Trump Demands Smithsonian Promote “American Greatness”
137March 30, 2025
President Donald Trump on March 27 issued anexecutive orderaimed at reshaping theSmithsonian Institutioninto “a symbol of inspiration and American greatness.” In the order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” Trump called for Vice President J. D. Vance, who automatically received a seat on the board concurrent with the assumption of his executive-branch role, to collaborate with Congress in eliminating federal funding for programming or exhibitions that “degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law.”
The Smithsonian comprises twenty-one museums, libraries, and research institutions, as well as the National Zoo in Washington, DC, all of which the president has ordered Vance to rid of “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology.” Among the exhibitions the president cited as problematic was “The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture,” which he cast as “promot[ing] narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.” Per the website of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where the show is on view through September 14, the exhibition “examines the role of sculpture in understanding and constructing the concept of race in the United States.” Also singled out were the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and the yet-to-be-completed American Women’s History Museum.
Trump additionally demanded that the secretary of the interior restore federal properties, including parks and monuments, that have been “improperly removed or changed in the last five years to perpetuate a false revision of history.” The order arrives as part of the president’s drive to shape US culture to his tastes, earlier seen in his January executive order prohibiting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at federally funded organizations, and in his takeover of the Kennedy Center, of which he made himself board chair.