Opinion

I’ve spent 25 years at historic museums. Smithsonian should tell of America’s greatness

America's 250th anniversary calls for honest history, not national self-reproach

By David Botkins Fox News

Published October 12, 2026 5:00am EDT

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PBS, NPR and the Smithsonian have been taken over by this ‘left-wing project’: Victor Davis Hanson

Hoover Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson discusses controversies surrounding a Smithsonian museum in Manhattan over the museum’s framing of American history on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’

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The Smithsonian Institution is sometimes called the nation’s attic. That description is inadequate. An attic stores things. The Smithsonian does something far more consequential: It helps Americans understand who we are.

That responsibility carries particular weight as the United States celebrates its 250th anniversary and the Smithsonian prepares for new leadership. The transition comes amid an intense debate over how the Smithsonian presents American history. A White House review criticized the National Museum of American History, arguing that ideological concerns have displaced an understanding of history as a shared national inheritance.

Smithsonian leaders and historians have defended the institution’s scholarly independence and warned against allowing political power to dictate how history is told. The answer cannot be choosing one of those impulses and ignoring the other.

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Outgoing Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch recently said the Smithsonian must show both the light and the dark. He has also described America as an ideal as much as a place — an aspiration toward liberty, fairness, justice and equality.

People walk on the National Mall near the Smithsonian Castle in Washington, D.C., on May 10, 2021. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

But has the Smithsonian been telling the American story........

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