by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
In his never-ending quest to re-invigorate American society with infusions of racism and class division, Donald Trump last week put a target on the Smithsonian Institution with claims that the venerable museum organization has an "improper ideology." Trump signed an executive order last Thursday which directs Vice President JD Vance to work with Congress to rid the Smithsonian Museum and the National Zoo of "improper ideology" that is "inconsistent with federal law."
Vice President Vance has a seat on the Smithsonian Institute's Board of Directors.
Trump's expansive order seems to specifically target a couple of the Smithsonian Institution's museums: the American Women's History Museum and the National Museum of African American History. Trump's order seeks to slash funding for exhibits or programs that promote ideologies which are deemed (presumably by Trump and Vance) inconsistent with federal law or policies. Currently much federal "policy" seems to be coming from the dark recesses of the aging mind of Donald John Trump and from the extreme right-wing "Project 2025" handbook for lazy politicians with fascist tendencies.
According to news reports Vance and his museum cleaning team are to be on the lookout for anything which recognizes trans people, degrades shared American values (presumably those values shared by the cultural and ethnic majorities of Americans), and which divide Americans based on race.
The Trump team seems to regard the teaching of black history, including slavery and racial discrimination, as being particularly divisive in that it can tend to show white Americans in an unfavorable light based on their ancestry. Conservatives, including Vance, have decried the Smithsonian as well some schools of higher learning as being "woke" and destroying patriotism with their realistic and historically accurate portrayals of American history through the perspectives of racial and ethnic minorities.
Accurate history would appear to be an "improper" ideology.
While Donald Trump wants to put limits on the Smithsonian's ability to tell certain key aspects of American history, he also used that same executive order to openly promote another seriously divisive measure. Not only does he want to tone down or perhaps eliminate key portions of Black history, Trump is also calling on the Secretary of the Interior to reinstate national monuments and statues within his jurisdiction that were "removed or changed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history." And by that he is pushing for bring back the Confederate statues and monuments that were taken down during the 2020 racial justice protests.
That action dovetails nicely with Trump's efforts to bring back the Confederate names of US military installations that were changed during the Biden administration.
Worshipping false idols of dangerous bigots from out nation's past would appear to be an example of "proper" ideology.
If it's all just a plot by the administration to "dumb down"America, as Trump's election itself proves, there's not further they can go!
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