President Donald Trump tapped Vice President JD Vance to lead the charge to rid the revered Smithsonian Institution of “anti-American” ideology.
Trump signed an executive order Thursday directing Vance, who is a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to oversee an effort to eliminate “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from the Washington, D.C.-based Smithsonian Institution, which is credited as the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex. Under the directive, Vance will work with congressional leaders to appoint members to the Smithsonian Board of Regents “who are committed to advancing the celebration of America’s extraordinary heritage and progress.”
“Once widely respected as a symbol of American excellence and a global icon of cultural achievement, the Smithsonian Institution has, in recent years, come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology,” Trump’s executive order reads. “This shift has promoted narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.”
The Smithsonian Institution receives roughly $1 billion in federal funding annually. Some of those funds could be at stake under the new order, which directs members of Trump’s administration to work with Congress to make sure that future Smithsonian appropriations prohibit funding for exhibits or programs “that degrade shared American values, divide Americans by race, or promote ideologies inconsistent with Federal law.” The administration will also work with Congress to ensure the American Women’s History Museum “celebrates women’s achievements … and does not recognize men as women,” the Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History order continues.
The Trump administration’s move on the Smithsonian Institution comes as the latest effort to revamp iconic cultural centers in the United States and rid them of what the president believes to be liberal and partisan ideologies. In February, he gained attention for overhauling the Kennedy Center, the country’s preeminent center of culture. The president installed himself as the center’s chairman, pledging to “make the arts great again.”
With his focus now on the Smithsonian Institution, Trump on Thursday outlined several cases of exhibits and incidents at the sprawling network that he considered to foment “divisive ideology” and “false narratives” that detract from the U.S.’s “unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness.”
He accused the National Museum of African American History and Culture of proclaiming that “hard work,” “individualism,” and “the nuclear family” are aspects of “White culture.”
The Smithsonian American Art Museum has an exhibit that claims race is a “human invention,” asserts sculpture has been “a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism,” and alleges that the U.S. has “used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement,” the president continued.
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Those exhibits and others are part of a systemic effort by the Left to redefine history in the U.S., Trump said, with his words coming as other conservative groups have long railed against the Smithsonian Institution for fostering racism and “identity politics.”
“Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed,” the order reads. “Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame, disregarding the progress America has made and the ideals that continue to inspire millions around the globe.”
