Inside the Smithsonian’s Assault on American History
Americans have every right to expect their flagship national history museum to tell the story of the United States with honesty, balance, and pride. The National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution was founded for precisely that purpose: to commemorate our heritage of freedom, highlight the basic elements of American life, and instill a deepened faith in the country’s destiny.
Yet a comprehensive White House report released this month tells a different tale. Titled Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage, the 162-page document from the Domestic Policy Council lays bare how the NMAH has been transformed into something else entirely—an institution that prioritizes activist ideology over straightforward historical education.
This isn’t about broadening perspectives or correcting honest omissions. It’s institutional capture by frameworks that treat American history as a political weapon for division rather than a shared inheritance worth preserving and celebrating. The tone across Smithsonian pages and materials carries the unmistakable vibe of mandatory corporate HR-DEI training: bureaucratic talk of equity, complexity, systemic power structures, and the need to “problematize” everything traditional. Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize this. As we celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary, the evidence demands accountability.
The Top 10 Horribles: Straight from the Report
The report draws from leadership statements, exhibits, curricula, and internal plans. Here are its ten most damning findings:
1. “Problematizing” America’s 250th Anniversary
Museum Director Anthea Hartig and her team have openly embraced “problematizing” the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—an academic term from critical theory that means highlighting alleged oppressions to deconstruct and discredit the prevailing narrative. Special programming sidesteps robust celebration of the Founders or Founding documents. Independence Day itself has gone largely unmarked in recent years, even as the museum stayed open. At a moment when the country should be reflecting on its core principles, this is deliberate subversion.
2. Erasing or Minimizing the Founders and Founding
There is no major dedicated exhibit on George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, the Continental Congress, the Pilgrims, the Puritans, or iconic Revolutionary moments like Washington crossing the Delaware. The Founders appear mainly through the lens of slavery, their roles in establishing the Republic and advancing anti-slavery efforts downplayed. The Declaration and Constitution are selectively quoted, minimizing natural rights, ordered liberty, and their divine source. Christianity’s constructive role in shaping American freedoms gets scant attention, often framed instead as a tool of conquest.
3. Mission Statement Rewritten to Reject “America First”
Under current leadership, the museum quietly altered its mission, stripping references to “American history” and its “infinite richness.” In their place came language about “the complexity of our past” and empowering visitors to build “a more just and compassionate future.” Director Hartig explicitly tied the change to escaping the “America First mentality.” This abandons the museum’s congressional mandate in favor of contemporary social activism.
4. History Repurposed as a “Prime Tool of Social Justice”
Leadership statements bind research and scholarship to “activism and advocacy.” The Interpretive Plan requires staff to link every topic to seven core contemporary issues: race/identity, gender/sexuality, climate change, immigration, economic inequality, technological change, and nationalism/globalism. The result is repetitive ideological framing across exhibits on democracy, sports, childhood, and early settlement—portraying American institutions as tools of oppression.
5. Anti-White Activism and “Whiteness” Frameworks
Staff participate in reading groups studying toolkits that label objectivity, individualism, urgency, and even an emphasis on the written word as elements of “white supremacy culture.” Hiring and programming prioritize nearly every group except whites, Christians, males, and native-born Americans. This bias inevitably shapes content that denigrates traditional American narratives as embodiments of oppressive power.
6. Aggressive Pro-Illegal Alien Advocacy
The Becoming US curriculum, which reaches hundreds of thousands of teachers and students, instructs educators to avoid “illegal alien” or “illegal immigrant” in favor of “undocumented.” It frames illegal entrants as essential to American society, deserving of citizenship and voting rights. Materials partner with and lionize activists working to abolish ICE, while downplaying the costs to American workers, public resources, and the rule of law.
7. Gender Ideology and Inappropriate Content for Children
Exhibits and curricula promote gender as fluid, describe mentally ill males as girls or women, and push transgender participation in women’s sports. Youth displays include content many parents would find unsuitable—such as a young child’s diary expressing confusion over bodily development—inserting contemporary ideology into women’s history and childhood programming.
8. Portraying Settlement as “Unsettling,” Genocide, and Mourning
Exhibits like Upending 1620 reframe the Pilgrims as colonizers rather than founders and cast Thanksgiving as a “National Day of Mourning.” Christopher Columbus is labeled a murderer and thief. European arrival becomes a “profound unsettling of the continent,” echoing the 1619 Project’s reframing of America’s origins. The story becomes one of stolen land, slavery, and irredeemable systemic racism.
9. Encouraging Defiance of Authority and Political Activism
Programming, especially in youth exhibits like Girlhood (It’s Complicated), urges children—particularly girls—to “talk back,” break rules, resist parents, teachers, institutions, and religion, and become political activists. Messages emphasize that “when the rules don’t fit, many girls take action,” steering them toward contemporary causes including anti-gun and pro-abortion positions.
10. Overall Institutional Capture and Betrayal of Public Trust
The cumulative effect is a museum that no longer presents America as a coherent nation with a noble, if imperfect, story worth teaching with gratitude. Instead, it advances intersectional critical theory aimed at transformation through division. As a federally supported institution, this betrays the public’s reasonable expectation of faithful stewardship.
Executive Order 14253: A Foundation for Reform
President Trump’s Executive Order 14253, signed March 27, 2025—“Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”—directly confronts this rot. It establishes the policy of restoring federal history sites as “solemn and uplifting” monuments that highlight America’s achievements and our progress toward a more perfect Union.
The order tasks the Vice President, as Regent of the Smithsonian, with removing improper ideology from its properties and recommends further action. It directs the Office of Management and Budget and Congress to bar funding for exhibits or programs that degrade shared values, divide by race, or push partisan ideologies. The NMAH report stands as a vital implementation document.
Strengthening Accountability Through Legislation
The EO provides momentum, but congressional action is needed for lasting reform. Legislation should grant OMB clear, ongoing authority to review and condition Smithsonian funding. Key provisions could include mandatory compliance certifications, public reporting, independent review boards with genuine historians, and automatic funding holds for violations. A “Smithsonian Reform and American Heritage Protection Act” would codify mission standards centered on objective history, national unity, and patriotism; prohibit critical theory frameworks in taxpayer-funded content; and demand full transparency for educational materials.
Cultural pressure—through public commentary, constituent calls, and support for sound alternatives—will reinforce these efforts.
The evidence is clear: the Smithsonian’s current direction is a betrayal of its charter and the American people’s trust. Restoring truth and sanity requires steady enforcement of EO 14253 and legislative backbone. Our 250th anniversary is the perfect moment to recommit to telling the full, honest story of the United States—one that inspires the next generation to cherish and build upon this extraordinary inheritance.
