In Front of Our Noses: Attacking Cultural Institutions
In classic dictatorial moves, Trump wants to influence art and culture.
“To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”-George Orwell.
For previous entries, click here.
Via CBS News: Trump fires director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.
President Trump is terminating the head of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery, continuing his aggressive moves to reshape the federal government’s cultural institutions.
[…]
In March, the president signed an executive order targeting funding for programs at the Smithsonian Institution that contain what he characterized as “divisive, race-centered ideology.”
That order tasked Vice President JD Vance, who serves on the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents, with overseeing efforts to “remove improper ideology” from all areas of the institution, including its museums, education and research centers and the National Zoo.
[…]
In February, he also ousted the leadership of the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution, dismissing the chairman and president and replacing most of the board with loyalists, who then voted Mr. Trump the new chairman.
This is the kind of thing that would obviously be seen as authoritarian overreach if one read about it happening in another country.
The notion that the president should reshape anything he can to conform to his vision, and his vision alone, is not democratic; it is autocratic.
That’s a truly appalling prospect, given that Trump’s taste in everything is so ghastly.
Removing “improper ideology” from the National Zoo? Uh, oh. The new Trump hires at the NOAA have leaked how seahorses procreate!
Well, here is a link to a edited version of Mon Mothma’s speech in Season 2 of Andor.
It is edited to remove other spoilers – narrative events that were intercut with this speech (and were very interesting). It seems relevant because of its themes.
@Jay L Gischer: It’s a great and relevant clip. But there are TONS of spoilers in it. I would suggest those who haven’t seen Andor and wish to do so to not watch it.
To ensure your obedience in the political and economic spheres, they want to control your art, your bedroom, and your culture as well. Hitler declared Mahler off limits; Stalin opposed Shostakovich, and the Dixie Chicks were downgraded. Every thought must be the official line or out. I doubt that the display of the Ten Commandments in class rooms is intended to stimulate actual discussion of the problems of an ethical life in the face of reality.
@Slugger:
And every home will have an official Lee Greenwood God bless the USA Bible.
Quite needed. I’ve been watching this Library of Congress exhibit for 20+ years. The blurb shows very poor scholastic integrity with how it is worded to not mention Wilson being a Democrat but making a point about Republican administrations when “presidential” administrations would have been more precise wording. I suppose we could take comfort in that it isn’t an outright lie as so much of academia puts out these days.
And they completely neglect that segregation of the federal workforce continued through the next Democrat [3 term] administration until Truman’s EO 9980 and 9981 in July 1948, a full 15 years while the intervening Republican administrations only spanned 12 years.
@JKB: It is so weird to me that people of your ilk think that there is some conspiracy to deny that Democrats were also racists and segregationists. This is not hidden knowledge.
I suspect that a lot of people who vote for Democrats in the present are quite unhappy with Wilson’s behavior.
What point do you think you are making?
@JKB: Also, of what relevance is an LOC website from 2009 to this conversation?
@Steven L. Taylor:
No response to this JKB gem?
Don’t most authoritarians manage to find some decent artists to bolster their vision of reality?
MAGA has bad AI and memes.
We’re being robbed.
@Gustopher:
But Trump has no idea of what a decent artist is or what constitutes decent art. FFS, this churl would gold-plate the Washington Monument if he could.
@Steven L. Taylor:
The only point I can see the troll making is this:
better to support the racist party now, because the non-racist party was racist in the past while the racist party of today was less racist in the past.
Why does the troll thinks this is a point worth making? I suspect the answer lies in the field of psychopathology
No question that southern state Democrats were racist supporters of Jim Crow a hundred years ago. One example would be Strom Thurmond who even tried to form an explicitly racist splinter party. Whatever happened to that guy after the failure of the Dixiecrats to gain much traction?
Normally, I’d be for norms, standards, and principles regardless of circumstance. Even if one side violates norms, my default position is that the other side needs to adhere to them. This is certainly what I still believe in matters of war.
But when it comes to politics and Trump, once his Presidency is over, I am not going to object much to the inevitable excising of everything Trump has done to break institutions, even if doing so may break them a bit more. Not that anyone will listen or care what I think – in terms of analysis I think it’s inevitable that Democrats will demand and get their pound of flesh when back in power (which is inevitable).
Trump is a petty, authoritarian mob boss, one who doesn’t seem to realize that Executive Orders are ephemeral. That’s one of his many stupid blind spots. Even with Congress in GoP control he still wants to do everything via Executive action instead of attempting something more permanent. We should be glad for the silver lining that he is so stupid and foolish on that score. Once he’s gone, he should expect nothing but complete reversal and retribution.
Geez, next thing our friend is going to inform us is that Lincoln was a Republican!
@Andy: I have been meaning to write about this, and maybe i have in passing. But I do think that the next Dem will come in and do a lot of the same kinds of maneuvers, which will be a further way in which Trump has broken the system.
@Kurtz: I have almost gotten a kind of snow-blindness to his attacks on academia. Since IIRC he is college-educated and works in a field that requires a degree, I just take solace in the fact that he couldn’t have whatever life he has without academia’s existence. And he had to know that at some level.
@Franklin: Now that you mention it, Lincoln freed the slaves! That means Republicans cannot be racists now! How could I have missed that!!
(Now JKB doesn’t have to tell us).
@Franklin:
Not many people know that!
/s
The point is the low quality of scholarship among federal employee librarians and curators. The Smithsonian likely has many examples similar where the edumedicated have use lies of omission, if not outright commission, to manipulate the historical narrative. Though they could be just ignorant even with an elite establishment credential on their wall.
That is why the “cultural” institutions must be challenged and it is long overdue.
@JKB:
Can you back up those claims with some citations?
BTW, I hope you are applying the same rules of scholarship to the flawed HHS reports that were recently published:
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-06-03/rfk-jr-s-maha-report-was-full-of-fakery-but-that-wasnt-the-worst-thing-about-it
@Steven L. Taylor:
Stop putting JKB in double binds! You know that Lincoln was as the perpetrator of the War of Northern Aggression. And that he really didn’t free slaves in the Union territories (an ” outright ommission, to manipulate the historical narrative”). Plus, his suspension of habeas corpus led the way for the Federal Policing overreaches today.
And while we’re on the subject, the War of Northern Aggression was really fought over economic issues and the reality is that most slaves were treated pretty well (yes I’m omitting all the language contained in the various Southern States’ documents of secession and political speeches given by the drafter… but when I do it’s to correct the current liberal historical narrative so that’s ok!).
And did you know that there were Black slave owners?! And that there were initially non Black slaves?! More ”outright ommission[s], to manipulate the historical narrative[s].”
And remember, socialism is worse than chattel slavery… according to some White European economic philosopher.
@JKB: So…you are arguing that one example of something that doesn’t identify Wilson as a Democrat from a website in 2009 makes your point?
To put it politely, that gruel is so thin it isn’t even really gruel.
That’s not how arguments work.
@Matt Bernius: Now I really do feel chastised!!