Clarence Page: Is the Smithsonian racist? MAGA makes a case using Newspeak.
If you haven’t heard that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is a hotbed of “anti-White activism,” “illegal alien activism” and “transgender activism,” the Trump administration and its MAGA allies in Congress have some news for you.
You can read all about it in what news accounts have called a “scathing” 162-page report released July 4 by the White House. It accuses the museum and its leaders of presenting a “radical view” of American history.
U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, echoed that language in his opening remarks to a hearing titled “Rewriting American History: Examining the Smithsonian’s Efforts to Reshape the Past,” although the alleged “reshaping” amounted largely to a collection of carefully selected examples.
Burchett claimed the American history museum is pushing radical left-wing narratives, a view that echoed President Donald Trump’s earlier claims, but I cannot confirm that Trump has ever read a book, including his own.
Burchett also noted that these narratives are driven by museum Director Anthea Hartig, who believes that history is a “prime tool of social justice” — as if that’s a bad thing.
MAGA’s rhetorical lexicon is full of terms the movement has appropriated from the left, such as “social justice,” which they endow........
