racial segregation began; The original speech manuscript “I have to Dream” by Martin Luther King; or projects linked to the LGTBIQ+collective. For Trump, these memories are not “positive enough.”
The attempt to impose an ideological bias in museums repeats what happened in universities, where the administration stopped visas to punish the Protective protests. In both cases, the strategy seems to be the same: silence any story that does not fit the magician vision.
Source: Ambito
