In a letter sent to Smithsonian secretary, Lonnie G Bunch III, on 12 August, the Trump administration announced its plan to replace all Smithsonian exhibits deemed as “divisive” or “ideological” with descriptions deemed as “historical” and “constructive”.
Why the scare quotes? It is enough to say x deemed y as z for it to be known that the word z is a quotation taken from x. It is how x characterises y.
On 21 August, just nine days later, the White House published a list of said offending fixtures – the majority of which include exhibits, programming and artwork that highlight the Black, Latino and LGBTQ+ perspectives on the American project.
Trump thinks these are divisive and ideological. Many agree.
Included in his bill of particulars was an exhibit that rightly depicts Benjamin Franklin as an enslaver,
Franklin bought slaves. He did not enslave them. They were enslaved by African people in Africa. Later on, Franklin became an abolitionist and freed his slaves. It would be 'divisive' to show an American hero as an 'enslaver' when he never enslaved anybody. We know some African American slaves were enslavers till they themselves were enslaved. But people who bought slaves in America were slave-owners not enslavers.
an art installation that acknowledges race as a social construct
which is 'ideological'. Those who think that ideology is divisive are welcome to say so. If they also have executive authority, they may cause it to be removed.
and a display that highlights racist voter suppression measures, among others.
Racist voter suppression was based on a racist ideology. It was divisive. What's wrong with removing it rather than pandering to those who still uphold that ideology.
The assault on the Smithsonian comes wrapped, as it were, as part of a broader attack on democracy,
which has caused Jason to run away to Canada. Kimberley is made of sterner stuff.
scenes of which we see playing out every day. The federal occupation of Washington DC, the crackdown on free speech on campus, the targeting of Trump’s political opponents, the gerrymandering of democracy
Biden was President when Trump won. Democracy is what has put Trump twice in the White House. Incidentally, it was American Democracy which protected slave owners and which permitted 'voter suppression'.
– these are interwoven elements of the same structural assault.
Just as the Smithisonian pieces the Trump administration objected to were part of a structural assault. The question is why Trump won & Kamala lost. To some extent, it was because nutters like Jason were taken- wrongly, I believe- to represent the mindset of, if not the Democratic establishment, then a vocal minority on the Left which the Dems had fallen into the habit of appeasing.
So with many fires burning across the nation, concerned citizens who are answering the call to fight the destruction of democracy may regard his attack on history
You can't 'attack history' anymore than you can invade the Past or sexually molest days of yore.
and memory as a mere skirmish, a distraction from the herculean struggle against fascism unfolding in the US.
Do these cunts mean 'Anti-Fa'? It seems to have backfired. Look at the Kyle Rittenhouse case.
But this is a mistake. Trump’s attack on American museums, education and memory, along with his weaponization of racialized resentment to package his authoritarian sympathies as mere patriotism, is a critical dimension of his fascist aims. The fight for democracy cannot avoid it, nor its racial conditions of possibility.
One can avoid a fight in the US by moving to some other country. Stanley appears to have done so. The problem is that calling Trump a Fascist doesn't seem to have any effect. By doing so you aren't fighting anybody. You are merely shitting yourself.
Fascism always has a central cultural component,
Only because everything human has a central cultural component.
because it relies on the construction of a mythic past.
It has never done so. By the time it appears on the scene such a path has already been constructed. It may refer to it but it may not. It may- like the British Union of Fascists- be based on imitating Mussolini. The Italian Fascists had taken over the black-shirts worn by an elite Italian military corps. Moseley had served in the Lancers & the Flying Corps neither of which had black shirts. Yet he clothed his men in black- like the Royal Tank Corps from 1924 onward. This was peculiar. British ex-Servicemen had strong prejudices. Khaki or 'Kitchener blue' may have been acceptable as an egalitarian gesture, but black wasn't. Moseley was going against British tradition because British Fascism was imitative of the Italian prototype.
The mythic past is central to fascism
No. It is irrelevant. Fascism was initially associated with 'Futurism'. But it didn't invoke a mythic past. There genuinely was a Roman Empire.
because it enables and empowers a sense of grievance by a dominant racial or ethnic group
Italians in Italy? That's where Fascism was born. It prevailed because there was a Communist threat. It entrenched itself by making a Concordat with the Pope and adopting a Corporatist approach to the Economy. The grievance Italians had was that they had fallen behind because foreign powers had occupied large parts on their country.
whose consent is crucial to the sustainability of the project.
No. Fascism, like Communism, can dispense with 'consent'. Beating and torture and Concentration Camps can keep the regime in power provided it has the support of the Army.
In Maga world, the mythic past was pure, innocent and unsullied by women or Black leaders.
The actual American past didn't have women or black leaders.
In this kind of politics, the nation was once great, a by-product of the great achievements of the men in the dominant racial group.
Whereas in the politics of these two nutters, George Washington was a Lesbian Rabbi born in Africa who had spent her formative years plucking cotton in a Southern Plantation.
In short, the assault on the Smithsonian and, more broadly, against truthful history
Abraham Lincoln was a Somali immigrant. She launched a jihad against the Southern Baptists.
and critical reflection is part of the broader fascist attack on democracy.
What 'critical reflection' are these two paranoid cretins capable of?
From this vantage point, racial equality is a threat to the story of the nation’s greatness
America really was great. Did it become less so as racial equality increased? No. The reason it has declined relative to China, in recent years, has to do with Economics. I suppose, the reason Trump got re-elected is because voters thought, as a business man, he could handle the economy better. The right way to attack him is by suggesting he is fucking it up. Gassing on about the Smithsonian is foolish.
because only the men of the dominant group can be great.
Nonsense! The English have a great regard for Elizabeth I. The French have Joan of Arc.
To represent the nation’s founding figures as flawed, as any accurate history would do, is perceived, in this politics, as a kind of treason.
A politician who says George Washington was a Lesbian Rabbi would be a liability for her party. Stupidity isn't treason.
The success of the fascist dismantling of democracy is predicated on
Democracy already being D.O.A by reason of elected politicians doing stupid shit. That was the case of Italy, Hungary, Germany, Spain etc.
the widespread systematic failure to see the larger picture.
These nutters can't see any picture save one they painted for themselves using their own faeces.
The anti-woke assault that is a key pillar of Trumpism
because Wokeism, as Obama warned- and the film 'Undercover Brother 2' confirmed- was utterly toxic for the Dems. Vivek Ramaswamy, however, did well out of it.
is part of that failure, partly due to the racial blinders and enduring ambivalence of too many in positions of leadership in the media and elsewhere.
Why are they not eating their own shit? These two nutters subsist on nothing else. That is why they have such great political influence.
Those who sign on to the attack on “wokeness” but regard themselves as opponents of the other elements of the fascist assault are under the mistaken assumption that these projects can be disaggregated.
Worse yet, they don't understand that chocolate cake can't be 'disaggregated' from their own shit. That's what they should be eating. Chocolate cake is so tasty.
In fact, the dismantling of democracy and of racial justice
reparations for African-Americans? Or do they mean the restoration of 'Turtle Island' to the First Nations and the forcible deportation of people of European, African or Asian origin.
are symbiotically entangled.
No. They are wholly unrelated. Indeed 'racial justice' for these two nutters means injustice to Whites. Sadly, if they are in the majority, they will vote against it.
To support one is to give cover for the others.
Also, everybody should eat only their own shit. Failure to do so will inevitably lead to Fascism and men having penises even though the vast majority of women have to sit down to pee.
It is no coincidence that this ‘proper’ ideology Trump exposes is constitutive of a more well-known strand of fascism – nazism
What isn't a coincidence is that nutters of every stripe start babbling about Hilter.
It is clear that the Trump administration understands this relationship and fully weaponizes racist appeals as a foundational piece of its fascist agenda. And if this was once the quiet part, it is now pronounced out loud in official government documents. In an executive order issued on 27 March 2025 titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”, Trump reveals that his mandate to ban “improper ideologies” targets core commitments repudiating a scientific racism that historically naturalized racial hierarchy thereby neutralizing resistance. According to Trump, the problem with the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s exhibit The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture was that it promoted the idea that “race is a human invention”.
Like gender. Just because a woman has a large penis and uses it to rape other women doesn't mean she should be sent to a jail for men. Still, if reparation payments are made to African Americans, it is good to know that rich White folk will be able to claim them on the basis that Elon Musk just invented their blackness. He also invented the whiteness of actual black peeps. Moreover billionaires have been invented as very poor people and thus shouldn't have to pay any tax. Instead, they should get big fat welfare checks.
The understanding that race is a social construct as opposed to a biological fact is perhaps the most fundamental advance in repudiating enslavement, genocide and segregation.
It has no such magical effect. DNA is a biological fact. My DNA would reveal me to be of Indian origin. Stanley's would reveal him to have some Ashkenazi heritage. Kimberley would show some sub-Saharan African ancestry.
Rejecting the idea that racial inequality is natural or pre-ordained – a claim that grounded enslavement and dispossession in America – forms the cornerstone of the modern commitment to a fully inclusive democracy.
No. The two ideas are wholly unrelated. Democracies grant voting rights on the basis of citizenship, not race. One is welcome to believe that Blacks are superior to Whites but, if you are a Democrat, you have to accept that both will get the same number of votes.
Trump’s declaration that this cornerstone is “improper” is an effort to turn the clock back, upending the entire American postwar project.
It is people who talk of Fascism and Nazism who are trying to turn the clock back to a time when their views might have had some salience.
It is no coincidence that this “proper” ideology Trump exposes is constitutive of a more well-known strand of fascism – nazism. How else can we understand why Maya Angelou was purged from the Naval Academy library while Adolf Hitler remains?
Hitler was important. Many American soldiers died in the war that put an end to his evil regime. Maya wasn't important. Still, after a public outcry, her books were reinstated.
The fight against fascism in the US must be as robust in its embrace of racial equality as Trump’s embrace of outdated ideas about race and racism.
Sadly, updated ideas about race have to do with everybody being sick of the very sound of the word- unless we are talking of a horse race.
The defense of memory, of truthful history, of telling the whole American story rather than ascribing agency in history to the deeds of “great men” is vital to the American democratic project.
Democracy is under threat because kids aren't being taught George Washington was a Lesbian Rabbi.
A pro-democratic education fosters the agency of its citizens by teaching about social movements that overturned entrenched hierarchies which blocked democratic equality and imposed racial tyranny.
LBJ was the African American wife of George Washington. Obama was their butt baby.
The story of how ordinary Americans lived and struggled and remade America is essential knowledge in developing and sustaining a multiracial democracy.
Only in the sense that eating your own shit will overthrow Neo-Liberalism
The Smithsonian has been a vital institution in making this knowledge accessible to the masses.
The masses of shit lodged in the skulls of these cunts- maybe.
The National Museum of the American Latino and the National Museum of the American Indian, for example, provide artifacts and perspectives about the nation’s westward expansion that challenge the myth of unoccupied territory and manifest destiny.
The National Museum of the American Cunt challenges the myth that women don't have penises or that they have to sit down to pee.
A people who cannot remember their past are a people who cannot resist a fascist future.
Why resist it if it is better than the alternative? What these cunts don't get is that Fascism was better than Communism- provided it didn't go to war with a stronger country. That's why Franco died peacefully in his bed while the Spanish Commies & Anarchists were either killed or ran away.
Knowing our history
e.g. George Washington was a Lesbian Rabbi
can give us the weapons and wherewithal to battle Trump’s efforts to catapult us back to a time when the majority of Americans lacked both the civic and economic power that we have now.
Very true. The First Nations would have easily repelled the White Man if only they had known their own history was some stupid shite invented by these two cretins.
The fight for our museums and for our memory is a critical bulwark against the unraveling of American democracy.
It is wholly insignificant.
It is vital that we fight to protect our repositories before it’s too late.
It really isn't. If you really thing Trump is the Devil then say stuff which might tank the Stock Market. That way the Donald loses control of Congress and his last two years in office are a fucking bed of nails. That may happen anyway if he doesn't get a deal with the Chinese and doubles down on doing stupid shit. As for the two clowns who wrote this- put them in a museum by all means.
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