The New York Times: The White House published a list of Smithsonian exhibits, programming and artwork it considered objectionable on Thursday, one week after announcing that eight of the institution’s museums must submit their current wall text and future exhibition plans for a comprehensive review.
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Washington DC has become a cultural battleground as of late as President Donald Trump has begun to enact his will upon the city at the heart of the US government. What I find interesting about his administration’s attack on historical, cultural, and artistic institutions such as the Smithsonian or the Kennedy center is how granular their qualms with these institutions are. The article quotes a U-Mass Amherst professor saying “This list, even from a cursory look, is cherry-picking various examples from an enormous and diverse museum.” I think this approach is entirely in line with previous cultural attacks against the perceived enemies of Trump’s administration, as, since his election campaign in 2016 he has continuously cherry-picked fictionalized examples of black women seeking welfare to make them out as “welfare queens”, made false claims about Muslims and Arabs “dancing on the rooftops” after 9/11 to draw public ire to an entire demographic, and has now made his enemy the academia at the heart of the Nation’s capital. This anti-academic sentiment is consistent with a lot of right-wing ideologies being more focused on raw feeling and emotional manipulation than on the facts and logic of reality. This can be seen in the specific qualms Trump’s administration has with the Smithsonian, as few to none of the criticisms being raised pertain to the accuracy of the history being presented. Instead, most of his and his administration’s problems are with what “ideologies” the museums’ exhibits “support” such as claiming that the museum “promote[s] homosexuality” by hanging a pride flag. By focusing on perception and ideological conflict rather than history, Trump is trying to undermine the Smithsonian and other academic institutions through emotional appeals rather than by raising issues grounded in historical and academic fact and good faith. If this bad faith approach works, then we might see a much more emotionally and politically charged history on display soon.
Posted by Henry Kane
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