The Smithsonian\u2019s museums have been ordered to root out \u2018divisive narratives\u2019. It\u2019s part of a pattern: the battle lines are now clear<\/p>\n
It has come to this: we are now in Ministry of Truth territory. In Washington DC, the Smithsonian Institution, the US\u2019s ensemble of 21 great national museums, last week became the subject of an executive order by President Donald Trump. \u201cDistorted narratives\u201d are to be rooted out. There will be no more of the \u201ccorrosive ideology\u201d that has fostered a \u201csense of national shame\u201d. The institution has, reads the order, \u201ccome under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology\u201d that portrays \u201cAmerican and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive\u201d. The vice-president, JD Vance, is, by virtue of his office, on the museum\u2019s board. He is charged by Trump to \u201cprohibit expenditure\u201d on programmes that \u201cdivide Americans based on race\u201d. He is to remove \u201cimproper ideology\u201d. The order is titled \u201cRestoring Truth and Sanity to American History\u201d. George Orwell lived too soon.<\/p>\n
The move is deeply shocking, but predictable. After Trump\u2019s insertion of himself as chair of the John F Kennedy Center and his railing against the supposed wokeness of the national performing arts venue, the federally funded Smithsonian was bound to be next in line. Those who imagined the Kennedy Center was a one-off, attracting the president\u2019s ire for personal reasons, were deluding themselves about the scale of Trump\u2019s ideological ambition. Picked out for opprobrium in the executive order are the Smithsonian American Women\u2019s History Museum for celebrating transgender women<\/a> (the museum, it should be pointed out, has yet to be built); the National Museum of African American History and Culture; and an exhibition titled The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture at the American Art Museum.<\/p>\n Charlotte Higgins is the Guardian\u2019s chief culture writer<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Smithsonian\u2019s museums have been ordered to root out \u2018divisive narratives\u2019. It\u2019s part of a pattern: the battle lines are now clear It has come to this: we are now in Ministry of Truth territory. In Washington DC, the Smithsonian Institution, the US\u2019s ensemble of 21 great national museums, last week became the subject of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}