{"id":76536,"date":"2026-07-25T07:54:51","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T12:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/25\/gop-lawmaker-demands-answers-after-smithsonian-chief-urged-moving-beyond-america-first-mentality\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T07:54:51","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T12:54:51","slug":"gop-lawmaker-demands-answers-after-smithsonian-chief-urged-moving-beyond-america-first-mentality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/25\/gop-lawmaker-demands-answers-after-smithsonian-chief-urged-moving-beyond-america-first-mentality\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP lawmaker demands answers after Smithsonian chief urged moving beyond ‘America First mentality’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rep. Mike Carey, R-Ohio, grilled Smithsonian leadership at a hearing on Wednesday on why the National Museum of American History<\/a> (NMAH) had dropped mention of “American history<\/a>” from its mission statement in<\/p>\n

“You explained that the museum removed the phrase \u2018American history\u2019 from the mission statement in order to help people \u2018to get out of the America-first mentality,\u2019 Carey said, posing his question to Anthea Hartig, NMAH administrator.<\/p>\n

“What did you mean by America-first?” he asked.<\/p>\n

Carey\u2019s line of questioning, made during a Committee on House Administration hearing on Wednesday, comes as Republicans in Congress<\/a> have made preserving America\u2019s heritage a proxy for larger struggles over national identity and cultural values.<\/p>\n

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Progressive thinkers, such as Hartig, have argued that keeping the darker parts of American history in view should inform an understanding of the country\u2019s past \u2014 and help set its policy direction in the present.<\/p>\n

In response, many Republican lawmakers have voiced deep unrest over efforts to characterize the U.S. as marked by oppression or slavery \u2014 such as the New York Times\u2019 1619 Project<\/a>. Many conservatives have argued that the American ideals, laid out in documents like the Declaration of Independence, transcend even the country\u2019s most blatant failures to live up to those aspirations; that they are anything but definitive of the American experience.<\/p>\n

The conversation has also taken on a new focus in President Donald Trump\u2019s second term as the administration has pulled out all the stops in celebrating the country\u2019s 250th anniversary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With calls to “Make America great again” and put “America first,” the administration released a report<\/a> called “Saving America\u2019s Story.”<\/p>\n

That report highlighted the American History Museum\u2019s decision<\/a> to change its mission statement and called out Hartig specifically.<\/p>\n

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“That shift from history to activism is clearly documented in this report. Anthea Hartig, NMAH\u2019s director since 2019, has explicitly stated that she sees history as a \u2018prime tool of social justice\u2019 and one of her roles as connecting \u2018research and scholarship to activism and advocacy,\u2019” the report stated.<\/p>\n

The report also details how Hartig had explained the change to NMAH’s mission statement in a 2024 presentation to a group of undergraduate and graduate history students.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s hard to get out of the \u2018America First\u2019 mentality …It\u2019s just that, and why we changed our mission when I first came,” Hartig said. “I think it\u2019s a big challenge, especially going into 2026, which will be the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the 25th year since 9\/11, the fifth year since January 6th.”<\/p>\n

Speaking before the committee on Wednesday, Hartig defended her view, claiming that she had not tried to make history a matter of activism through her leadership at NMAH.<\/p>\n

“The museum does not take sides in America\u2019s political debates. We preserve and document the evidence of American life in all its breadth, so that the public can encounter the past and draw their own conclusions,” she stated.<\/p>\n

“When historians talk about reframing a traditional narrative, we do not mean erasing it. We mean adding the evidence, voices and objects that earlier tellings left out, so that more Americans can see themselves in the national story. Examining the harder chapters of our history<\/a> is not the same as hostility toward America.”<\/p>\n

But Carey, alongside other Republicans, appeared unconvinced.<\/p>\n

“‘The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.\u2019” Carey cautioned, quoting George Orwell\u2019s cautionary book on authoritarianism, 1984.<\/p>\n

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“Let me get back to my original question \u2014 why do you think that \u2018American history\u2019 should be erased from the American History museum?” Carey added.<\/p>\n

Hartig, pressed for time, did not give a response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rep. Mike Carey, R-Ohio, grilled Smithsonian leadership at a hearing on Wednesday on why the National Museum of American History (NMAH) had dropped mention of “American history” from its mission statement in “You explained that the museum removed the phrase \u2018American history\u2019 from the mission statement in order to help people \u2018to get out 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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76536","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\/76536","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=76536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}