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PoliticsSocietyCommentary

The Smithsonian’s Failure to Tell the American Story

Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Lonnie Bunch on February 20, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Anna Gustafson is a research assistant in the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation.

Today marks the first anniversary of the start of President Donald Trump’s war on the Smithsonian Institution. It is nothing less than a heroic clash between the forces of American continuity and those who seek foundational, ideological transformation of our country.

It was on March 27, 2025, that Trump issued executive order 14253, appropriately titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”  It described a decade-long revisionist effort by the Smithsonian and other cultural institutions to replace objective facts with ideology-driven narratives that reconstruct America’s legacy as irredeemably racist, sexist, and oppressive.

The order warned that this approach only deepens societal divides and fosters national shame, rather than unity.

Among the best examples of this shift lies at the Smithsonian, in the heart of our American capital. 

After the executive order, the White House sent a formal letter to the Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lonnie Bunch III in August 2025, initiating a comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions to comply with the President’s directive in the March executive order. Secretary Bunch failed to comply.

Since then, follow-up letters and deadlines have been communicated to the Smithsonian, and there has still been very little cooperation.

To some, this may appear an unnecessary battle. However, this is perhaps one of Trump’s most noble efforts, for the Woke Agenda knows no limits. It will continue to infect our institutions unless we are bold enough to directly combat it and call it out for what it is: a lie.

What makes this agenda particularly effective are its subtleties. It festers like an uncleaned wound, rotting the core of whatever is attached. Though a grotesque analogy, it aptly describes the methods by which this agenda has permeated the U.S. and its institutions. And through this, our shared values, common understanding, moral foundations, and cultural heritage are all threatened. 

Such subtle decay is precisely what has occurred across the Smithsonian’s 21 museums.

Consider the National Museum of American History—a museum whose very name promises to tell the story of America. One would likely expect, walking through its halls and exploring its exhibits, to encounter a coherent narrative of the nation. One may even expect to leave feeling informed and patriotic.

Instead, the experience is quite disorienting.

You will leave wondering why you learned about the diversity of American cuisine shaped by immigration, about subcultures like Mexican-American lowriding, and even participated in interactive polls on whether or not transgender athletes upset the competitive balance—yet encountered no clear account of the nation’s founding. You might pause and ask yourself: Did I miss it?

You did not. It simply isn’t there.

I encountered this firsthand, just a few weeks ago. After walking through exhibits including “America on the Move”; “Many Voices, One Nation”;and “American Democracy,”I kept waiting for a dedicated presentation of the Revolution and the founding fathers.

As I worked my way up to the third floor to see “The Price of Freedom,” I ran across a gentleman on staff at the museum.

“Excuse me, sir,” I asked, “is there an exhibit on the American founding?”

He hesitated. A few umms and stutters. And then, “No. There is not.”

No exhibit on the American founding—at the National Museum of American History.

I lingered for a moment, letting the absurdity settle. Seeing my dissatisfied expression, he followed up and quickly added, “Well, there’s a little bit in “The American Presidency,” “American Democracy,” and “The Price of Freedom”—though that last one is mostly military history.”

There are fragments, to be sure, but no central narrative. No coherent display of the ideas, sacrifices, and achievements that gave rise to the nation.

In other words, the founding of the United States—the defining event in our national story—is not presented as a story at all. It is scattered, diluted, and ultimately diminished. What remains is reinterpretation, and a framing of national history that satisfies only those who already believe that America is corrupt and oppressive.

Where the Declaration of Independence appears, it is immediately followed by, “Yet it was an unequal world.”

Even “American Democracy” is rendered uncertain, punctuated not with affirmation, but with a question mark (“American Democracy?”).

These interpretive choices can be found verbatim in museum didactics. And all that this accomplishes is casting doubt in visitors over the integrity of America and our founding—an entirely unproductive and even destructive effort.

This is how the culture wars are won—not through overt propaganda, but through cumulative framing. Over time, institutions entrusted with preserving national memory begin to deconstruct it. The result is a public increasingly disconnected from its own heritage and uncertain of its own legitimacy.

If our National Museum of American History won’t tell the American story, who will?

This is why President Trump’s Executive Order matters. “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” is a recognition that cultural institutions carry immense power.

They do not simply present the past. They also shape how future generations understand it. When that responsibility is compromised, correction is imperative.

The task ahead is to remove bias and restore clarity to teach Americans the truth about American history, our excellence, our enterprise, and our exceptionalism.

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