Trump’s Attempt to Make Museums Submit Feels Familiar; The New York Times, August 15, 2025

Michelle Goldberg , The New York Times; Trump’s Attempt to Make Museums Submit Feels Familiar

"Five years ago, many institutions in the United States tried, with varying degrees of seriousness and skill, to come to terms with our country’s legacy of racism. A backlash to this reckoning helped propel Donald Trump back into the White House, where he has taken a whole-of-government approach to wiping out the idea that America has anything to apologize for. As part of this campaign, the administration seeks to force our national museums to conform to its triumphalist version of history.

In March, Trump signed an executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” criticizing versions of history that foster “a sense of national shame.” Museums and monuments, it said, should celebrate America’s “extraordinary heritage” and inculcate national pride. This week, the administration announced that it was reviewing displays at eight national museums — including the Museum of American History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Smithsonian American Art Museum — and giving them 120 days to bring their content in line with Trump’s vision.

We’re already seeing glimpses of what that looks like. Last month, the National Museum of American History removed references to Trump’s impeachments from an exhibit on the American presidency. Those references were restored last week, but with changes: The exhibit no longer says that Trump made “false statements” about the 2020 election or that he encouraged the mob on Jan. 6...

For Pawel Machcewicz, founding director of the Museum of the Second World War, it’s been unsettling to see American museums subject to the sort of political intimidation he experienced in Poland...

Standing up to his government was costly. Machcewicz said he was subject to two separate criminal investigations, and for a time he left the country...

But for now, Machcewicz has the peace that comes from doing the right thing. “If I had capitulated, I would have been a completely frustrated man, because I would feel like someone who has betrayed himself,” he said. It’s a message that those who are tempted to try to appease this administration, at our museums or anywhere else, might remember."