Why Trump’s “counterattack” attack on Smithsonian affairs | Kimbell Crenshaw and Jason Stanley

INA’s letter to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G Bunch III, August 12 Trump administration Announced its plans to replace all exhibitions that are considered “historical” and “constructive” Smithsonian exhibitions. On August 21, nine days later, the White House released a list of the above-mentioned problematic fixtures—most of which include exhibitions, shows and artworks that highlight Black, Latino, and LGBTQ+’s perspective on American projects. His details bill included an exhibition that correctly portrays Benjamin Franklin as slavery, an art installation that recognises race as a social structure and presents a display that highlights racist voter suppression measures, among others.

As part of the wider attack on democracy, the attack on the Smithsonians is wrapped, and we play scenes every day. Federal occupation Washington, DCthe crackdown on freedom of speech on campus, the goal of Trump’s political opponents, the nitpicking of democracy – these are intertwined elements of the same structural attacks. As a result, as many fires burn across the country, concerns that are answering calls for democratic destruction may see his attack on history and memory as a skirmish, distracting from the struggle of the Hekals in the United States. But this is a mistake. Trump’s attack on American museums, education and memory, and his weaponization of resentment against racialization, has taken his authoritarian sympathy as mere patriotism, a key aspect of his fascist goal. The struggle for democracy cannot avoid such struggles, nor the racial conditions of its possibility.

Fascism always has a central cultural component because it relies on construction Mythical past. The fabulous past is crucial to fascism because it can dissatisfie itself through a dominant racial or ethnic group whose consent is crucial to the sustainability of the project. In Maga World, the fabulous past is pure, innocent, and not dedicated to women or black leaders. In this politics, the country was once great, a byproduct of the great achievements made by men in major racial groups. In short, the attack on the Smithsonians, a broader opposition to real history and critical thinking is part of the broader fascist attack on democracy.

From this favorable perspective, racial equality is a threat to the great story of the nation, because only those who dominate the group can be great. In this kind of politics, it is believed to be regarded as a treason, as any accurate history, as a flawed founder.

The success of fascist demolition of democracy depends on the failure to see a bigger picture. The counterattack that is a key pillar of Trumpism is part of the failure, partly due to the enduring contradictions of racial blindness and excessive leadership in the media and elsewhere. Those who signed off on the attack on “wokeness” but view themselves as opponents of fascist attacks on other elements is the false assumption that these items can be classified. In fact, the demolition of democracy and racial justice is symbiotic. Supporting one is to provide cover for others.

Obviously, the Trump administration understands this relationship and completely weaponizes the appeal of racism as the basis of its fascist agenda. And, if this was once the quiet part, it is now announced loudly in official government documents. In an executive order issued on March 27, 2025, titled “Restore the Truth and the Sense of American History,” Trump revealed that his mission goal to ban “Improper Ideology” is a core commitment that negates a scientific racism that historically naturalizes racial hierarchy to neutralize resistance. According to Trump, the Smithsonian American Art Gallery exhibition “Strength Shape: Story: Race The American sculpture is, it promotes the idea that “race is human invention.”

Contrary to biological facts, race is a social structure that may negate the most basic advances in slavery, genocide and apartheid. Rejecting racial inequality is the notion that natural or predestined, the claim of slavery and deprivation in the United States – forms the cornerstone of modern commitment to fully inclusive democracy. Trump’s announcement that the cornerstone was “impossible” to reverse the clock and to overturn the entire American post-war project. It is no accident that this “proper” ideology exposed by Trump is a well-known composition of fascism-Nazism. When Adolf Hitler stayed, can we still understand why Maya Angelou cleared from the Naval Academy library?

The struggle against fascism in the United States must be as powerful as Trump’s outdated conception of race and racism. The defense of memory, real history, telling the entire American story, rather than attributeing historical agencies to “great men” is crucial to the American democratic project. Pro-democracy education overturned the entrenched hierarchy through teaching social movements, thereby promoting citizen agency, thus preventing democratic equality and implementing racial tyranny. The story of how ordinary Americans live and struggle and reshape America is the basic knowledge of developing and maintaining multiracial democracy. The Smithsonians have always been an important institution for knowledge that the masses can access. For example, the Latino National Museum of America and the National Museum of American Indians provide artifacts and perspectives on the country’s westward expansion that challenged myths of uninhabited territory and obvious destiny. The National Museum of African American History and Culture proposes the scale of global slavery and its infusion in state institutions, culture and politics.

The museum allows us to estimate the cruelty of American heritage and expose our citizens to people, institutions and strategies that map different routes to become “more perfect” alliances. Fascism erases the cover-up like Trump hidden behind that statement, that is, truly encountering past incitement and division. This instinct is the opposite of truth. Normal democracy does not limit the view to the view of dominant groups, let alone teaching the view of alternative groups is illegal.

A person who doesn’t remember his past is someone who can’t resist the future of fascism. Knowing our history can provide us with weapons and in a time when most Americans lack the citizenship and financial capabilities we have now. Fighting for our museums and our memories is a key fortress against the destruction of American democracy. It is crucial that we work hard to protect our repository before it’s too late.

• Kimberlé Crenshaw is an American civil rights advocate and a scholar who criticizes race theory. She is a professor at UCLA Law School and Columbia Law School where she specializes in race and gender issues

• Jason Stanley is a professor of philosophy at Yale University. He is the author of how fascism works