President Donald Trump is trying to Make America White Again. And his MAGA supporters are in lockstep.
It’s easy to describe what we are witnessing as an attempt to erase history, but it’s more than that. From the flagging of tens of thousands of historical photos on federal government websites, to the firing of staff at the National Archives and National Park Service (hardly staffed by progressive radicals), and to the deletion of webpages at Arlington National Cemetery — all of it should be concerning to every American.
When it comes to how history is interpreted, these institutions largely follow trends in scholarship and changes in the broader culture. The historical content that is being removed or revised is already well established throughout our country.
However, the list goes on and on. The U.S. Naval Academy library is ordered and removes 381 books on the Holocaust, civil rights and racism.
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The acting chief of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the top federal agency for protecting worker rights, is pivoting towards prioritizing Trump’s campaign to stamp out diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the private and public sectors.
Recently, Trump’s executive order targets funding at the Smithsonian Institution for programs that advance “divisive narratives†and “improper ideology,†the latest step in a broadside against culture he deems too liberal.
Trump has booted multiple members of the Kennedy Center’s board and named himself its chair. Calling the Kennedy Center too “woke,†he says, a group focused on social impact at the Kennedy Center will be “massively downsized.â€
Trump claims there has been a “concerted and widespread†effort over the past decade to rewrite American history by replacing “objective facts†with a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth,†adding that it casts the “founding principles†of the United States in a “negative light.â€
Thus, the Trump administration has attempted, not always successfully, in wiping out the history of non-white military veterans as President Harry Truman aptly said, “You fought not only the enemy, but you fought prejudice — and you have won.â€
Now by gutting the U.S. Department of Education, Trump is handing the fate of education to reactionary state legislatures and corporate interests, ensuring that knowledge is shaped by states held captive by billionaires and far-right extremists.
This is the logic of authoritarianism: to hollow out democratic institutions and replace education with white Christian propaganda and to deliver a curriculum of repression. At issue here is an attempt to render an entire generation defenseless against the very forces seeking to dominate them.
Stripping colleges and universities and local school districts of funding is not just an attack on critical race theory or teachings about systemic racism — it is a cornerstone of an authoritarian ideology designed to eliminate critical thought, suppress historical truth and strip educators of their autonomy.
Under the guise of combating “divisiveness,†it advances a broader war on education as a democratizing force, turning schools into dead zones of the imagination. If one doesn’t conform, this policy functions as an instrument of ideological indoctrination, enforcing a sanitized, nationalistic narrative that erases histories of oppression and resistance while deepening a culture of ignorance and compliance.
However the Trump administration attempts to distort the American history for his own nefarious purposes, it will never be able to erase history. The larger point here is important. While the Trump administration hopes to use this issue to divide Americans even further, my hope is that we are not so divided over how we understand American history and how we expect it to be taught in our classes.
Rather than erasing history, we need to recognize that the Trump administration is taking steps to influence how Americans think about and remember their history and how that history shapes how we see ourselves in relationship to others today.
As aptly stated by abolitionist Wendell Phillips in a quote displayed at the base of a statue located at the entrance of the National Archives: “The heritage of the past is the seed that brings forth the harvest of the future.â€
