There’s a special kind of American irony in watching a White House that can’t stop talking about “cancel culture” spend its waning days trying to cancel the Smithsonian. Canceling a comedian’s Netflix special is authoritarianism, we’re told. But rewriting a museum plaque about Benjamin Franklin’s enslaved servants? That’s patriotism, baby.
On August 20, 2025, Donald Trump’s administration unveiled its latest installment of the “Make Museums Cry” tour by sending formal letters to seven Smithsonian institutions demanding they correct their exhibits for being “divisive,” “anti-American,” and—most damning—“overly factual.” In a move so unsubtle it makes Soviet censors blush, Budget Director Russ Vought’s office is ordering the curators of America’s most prestigious museums to turn down the woke dial and crank up the nostalgia knob, preferably until the exhibit halls smell faintly of apple pie and gasoline.
The Franklin Problem: Founding Father or Awkward Roommate?
At the National Museum of American History, one exhibit dares to suggest that Benjamin Franklin both flew kites in thunderstorms and enslaved human beings. The audacity. Imagine walking into a gallery expecting to bask in bifocals and almanacs and instead being reminded that America’s favorite eccentric uncle kept people in chains. The administration’s solution? Focus on the positive. More kites, fewer chains. More printing presses, fewer shackles. It’s simple curation math.
Trump officials argue that such context “undermines pride.” Because nothing screams patriotism like an exhibit so sanitized you could perform open-heart surgery on it.
George Floyd and the Museum of Selective Memory
Then there’s the film about George Floyd’s murder that allegedly “mischaracterizes police.” Translation: it shows what actually happened. The administration believes museums should avoid “contemporary political controversies” such as state violence captured on high-definition iPhones and witnessed by millions worldwide. Instead, perhaps a tasteful hologram of Officer Friendly handing out lollipops.
You can almost hear the curatorial meeting now: “Should we depict the killing that sparked a global reckoning on race and policing?” “Only if the cop gets billing as a misunderstood thespian.”
The Latino Problem: Too Many Facts, Not Enough Flags
The Latino history exhibition ¡Presente! has come under fire for portraying colonization as, well, colonization. The nerve. Worse, it highlights the U.S. seizure of Mexican land in 1848 as an “invasion” rather than the patriotic landscaping project we were apparently going for. According to Trump’s America, Manifest Destiny wasn’t theft—it was a home improvement show with muskets.
Russ Vought’s letter reportedly suggests replacing the word “seizure” with “welcoming embrace,” ideally accompanied by stock footage of a bald eagle slow-clapping.
The Portrait Gallery: Lady Liberty’s Bad PR Day
Over at the National Portrait Gallery, someone had the gall to juxtapose the Chinese Exclusion Act with the Statue of Liberty’s inscription about “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Trumpworld thinks that’s unfair to Lady Liberty, who clearly did not consent to being used in political arguments about immigration. Next thing you know, they’ll demand she hold a “Now Hiring” sign instead of a torch.
Asian Art and the Perils of Pronouns
But the pièce de résistance is the National Museum of Asian Art, where exhibit texts apparently contain—brace yourself—“Western gender ideology.” One assumes the complaint was sparked by the radical suggestion that women exist in Asian history. Or worse: that nonbinary people might, too. The administration seems to prefer Asian art that features only dragons, cherry blossoms, and men in stiff collars gazing wistfully into the distance while definitely not questioning gender roles.
The Smithsonian Already Knows This Dance
To be fair, the Smithsonian has already been softening its displays under political pressure. In July, curators quietly edited a presidential-power exhibit to remove explicit mentions of Trump’s impeachments, replacing them with a vague reference to “presidents who faced removal.” Nothing says “scholarly integrity” like blurring your subject into a Magic Eye puzzle.
Now, with this new round of directives, the White House seems to be treating curators like high schoolers who turned in book reports that failed to flatter the author. “Nice work, Lonnie, but could you maybe emphasize the Statue of Liberty’s good skin and leave out the acne scars?”
How to Rebrand a Nation Without Looking Like You Tried
Let’s imagine how these content “corrections” might look in practice:
- Enslavement → “Unpaid Internships”
- Colonization → “Extended Vacation with Guns”
- Police Brutality → “Community Theater Gone Wrong”
- Chinese Exclusion Act → “Exclusive Club Membership”
- Climate Change → “Extended Summer”
Why stop there? Why not a gift shop where you can buy Make History Great Again trucker hats and MAGA-branded Liberty Bells that only chime when you Venmo the RNC?
Cancel Culture, But Make It State-Sponsored
Of course, the real absurdity here is the hypocrisy. The same people who foam at the mouth when students protest a commencement speaker are now gleefully trying to muzzle the country’s most important cultural institutions. When conservatives cancel, it’s not canceling—it’s “restoring balance.” When they rewrite, it’s not propaganda—it’s “correction.” Apparently, if you slap an American flag sticker on censorship, it transforms into patriotism.
Lonnie Bunch: Curator, Therapist, Gladiator
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch, to his credit, told staff that the institution will remain “guided by scholarship, integrity, and intellectual honesty.” That’s curator-speak for: We’re not taking down the George Floyd film just because the President got a bad Yelp review from history.
But Bunch also knows the stakes. The White House has threatened funding. Imagine running a 21-museum complex on a shoestring budget while fielding daily demands to replace the phrase “slave trade” with “international internships.” It’s like being asked to cater a wedding with one box of Ritz crackers while the groom insists you erase the bride’s ex-boyfriend from all photographs.
Museums as Battlefields
This isn’t really about Franklin or Floyd or statues holding torches. It’s about whether museums are supposed to be mirrors or makeup counters. Do we show America as it is and was, warts and all? Or do we powder those warts, drape them in red-white-and-blue bunting, and call them beauty marks?
The administration has chosen the latter. They want the Smithsonian to serve as a patriotic Instagram filter: same photo, but with better lighting, no blemishes, and absolutely no mention of genocide.
What Comes Next?
If this campaign succeeds, expect future exhibits to look like this:
- At the National Museum of Natural History, the dinosaur hall will be reframed as a cautionary tale about refusing to drill for oil.
- At the Air and Space Museum, Apollo 11 will be presented as a Trump family dry run for colonizing Mars.
- At the African American History and Culture Museum, slavery will be downgraded to “extended vocational training with housing provided.”
- At the American Art Museum, Jackson Pollock’s splatters will be praised for predicting Trump’s second impeachment.
And don’t be surprised if the Museum of American History introduces an entire wing on “The Unimpeachable Presidency of Donald J. Trump,” complete with animatronic Trump figures who repeat “Woke is dead!” every fifteen minutes on the hour.
The Joke’s on All of Us
The danger here isn’t just that history will be rewritten—it’s that Americans will get used to the rewriting. Today it’s Franklin’s ledger books. Tomorrow it’s your kid’s history class, where the Trail of Tears becomes “a scenic walk.” The White House isn’t just fighting curators; it’s fighting memory itself.
Museums are the last public spaces where truth is printed on placards and whispered in dioramas. Once you replace evidence with edits, you don’t just lose history—you lose your ability to argue about it. And then the only story left is the one written by the guy with the loudest microphone and the thickest Sharpie.
Final Exhibit: The Hall of American Gaslighting
One day, if the Smithsonian survives this assault, they should create a new hall: The Hall of American Gaslighting. It could feature:
- Trump tweeting that the Smithsonian is “OUT OF CONTROL” while demanding control.
- Russ Vought’s letters insisting history is biased unless it praises the landlord.
- A hologram of curators sighing into their coffee.
- And, at the center, a mirror—because the ultimate exhibit is us, a country so allergic to honesty we’d rather amputate our past than admit we have scars.
Until then, prepare for museums that feel less like cathedrals of knowledge and more like theme parks designed by your least favorite uncle. Ride the “Colonial Carousel,” where every spin is Manifest Destiny. Grab a snack at the “Freedom Fries Café.” Don’t miss the nightly fireworks over the reflecting pool—they’re labeled “Not Propaganda.”