Another D.C. institution in the culture war crosshairs. The Smithsonian has been a target of the Trump administration for over a year now, since an executive order in March 2025 put Vice President JD Vance in charge of “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” and eliminating “divisive race-centered ideology.”

Republicans are scapegoating Anthea Hartig, director of the Smithsonian’s history museum, who faced hostile questions from lawmakers about an exhibit on girlhood which dared to include a transgender girl, and for sullying Benjamin Franklin’s reputation by suggesting that, in addition to family and friends, he might have used “indentured servants and enslaved people in his household” to test his experiments, “although we may never know for certain.”

The first woman to lead the history museum, Hartig refused to apologize for any of the exhibits she oversaw and denied she is trying to “rewrite history” during a contentious congressional hearing. She said the museum’s focus is “scholarship, accuracy, independence and nonpartisanship,” and that it does not take sides in America’s political debates.

She said at least half a dozen times, “I love this country unconditionally.”

None of it mattered. Just days later, Trump ordered the National Park Service to place signs along sidewalks and walkways leading to the history museum warning the public about the danger of “Ideological Capture.” A 162-page report issued by the White House on July 4 accused the museum’s leadership of engaging in “anti-White activism,” “illegal alien activism,” and “transgender activism.”

Trump cut to the chase in a Truth Social post, declaring of the museum that there’s too much about “how bad Slavery was,”........

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