LIZ PEEK: Trump right to declare war on woke ideology at Smithsonian Institution museums

President Donald Trump wants to make our government institutions Great Again, by scrubbing the DEI and anti-American messaging left behind by the Biden administration. 

One target of this clean-up effort is the Smithsonian Institution, which, as the president rightly claimed in an executive order earlier this year, has “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.”  

As we look forward to celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence next year, Trump wants the Smithsonian to ditch its customary “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.” 

Consider this statement from our country’s leading (taxpayer-supported) museum group: “Our mission is to explore the history and legacy of race and racism in the United States and globally. We seek to spark positive social change and build a more equitable shared future through interdisciplinary scholarship, creative partnerships, dialogue, and engagement.” 

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The museum website states as its purpose: “The increase and diffusion of knowledge about the history and legacy of racism while building pathways towards a more equitable shared future.” 

To be clear: these are not the notes attached to a single exhibition or presentation. Racism is the Smithsonian’s central theme, stretching across its 21 museums, libraries and even the National Zoo.

Most Americans probably thought the Smithsonian was dedicated to presenting to the world our nation’s greatest art and our proud history, showcasing the brave souls who explored and settled the nation, who fought a war to free the slaves imported from Africa, who defeated fascism in World War II and the Soviet Union in the Cold War. They might expect the Smithsonian to highlight American exceptionalism, including our country’s leadership in technological, medical and financial innovation – like the Wright Brothers’ daring development of airplanes and the Apollo Moon mission, for example. 

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They would be wrong. Applauding our country is so yesterday. Instead, the museum’s vision is to use “history and reconciliation to contextualize and transform our understandings and responses to race and racism.” 

That won’t cut it under President Trump. The White House recently wrote to the Smithsonian’s secretary, Lonnie Bunch III, announcing a planned review of the museum’s exhibitions and materials, aiming “to ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”

Liberals are outraged. The Wall Street Journal quotes Sarah Weicksel, executive director of the American Historical Association, saying the White House’s effort was an affront to the historians and curators trained to ensure historical accuracy. “If those things are taken out of the hands of historians,” according to Weicksel, “the public stands to lose a great deal in having reliable and engaging content that tells a whole and complex story of the American past.”

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The “whole and complex story” of America told by our leftist intelligentsia is invariably unflattering. Our nation is portrayed as racist, misogynist and exploitative in college curriculums and by historical societies. Our children are taught not to love our country, but to despise it. 

The existence of liberal bias on college campuses is undeniable; our leading historians are similarly leftist. Consider Pulitzer Prize-winning Jon Meacham, who, while spinning out his liberal interpretations of U.S. history, acted as Joe Biden’s speechwriter and booster, said this in a speech at the 2020 Democratic convention: “Our democracy is under assault from an incumbent more interested in himself than he is in the rest of us.” 

There’s also registered Democrat Doris Kearns Goodwin, another Pulitzer awardee, who worked for LBJ, admires Hillary Clinton and once claimed Trump “doesn’t have the temperament to be president.”

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Lonnie Bunch III, registered Democrat, the first African-American director of the Smithsonian and founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, fits right in. When confronted by Republicans in Congress about a graphic posted online by the African American history museum in 2020 that described “hard work,” “individualism” and “the nuclear family” as part of “white culture,” Bunch simply noted the offensive item had been removed.

The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History is seen from the Washington Monument on June 3, 2025, in Washington, DC. (Kevin Carter/Getty Images)

As the New York Times reported, Bunch wrote, in an introduction to an exhibition called “In Slavery’s Wake,” that a “strong current of political leaders wants to prevent the public from engaging with Black history, which they deem ‘too divisive,’ and create a culture of silence.” 

Defaming our nation is expensive. Taxpayers coughed up $1.09 billion last year, more than triple the $350 million appropriated in 2000. The increased budget hasn’t attracted bigger crowds: in 2000 the Smithsonian reported having 40 million visitors, compared to only 16.8 million last year. In 2000, attendance was boosted by “standing-room-only shows”, according to the annual report, like The Natural History Museum’s Nordic blockbuster, “Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga.” Another stand-out was the Star Spangled Banner’s conservation lab and exhibit, which drew nearly half the museum’s visitors.

Some of today’s exhibitions at the National Museum of American History include: “Latinas Report Breaking News,” a “bilingual exhibition [that] showcases the work of seven Latina journalists on Spanish-language television” and “American Enterprise,” which chronicles the “tumultuous interaction of capitalism and democracy…” 

Visitors return to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History after the museum was closed for over 400 days due to the pandemic June 18, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The three featured objects on the homepage include: a table used to draft a declaration of women’s rights, an 1861 badge that “may” have belonged to a bricklayer in South Carolina who joined an independent African American volunteer fire company, and a sign that hung outside a D.C.- based community health center founded by “nurse Maria Gomez, a Colombian immigrant, to serve pregnant Latina immigrants.”

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The Smithsonian has not only gone woke, mission creep has taken it beyond our borders, providing programs overseas like: “Hands-on science education in Mexico,” “Supporting museums in Oman,” science centers at Tibetan monasteries and studying sunken slave ships off Mozambique. Some of this may count as valuable “soft diplomacy,” but I doubt most taxpayers would be on board.

Trump is right; the Smithsonian should show our country as the “shining city on a hill” it is, attracting millions from all over the world. It needs a thorough overhaul. 

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