Donald Trump has signed a new executive order to strip more than 20 museums and research centres of anything “anti-American”. JD Vance has been put in charge of the order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”, who is tasked with eliminating “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution which operates the centres visited by millions yearly in Washington DC and New York City.
The aim of this is to determine whether any statues in the department’s jurisdiction have been removed “to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history”. The Vice President has also been assigned with restoring federal properties, including parks and statues which “have been improperly removed or changed in the last five years to perpetuate a false revision of history”.
In 2020, nearly a hundred Confederate monuments were taken down following widespread protests over the death of George Floyd. Mr Burgum has been directed to “take action to reinstate the pre-existing monuments, memorials, statues, markers…as appropriate.”
He is also in charge of completing “restorations and improvements” to the Independence Hall in Philadelphia, which comes ahead of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The new executive order is part of a wider bid to remove the woke culture that the US is facing. Several other orders have been signed including recognising only two genders and ending all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes within the federal government.
Mr Vance, who will be leading the order, became a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, three members of each house of Congress and nine appointed citizens are also on the board.
The president’s order states that Congress should not be funding Smithsonian exhibits and programmes that “divide Americans by race”. The move is part of “a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.”
Museums part of the institution sees 15 to 30 million visitors each year, opening 21 museums in Washington DC, Virginia and New York. The National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery, the American Art Museum and the National Zoo are included.
