Trump Is Making History History | Opinion

The Haitian scholar Michel-Rolph Trouillot said that “any historical narrative is a particular bundle of silences.”

To form the historical narrative that suits him, President Donald Trump is silencing opposing voices, whitewashing his own actions, and burying the truth under a mountain of lies. It’s the ultimate in cancel culture: He is canceling history right in front of our eyes and replacing it with his preferred version of events.

A particularly egregious example is the “content review” the administration has forced the Smithsonian to undergo. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told NPR, “We are fully supportive of updating displays to highlight American greatness. The Trump administration will continue working to ensure that the Smithsonian removes all improper ideology and once again unites and instills pride in all Americans regarding our great history.”

That “improper ideology” apparently included any references to Trump’s two impeachments: the Smithsonian removed those references in July, as The Washington Post discovered, instead noting that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal” (Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton, and Richard Nixon). One may suppose that Trump’s impeachments for illegally trying to strongarm Ukraine and leading a revolt that resulted in the destruction of the Capitol weren’t really “serious.” Only after intense criticism and pressure did the Smithsonian agree to reinstall Trump’s rightful place in the pantheon of the impeached. The content review continues.

Yet this is hardly the only example of Trump trying to restore American “greatness” by presenting an idealized, white-Anglo-centric version of history that excludes the contributions of minorities. As soon as he took office, Trump issued an executive order reverting the name of Mount Denali in Alaska back to Mount McKinley. The order praised McKinley, in part, for “an expansion of territorial gains for the Nation”—verbal acrobatics for American imperialism. It also conveniently slighted the Alaskan natives who had originally named the peak (“Denali” derives from the Koyukon for “the high one” or “the great one”).

This wasn’t the only renaming. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has overseen efforts to restore the names of Confederate generals to our forts through some linguistic trickery to skirt a law which forbids it, finding other Americans with the same last name. He removed famed gay rights activist Harvey Milk’s name from a U.S. ship—despite the fact that the tragically assassinated Milk served four years in the Navy and was only discharged due to his homosexuality. Regarding these efforts, Hegseth told a Senate committee, “This is something we’ve been proud to do, something that’s important for the morale of the Army.” The Trump administration has also ordered the reinstalment of Confederate general Albert Pike in Washington, D.C. Apparently, he warrants more honor than the heroic Harvey Milk.

Under the guise of removing “wokeism” and “DEI,” Trump has had government websites remove references to slavery and Jim Crow. At historic sites, park rangers are now expected to get rid of any post or exhibit that criticizes American actions, or as Trump sees it, those that “inappropriately disparage Americans.”

In other words, if it’s not Trump’s version of history, he doesn’t want to hear it, and he doesn’t want you to hear about it either. We are all part of Trump’s fantasy now. In that fantasy, slavery wasn’t too bad, LGBTQ people do not exist, and the country was greatest when it was oppressing people and forming imperialistic colonies.

As is said in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Nothing else to see here, move along.

It’s an idea that works conveniently for Trump, since all his life he’s been building himself up on convenient narratives. He pretended to be a billionaire even when there was no evidence that he was one. He started his political uprising with the lie that Barack Obama wasn’t born in this country. He convinced millions of Americans that his boasting about his sexual assaults was simply the standard “locker room talk.” He convinced them, too, that the uprising we saw on January 6 was not an attempted coup, even though it was. And even now, he’s dismissed basic facts when they don’t reflect the nonsensical narrative he wants to believe, which is why he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics when that agency’s report indicated a slowing of the economy under his policies.

One has to wonder: What will Trump do if the midterm elections don’t go his way? What narrative will he craft then, and how much will it endanger what’s left of our republic?

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” philosopher George Santayana said.

Trump is condemning us all.

Ross Rosenfeld is a political writer. You can follow his Substack.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.