Will Weissert , Associated Press; The future of history: Trump could leave less documentation behind than any previous US president
[Kip Currier: Every information center (e.g. libraries, archives, museums) and cultural heritage and higher education institution should think hard about the questions raised in this article. Like this glaring one the reporter raises:
"How will experts and their fellow Americans understand what went on during Trump’s term when those charged with setting aside the artifacts documenting history refuse to do so?"]
[Excerpt]
"For generations, official American documents have been meticulously preserved and protected, from the era of quills and parchment to boxes of paper to the cloud, safeguarding snapshots of the government and the nation for posterity.
Now, the Trump administration is scrubbing thousands of government websites of history, legal records and data it finds disagreeable.
It has sought to expand the executive branch’s power to shield from public view the government-slashing efforts of Elon Musk’s team and other key administration initiatives. Officials have used apps such as Signal that can auto-delete messages containing sensitive information rather than retaining them for recordkeeping. And they have shaken up the National Archives leadership and even ordered the rewriting of history on display at the Smithsonian Institution.
To historians and archivists, it points to the possibility that Trump’s presidency will leave less for the nation’s historical record than nearly any before it and that what is authorized for public release will be sanitized and edited to reinforce a carefully sculpted image the president wants projected, even if the facts don’t back that up.
How will experts and their fellow Americans understand what went on during Trump’s term when those charged with setting aside the artifacts documenting history refuse to do so?"
