Trump sends slavery to museum storage

Nothing is impossible for the great doer that Donald Trump believes he has within him.

In his seven months in office, Trump has positioned himself as the chief decorator of the Oval Office, where, at his whim, gold decorations or gold additions are now lavished as a show of power. Some critics see this display as "an embarrassment to national history."

He also served as chief designer for paving the stately White House lawn, resembling the patio of his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida. One of the reasons he gave was that women's stiletto heels would sink into the grass.

Another skill he insists on demonstrating is his title of chief curator of the United States. Breaking protocol, Trump ordered the portraits of his predecessors Barack Obama and the Bush family, father and son (Joe Biden's is unfinished), removed from their prominent display locations and hidden. Obama's, for example, is next to a service staircase. Is there a message there? We all know that Obama was the first Black person to reside in the White House who wasn't a servant.

But Trump wants to take this ability to curate art displayed at the presidential residence further and impose it on the country's museums.

That's their great crusade: to ensure that these US authorities conform not to the facts, but to their own triumphant version of history.

In this vein of what he considers wokism , the US president has attacked the Smithsonian Institution (one of the world's leading exhibition institutions, with 21 museums in Washington), one of his obsessions.

A week ago, he signed an executive order requiring a four-month review of the contents of nearly a dozen museums. He set the goal of "ensuring alignment with the President's directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, eliminate divisive or partisan narratives, and restore trust in our cultural institutions."

“The Smithsonian is out of control, all it’s about is... how bad slavery was,” Trump tweeted.

Just a few days later, in a fit of rage on social media, he put the pieces together. He accused the Smithsonian of focusing too much "on how bad slavery was" and not enough on the brilliance of the United States.

“The Smithsonian is out of control, all they talk about there is how horrible our country is, how bad slavery was, and how dissatisfied the oppressed are,” he wrote. “Nothing is said about success, nothing about glitter, nothing about the future,” he insisted. “This country can’t be woke , because woke is broke ( Woke is broke , he rhymed in the tweet). We are the hottest country in the world (he wrote “the HOTTEST,” in all caps) in the world, and we want people to talk about that, even in our museums,” he emphasized.

In that same post, Trump referenced the recent funding freezes for universities and library services if they fail to comply with his demands, thus threatening museums in general. "I have directed my lawyers to go to the museums and begin the same process we have undertaken at the universities, where tremendous progress has been made," he reiterated.

Five years ago, with the death of African American George Floyd under the knee of a white police officer, many American institutions attempted, in various ways and with varying degrees of seriousness and skill, to come to terms with the legacy of racism, or the original sin of this country's founding. A backlash to this reckoning helped propel Trump back to the White House, from where he has spread the idea that the United States has nothing to apologize for.

As part of this initiative, the president is seeking to make museums a reflection of the ideology that seeks to minimize the history of Black citizens in this country. This means shifting the focus away from the role whites played in the kidnapping and exploitation of Black people.

“It is the epitome of stupidity to criticize the Smithsonian for addressing the reality of slavery in the United States,” historian Douglas Brinkley wrote in The New York Times . “Slavery led us to the Civil War and is a defining aspect of our national history,” he insisted. “And the Smithsonian powerfully addresses what slavery was, but it also delves equally deeply into human rights and civil rights,” he emphasized.

No matter how much people try to whitewash what happened, experts are clear that the truth about this nation cannot be understood without fully addressing the impact of slavery.

Under the name Smithsonian, and in addition to the zoo in the capital, Washington is home to the largest museum, educational, and research group in the world.

In a fit of rage, Trump threatens to do to museums what he has done to universities

Although not part of the federal government, it receives about 53% of its overall funding, which amounted to approximately $1.1 billion in 2024, through appropriations determined by Congress. It is governed by a board of regents that includes Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Vice President J.D. Vance, as well as legislators from both parties, as well as leaders from the cultural and business sectors.

The conclusion analysts draw from Trump's attack is that the woke is imposed by censorship, the aesthetic lingua franca of all authoritarian regimes.

Transgender Statue of Liberty Censored

Amy Sherald gained significant fame for painting the official portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama, which was recently exhibited at the Whitney Museum in New York to great acclaim. Despite this recognition, Sherald has no shield against the censorship imposed by the Donald Trump administration. The artist canceled a solo exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington last month after the museum informed her that they were considering removing one of her creations. The original work was a portrait of a transgender Statue of Liberty, one of the key themes stigmatized by Trumpist ideology, to avoid upsetting the president. While the institution denied Sherald's version, the Trump administration declared victory. "The Statue of Liberty is not an abstract canvas for political expression. It is a solemn symbol of freedom, inspiration, and national unity that defines the American spirit," said a White House lawyer.