Donald continues to wreak havoc on our nation’s capital, taking a sledgehammer and gold leaf to our buildings and monuments. But the damage he has done, and continues to do, extends to many of our most cherished cultural institutions.
On March 27, 2025, merely two months after his second inauguration, Donald signed an executive order called Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. It directed Vice President Baby JD Vance, a member of the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to work to eliminate what Donald called improper, divisive, or anti American ideology from the Smithsonian, which is to say probably a lot of truth about our sometimes very dark history. It also directed the Trump regime to work with Congress to restrict funding for exhibits that did not conform with those priorities.
On August 19, 2025, Donald posted the following on his failing social media platform:
The museums throughout Washington, but all over the country are essentially the last remaining segment of woke. The Smithsonian is out of control where everything discussed is how horrible our country is, how bad slavery was, and how unaccomplished a downtrodden have been. Nothing about success, nothing about brightness, nothing about the future. We are not going to allow this to happen, and I have instructed my attorneys to go through the museums and start the exact same process that has been done with colleges and universities where tremendous progress has been made. This country cannot be woke because woke is broke. We have the hottest country in the world and we want people to talk about it, including in our museums.
Yes, because it would be absolutely horrible to teach our children that enslaving other human beings was bad.
On July 24, Donald issued another executive order directing the National Park Service to install signs outside of museums telling visitors that exhibits inside contain inaccurate information and directing them toward what the regime considered more accurate accounts of American history. Which is to say their accounts of American history. Which is to say their revisionist accounts of American history, in which it is not the Indigenous native populations or the Africans we kidnapped, enslaved, tortured, and murdered over eight generations who built this country. No, it is rich white men who are wholly responsible for the greatness that is America.
The White House spent months reviewing the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. On July 4, 2026, it released a report accusing the museum of political activism and presenting a distorted version of American history. Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch responded that the report was not a fair characterization of the museum’s work.
The Trump regime isn’t just removing or rewriting existing history. It is, as I said, creating its own version.
For America’s 250th anniversary, the National Park Service installed a new temporary exhibit at Freedom Plaza in Washington called the Spirit of 76. At the center is a statue of Caesar Rodney, a signer of the Declaration of Independence who enslaved more than 200 people. The statue was removed from Wilmington, Delaware, during the racial justice protests of 2020, but the Trump regime brought it out of storage and placed it prominently on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol.
Concurrently, on January 22, 2026, Park Service workers removed an exhibit about slavery from the President’s House, where George Washington lived while serving as president. The exhibit told the stories of the nine people Washington enslaved there. On July 15, replacement panels appeared at the site. They still discussed slavery and identified the nine enslaved people, but five video screens showing reenactments of their lives remained dark. Historians who reviewed the changes said the new presentation softened Washington’s role as an enslaver.
On August 3, Donald used an interesting term to describe his feelings.
Frankly, if you talk about reparations or if you’re talking about payment, what they did to me, I had a very good case against them.
This is what happens when you do not teach American history properly. This is what happens when you do not make reparations to the descendants of the populations you enslaved for eight generations. This is what happens when you do not make reparations to the native populations against whom you committed a genocide. You get incompetent, undeserving white men failing upward and acting as aggrieved as if they had somehow suffered the same kinds of horrors as the peoples we enslaved.
Civil rights activists and reparations advocates immediately criticized Donald’s use of the term, pointing out that it subverts and diminishes this historic movement seeking redress for descendants of enslaved Black Americans. The Park Service is spending an estimated $716,000 in park entrance fees to relocate the Caesar Rodney statue and construct its base at Freedom Plaza.
The Trump regime has also changed who controls one of America’s most prominent performing arts institutions. In February 2025, Donald removed Kennedy Center trustees, replaced them with loyalists, and was elected chairman of the new board. The board then removed longtime president Deborah Rutter and installed one of Donald’s closest allies, Rick Grenell, as interim president. Artists began withdrawing, board members resigned, and ticket sales fell.
Then, on December 18, 2025, Donald’s handpicked board voted to add his name to the Kennedy Center, which was named for slain President John F. Kennedy as a memorial to him. Jazz musician Chuck Redd was among the artists who objected. Redd had hosted the Kennedy Center’s Christmas Eve Jazz Jam for roughly two decades. After Donald’s name was added to the building, he canceled his 2025 appearance, and the Kennedy Center sued him. A DC judge dismissed the case.
Meanwhile, the name change Redd was protesting didn’t survive either. In May 2026, US District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the board didn’t have the authority to rename the Kennedy Center, writing:
Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name and only Congress can change it.
Donald’s name was removed from the building in June, and on August 10, the Kennedy Center was ordered to pay Redd $250,479.70 in attorney’s fees and other legal costs.
In the meantime, however, to cover up his shame, Donald had a tarp placed in front of the facade where his name had been. It remains there in contravention of the judge’s orders. And on August 13, Donald’s handpicked board voted again to put his name on the building, this time to etch it into the facade beneath the Kennedy Center’s official name with the inscription, Restored and renovated by President Asshole, because he is so thirsty and insecure, it is unbearable for him not to have his name and his likeness taint everything.
The board also voted to name the plaza outside for Donald and once again approved closing the Kennedy Center for two years for renovations despite the federal court ruling that had blocked its earlier closure plan. They’re just going to keep trying.
I think at some point we should just jump right to the chase and call everything Donald. I mean, that’s where we’re heading. Pretty soon that Gulf of America, which is to say the Gulf of Mexico, is going to be the Gulf of Donald. It’ll be the Donald River in the downtown district of Donald.
That is indeed where this is heading. Just call everything Donald. Imagine if every single street is named Donald Street, Donald Avenue, Donald Way, Donald Turnpike, Donald Highway, Donald Parkway. It will get really confusing. We’ll literally all have the same address. Where do you live? I live on Donald. Oh my God, so do I. Where? In Donald. What state? Donald?
So yes, it will be confusing for us, but maybe, maybe at long last a deeply thirsty, thirsty man will have had his thirst slaked.
No, of course not. We’re going to have to start naming other planets and solar systems and galaxies and universes after him. I think we should start naming black holes after him because this is indeed where we are heading. He is a black hole of need, into which the light of compliments is swallowed and disappears.
In April 2025, DOGE, remember DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, moved to terminate more than $100 million in grants already awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The grants supported historians, writers, museums, universities, and cultural organizations around the country.
On May 7, US District Judge Colleen McMahon ruled that the cancellations violated the First and Fifth Amendments and that DOGE lacked authority to terminate them. The court found that grants had been targeted based on whether DOGE believed they promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion. The terminated projects included work involving Holocaust education, Indigenous culture, and the history of HIV and prisons.
Judge McMahon called it:
A textbook example of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
She ordered the government to rescind the termination letters and barred enforcement of those cancellations. DOGE officials admitted during discovery that they used ChatGPT to help identify grants they believed violated Donald’s anti DEI orders.
In other words, this regime is a kakistocracy. The most incompetent and craven among us are calling the shots.
But what is happening because of this regime to our cultural institutions, our heritage, and the arts, that’s straight up fascism.
Trump no longer frightens me 24/7! Hegseth DOES‼️ We are being governed by a clown car of demented politicians,,,top down❗️
Thank you for the article, Mary. Why in the world does the Congress allow him to erase our history? Dementia is my only choice to this moment.