In the extensive coverage of this year’s July 4 celebrations in Washington, DC, it was often mentioned that 850,000 fireworks were detonated in the course of the evening. In fact, there were 850,001. For in addition to the extraordinary visual panoply on view there was a quieter but no less breathtaking detonation that day: the sobering 162-page report about the Smithsonian Institution issued by the White House’s Domestic Policy Council.
The museum’s leadership has explicitly stated that its goal is to transform history into ‘a prime tool of social justice’
Called “Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases our Heritage,” this meticulously researched evisceration details the many ways in which one of America’s most important cultural institutions has betrayed its trust and failed the nation. “Our central finding,” we read towards the beginning of the report:
is not that the Museum has simply added overlooked stories, corrected perceived errors, or broadened its historical scope. Rather, it is that Museum leadership has explicitly adopted an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated, but as a political instrument to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens.
