JD Vance is now in charge of making museums racist

President Donald Trump launched a new attack on a revered American institution on Thursday night—a habit of his—with an executive order instructing Vice President JD Vance to begin purging the revered Smithsonian Institution of exhibits that do not align with Trump’s vision of white male supremacy.

The Smithsonian is a group of museums mostly located in Washington, D.C., and a zoo that are revered and respected around the world for preserving American history and culture. The attractions are one of the crown jewels of America’s capital city and one of the primary reasons more than 25 million people visit Washington each year.

Trump wants to change that.

In his executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” Trump falsely argues that the Smithsonian is part of a “a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.”

This is the language Trump and other members of the conservative movement have repeatedly used to assail efforts—like the Black Lives Matter movement—meant to confront systemic racism and oppression that have been an integral part of American history.

Trump’s order makes the link to promotion of white supremacy clear, when it slams the Biden administration for sponsoring training that sought to address institutional racism. Trump also complains that the Smithsonian is “under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology,” which describes Trump and his administration’s actions.

“Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn—not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history,” Trump order says.

But the order instructs Vance to remove exhibits that don’t align with Trump’s vision of a pro-white America that excludes the agency of women and the LGBTQ+ community, the textbook definition of “ideological indoctrination.”

The order tells Vance to remove exhibits “that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times).” The Smithsonian has many exhibits across its network that accurately educates visitors about American history, including the very real enslavement of Black human beings—particularly by “persons living in colonial times.”

Perhaps the new Trump-approved museum will have a “hall of heroes” praising the white plantation owners who bought and sold Black children to use as free labor to grow their wealth. Or perhaps Trump will preside over the opening of an exhibit hailing the bigots who have beaten and killed gay and lesbian Americans.

Trump’s order singles out the National Museum of African American History and lies about the institution’s actions. Trump alleges that the museum “proclaimed” that hard work, individualism and the nuclear family are aspects of “white culture.” In reality, this language was from an online chart posted five years ago that the museum pulled and apologized for.

Trump also whines that the upcoming American Women’s History Museum will include exhibits on transgender women, particularly athletes.

Republicans have been on a crusade attacking transgender Americans, seeking to restrict their rights, block them from military service, and even prevent them from seeking medical treatment. Now, Trump clearly doesn’t even want a museum to acknowledge their very existence.

The museum directive falls in line with the activities of the Trump administration since he was sworn into office. They have pushed to resegregate American life, erase the achievements of heroes who broke racial and gender barriers.

At the same time Trump and his team have held up figures who fought for the pro-slavery Confederacy as the rightful heroes of American history.

Trump got into politics by attempting to invalidate and take down its first Black president. Now he wants to whitewash the entire history of the nation.