President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” signed on March 27, 2025, targets the Smithsonian Institution to eliminate “divisive, race-centered ideology.” It’s part of his broader “Make America Great Again” push, leaning on nostalgia for a so-called golden age of American manufacturing and 1950s white patriarchal life. Historians, including the 6,000-member Organization of American Historians, call it an “assault on history itself” (OAH Statement). White House spokesman Davis Ingle defends it, claiming it protects “true American history” from “left-wing ideology.”
A Laundry List of Orders: Rewriting the Narrative
Trump’s actions include:
- March 27, 2025: Orders the Smithsonian to remove “race-centered ideology” and rollback landmark changes deemed “false” (Executive Order).
- March 20, 2025: Shuts down the Department of Education and cuts DEI funding, targeting discussions of systemic inequality.
- January 27, 2025: Eliminates military DEI programs, briefly purging webpages honoring minority veterans (Pentagon Reversal).
- January 29, 2025: Revives “patriotic education” in schools, rejecting concepts like white privilege.
- January 20, 2025: Renames Denali to Mount McKinley and the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
- January 29, 2025: Expands the National Garden of American Heroes, featuring figures like Ida B. Wells-Barnett and John Wayne (National Garden Plan).
These moves risk silencing the stories of marginalized groups like women and people of color.
The Historians Strike Back
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jefferson Cowie calls Trump’s approach a “project” to bend history to fit his narrative, rooted in nostalgia for a white-dominated past (Cowie’s Work). Angela Diaz, a Civil War historian, argues that ignoring marginalized voices erases progress and distorts truth. The Organization of American Historians warns that Trump’s orders suppress stories of slavery and discrimination, threatening a fuller, more accurate history.
The Conservative Cheer Squad
The Heritage Foundation, behind Project 2025, supports Trump’s 1776 Project as a counter to the 1619 Project, which centers Black contributions and slavery’s legacy (Heritage Foundation). Senior fellow Jonathan Butcher argues that works like the 1619 Project overemphasize America’s flaws, ignoring efforts to live up to founding ideals (1619 Project). But ignoring systemic issues risks blinding future generations.
A Global Echo: History as a Political Tool
South African scholar Martha Lungi Kabinde-Machate notes that renaming landmarks can unite or divide, citing post-apartheid efforts (Tshwane Research). Trump’s restoration of Confederate-linked names like Fort Bragg, however, stokes division (NPR Confederate Statues). Past U.S. efforts to glorify the Confederacy post-Civil War and during the civil rights era show history’s role as a political weapon (Library of Congress).
The Stakes: Who Gets to Tell the Story?
Trump’s orders, while reversible, risk erasing the struggles of the oppressed, from the Tuskegee Airmen to suffragettes. Kabinde-Machate suggests transparency and public input to ensure history reflects everyone. Without it, Trump’s nostalgia-driven vision threatens to rob marginalized groups of their place in America’s story, undermining the truth itself.
