President Trump has sought to govern with an iron grip the federal bureaucracy, the economy and even the finer details of White House architecture.
He wants to put his stamp on the culture of the nation, too.
The president, once a fixture of tabloids and reality television, is waging a war on the rarefied cultural spaces he says have become too “woke.” He has taken aim at the nation’s academic elite with his war on universities. He has become the chair of the Kennedy Center, in Washington, and helped to select its honorees. And this week, his administration ramped up its attacks on the Smithsonian Institution — while Trump seemed to suggest he might scrutinize other museums as well.
Museums, especially, are spaces where the country tells a story about itself. Trump is trying to rewrite that story by empowering his people to remake the Smithsonian, and by calling out as objectionable exhibitions about slavery, gay rights and immigrants at a number of the institution’s museums in Washington. These attacks appear to be an effort to redefine why museums exist.
This morning, I called my colleague Robin Pogrebin, who covers cultural institutions, to talk about the extraordinary clash between her world (art) and mine (politics). She explained how the Trump administration has already left its mark on the Smithsonian — and why, at least so far, museums and other cultural institutions aren’t fighting back.
How did the president’s attacks on the Smithsonian begin?
In his first administration, President Trump didn’t seem to pay a lot of attention to culture and the arts. Shortly after he took office this time, though, he got himself installed as chairman of the Kennedy Center — and then moved on to the Smithsonian.
In March, the Trump administration issued an executive order that criticized the Smithsonian’s exhibitions as insufficiently patriotic and overly focused on “divisive, race-centered ideology.” It called for restoring the Smithsonian to its “rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness,” and for the removal of “improper ideology” from such properties.
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