Axis Daily Brief: Authoritarianism 101: Trump Wants the Government to Decide What's True

Summary

Authoritarianism 101: Trump Wants the Government to Decide What’s True

Hello and welcome to Axis Daily Brief. My name is Dan Miller. I’m co-host of Straight White American Jesus and host of It’s In the Code. Pleased to be with you today.

Today we’re talking about yet another Trump executive order. This is an executive order that Donald Trump issued over the weekend directing the Department of the Interior, which oversees the National Park Service, to post signs outside the Smithsonian–outside the National Museum of American History–warning visitors that the accounts of American history contained inside are not accurate and directing them to alternative resources. It’s essentially the creation of an alternative past based on fantasy.

This is not an order that somehow changes the content of the displays in the museum. One of the issues Trump has faced is that he can’t unilaterally determine what goes into the Smithsonian. He can’t simply remove the director of the Smithsonian.Instead, he has undertaken this executive order. It directs the National Park Service, which manages the federal land around the Smithsonian, to put up signs stating that the historical content of the Smithsonian is incorrect and directing people, again, to other resources.

There’s no official timeline for enforcement of the order. As far as I’ve been able to tell—and as far as anyone has reported—these signs have not yet gone up. Thus, it’s an executive order that hasn’t gone into effect yet. But this is significant because it follows other developments related to the Smithsonian in the recent past.

First, it reflects a report issued by the White House on July 4 that reached the absolutely preordained conclusion that the Smithsonian was, quote, “an instrument for a radical leftist cohort that tried to reframe the American story to serve its ideological ends.” The White House essentially commissioned a report that came to exactly the conclusion that anybody who knows the White House, knows Trump, and knows the Trump administration knew it would reach.

The report said the Smithsonian was advocating an ideological viewpoint opposed to America, American truth, and American exceptionalism. It also criticized the Smithsonian for failing to “appropriately honor”—that was its language—the signers of the Declaration of Independence during America’s 250th anniversary.

Then, at a July 21 hearing, Republicans also criticized the director of the National Museum of American History, Anthea Hartig, for serving a “woke ideology.”

All of this is reflected in the executive order: the notion that the Smithsonian is presenting viewpoints that are antithetical to American exceptionalism and the so-called truth of American history. These criticisms—that the Smithsonian and its director serve a woke ideology—have all been well reported.

What This Means

Here’s what’s significant about this: When the government dictates what counts as “true” history, you have an example of authoritarianism 101, pure and simple. In the Trump administration’s view, history is whatever the government, the executive branch, and ultimately the president say it is.

Again, everyone knew what the White House report would say. It’s MAGA orthodoxy. That’s all it is. If you read the report, you can see that it says the quiet part out loud by accusing the Smithsonian of reframing the American story to serve its ideological ends. In reality, that is exactly what the White House report itself does. The report, which is supposed to provide the political and historical cover for this executive order, reframes the American story to serve its own misguided ends.

A Mythical Version of America

MAGA ideology frames American history in very specific mythical terms.

America was founded as an explicitly Christian nation, as a divinely ordained city on a hill. It was founded by virtuous white Christian Europeans. Slavery, in this mythical account, played absolutely no significant role in the nation’s founding or in the lives of the founders. Ethnic and religious minorities played no notable role in the nation’s founding. Women played no notable role in the nation’s founding.

It’s a very specific mythology about the founding of America, the divine purpose of that founding, and the founders themselves–one that is supposed to carry American history forward.

This is not history based on facts. It’s Trumpian fantasy. It’s a myth grounded in nothing but ideological doctrine. This executive order is aimed at operationalizing that ideology and making sure that only the authorized version of American history gets a hearing.

What Comes Next

We’ll continue to monitor this story. We’ll see what happens if these signs go up and if a timeline is announced. I have no doubt these actions will be challenged in court, and different kinds of legal battles will follow.

It will also be worth continuing to monitor the mostly quiet but nevertheless robust pushback from the Smithsonian. Members of the Smithsonian, including the director, have pushed back against these allegations and stood firmly behind the quality of the scholarship and the historical research that has gone into their museum displays. I think the Smithsonian’s strategy—which has largely been to avoid commenting directly while quietly pushing back and continuing its work despite pressure from the Trump administration—is worth paying attention to.

But for now, this is a very dystopian executive order, one that seeks to tell us that American history is whatever the president of the United States and his party say it is.