Just like what Putin and his predecessors did to Russian and Soviet Union history, Trump is aggressively obliterating inconvenient American history. It's just what morally degenerated, lying tyrants do. A NYT opinion by Russian journalist Masha Gessen, Trump Is Trying to Force Americans to Unlearn What We Know, covers familiar ground. She's seen and reported before on this tyrant tactic.
Gessen points out that in Soviet Union times, some folks liked to say “we live in a country with an unpredictable past.” That's because Russians never knew which part of their history would be obliterated next. The same thing is happening right now in the US under Trump and MAGA politics and policy. Trump and MAGA elites are trying to make American history unpredictable.
To kick off his rewrite of history, Trump issued an executive order titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, which (1) orders officials to “remove improper ideology” from the Smithsonian and its museums, (2) cuts funding to “programs that degrade shared American values”, and (3) reinstates some monuments removed following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Since Trump issued that order, the National Park Service removed signs about slavery, the statue of a Confederate general has been reinstalled in Washington; and a scathing White House report accused the Smithsonian of using history “as a political instrument to divide, dispirit and discourage our citizens.” Trump recently issued another executive order mandating that signs be installed outside the Smithsonian “warning visitors about the ideological capture at the National Museum of American History.”
Gessen notes that large amounts of information about Soviet terror came to light after the Soviet Unions collapsed. However, Putin forced that knowledge into oblivion. What Trump is getting rid of is the history and legacy of American slavery and racism.
Yes, former and current political initiatives to reframe American history are heavily propelled by conservative culture warriors and key figures aligned with Christian nationalist frameworks. These groups promote hyper-nationalist narratives that deny or minimize major inconveniences like slavery while championing white civic mythology. MAGA-aligned racists and bigots are key drivers of whitewashing US history. Link
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