GOP, YOUR SILENCE ALIGNS YOU WITH THIS RACISM!

GOP, YOUR SILENCE ALIGNS YOU WITH THIS RACISM!
Photo by Jon Tyson / Unsplash

🎨 Trump vs. Museums: Because History is Just Too Woke

Ladies and gentlemen, pull up a folding chair and a glass of boxed Chardonnay because the former president has done it again. Just when you thought we had reached peak absurdity, Donald J. Trump, patron saint of grievance politics, has decided that museums are the last bastion of wokeness in America. Yes, you read that correctly. Not universities, not the media, not libraries—museums. Those dusty institutions filled with skeletons, dinosaur bones, and dioramas are apparently the frontline in his never-ending war on reality.

Here’s Trump in his own words, because frankly, satire cowers in the corner when faced with this kind of unfiltered nonsense:

“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 the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future…”

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I walk into a museum, the first thing I think is, Wow, this exhibit about Civil War amputations really needs more sunshine and rainbows. How dare museums talk about slavery, genocide, oppression, or, God forbid, actual history? Don’t they know America was built entirely on self-reliant billionaires with golden toilets?

Trump wants “Brightness” in museums. Brightness! I suppose instead of confronting the horrors of slavery, we could just put up neon posters saying “It Wasn’t That Bad!” Or maybe a wax figure of Robert E. Lee giving thumbs-up with the caption: At least he had good uniforms.

But here’s the kicker: he’s threatening to send in the lawyers. That’s right—his legal brain trust (the same one that couldn’t win 60 court cases on election fraud) is now going to storm the Smithsonian with subpoenas. Somewhere, a T-Rex skeleton is shaking its tiny arms in fear.

This isn’t just idiotic, it’s racist. Trump is angry that museums discuss slavery as if it was bad. He complains there’s too much about the “downtrodden” and not enough about “success.” Translation: stop talking about Black pain and Indigenous suffering; let’s get back to celebrating rich white guys and their marble busts. He wants history that flatters his supporters’ fantasies, not history that challenges anyone’s comfort.

The irony? If Trump had his way, the National Museum of African American History and Culture would replace its slavery exhibits with a gift shop selling red MAGA visors and “Woke Is Broke” bumper stickers. Instead of a Rosa Parks bus, we’d have a life-size replica of Trump’s escalator ride in 2015. And forget the Hall of Fossils—just put up a 20-foot animatronic Trump growling, “The dinosaurs loved me, everyone says so.”

Museums, by definition, preserve truth. They showcase the artifacts of who we were, the mistakes we made, and the progress we’ve clawed our way toward. They’re not supposed to be propaganda halls for fragile egos. But Trump doesn’t want truth—he wants a curated fantasyland where America is perfect, racism never existed, and the only history worth telling is how he single-handedly invented patriotism.

It’s funny until you realize it isn’t. This is how authoritarian regimes operate: erase the uncomfortable parts of history, glorify the leaders, sanitize the narrative until it’s nothing but patriotic fluff. Ask any German why Holocaust museums matter. Ask any South African about apartheid memorials. You don’t build a better future by pretending the past was all ice cream socials and brass bands.

So, the next time you’re wandering the Smithsonian, standing in front of Harriet Tubman’s shawl, or Emmett Till’s casket, or even the Apollo 11 command module, remember: Donald Trump thinks you’re being force-fed wokeness. He’d rather you stare at a portrait of him grinning with a Big Mac in one hand and the nuclear codes in the other.

Museums don’t need Trump’s “Brightness.” What they need is protection from his darkness. Because the second we start letting politicians dictate history is the second we stop learning from it. And if Trump hates museums now, just wait until he finds out about libraries.

👉 Closing thought: If Trump really wants more “success” in museums, maybe they can dedicate a new wing at the Smithsonian: The Art of the Indictment. Interactive exhibits include “Count the Felonies,” “Stormy Daniels Theater,” and a rotating display of unpaid legal bills. Now that’s history worth displaying!

Julie Bolejack, MBA

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