This weekend, President Donald Trump is turning the heart of our democracy into a taxpayer-funded racetrack. Through an executive order, the administration mandated the "Freedom 250 Grand Prix"—an IndyCar street circuit winding directly through the National Mall. We are being told this is a celebration of America. But earlier this year, IndyCar quietly launched and then hastily deleted a new piece of official merchandise: a gauche, blatantly racist T-shirt. This is exactly what the current administration is substituting for our national heritage.

Trump is perfectly willing to risk the destruction of the nation's most priceless cultural assets to create a public spectacle that honors him, and almost assuredly puts carloads more of our money in his pocket.

Let me be clear: Live athletic competition can be a great cultural unifier, and celebrating America should be a joyous occasion. But this race is a fabricated, exhaust-choked spectacle designed entirely to feed Trump's obsession with personal grandeur. And it’s the public who is paying for everything and likewise the liability falls right into the lap of the public. We are being forced to subsidize a 200-mile-per-hour vanity project with an estimated cultural liability of up to $183 billion.

When you map the racecourse, the sheer negligence becomes terrifying. The circuit wraps directly around the National Gallery of Art, the National Archives, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Air and Space Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian. If a catastrophic, high-speed crash were to occur—scattering carbon-fiber shrapnel and burning ethanol fuel, or triggering a massive structural fire—the cultural devastation would be irreversible. The vibration of the race alone has already forced the National Gallery of Art to remove paintings from the wall. But not everything can be protected like that.

Replacing the pinnacle of global art, foundational Indigenous artifacts,........

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