Trump Administration to Review Smithsonian Exhibits for Ideological Purity

The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump Administration will begin "reviewing" Smithsonian exhibits under a new Orwellian policy that will see the executive branch impose the president's "interpretation" of history onto the Smithsonian museums, which operate under charter and are not formally a part of the U.S. government. Trump officials said they would withhold funding unless the Smithsonian participated in a plan to align their exhibits and their collections with the president's stated goals of ending support for diversity and removing "divisive" content.

In a letter sent to Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, three top White House officials said they want to ensure the museums’ “unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story” and reflect the president’s executive order calling for “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

Areas under scrutiny range from public-facing exhibition text and online content to internal curatorial processes, exhibition planning, the use of collections and artist grants.
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“This initiative aims to ensure alignment with the president’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions,” the letter states. 

While the Smithsonian's vast number of museums and programs are probably too large for the Trump team to do much more than superficial damage to some public-facing exhibitions, it is nevertheless exceptionally disturbing that the executive branch is looking to essentially take control of what history means in America, what subjects are allowed to be discussed, and what viewpoints can be represented. 

"Who controls the past," Orwell wrote of the Party's ideology in 1984, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past."