Whitewashing America: Trump’s Crusade to Sandblast the Truth
America has always had its uncomfortable truths — the kind that live beneath the white paint, the kind we’re supposed to learn from so we don’t keep repeating the same national sins. But Donald Trump, master of the Sharpie and the revisionist rewrite, has launched a full-scale cultural pressure wash of the country, blasting away anything that challenges his preferred fantasy world — a country where racism isn’t real, inequality is imagined, and historical facts are negotiable.
And his followers? They’re out here cheering the demolition like it’s the unveiling of a new golf course.
Trump’s project isn’t just political. It’s philosophical. It’s about reshaping the American mind by deciding which truths are permitted. And nothing exposes this more than the war he and his movement have waged against educators — the people tasked with teaching uncomfortable history to young adults who desperately need it.
Take the ordeal recently faced by an Indiana University professor who discussed white supremacy in a classroom setting — a completely legitimate academic subject taught everywhere from community colleges to Harvard. The mere act of naming the concept, of analyzing it, was enough to ignite outrage among the right-wing grievance machine. Online mobs swarmed. Legislators rattled sabers. Administrators fielded pressure. And while the professor was not fired, the message Trumpism wanted to send was received loud and clear: teach real history, or we’ll make your life hell.
This is exactly how whitewashing works — not always with overt bans, but with intimidation, harassment, surveillance, and manufactured outrage designed to make teachers police themselves. If Trump’s movement can’t erase the history, they’ll erase the people who teach it.
Trump’s America doesn’t want reality. It wants an airbrushed, sanitized scrapbook where racism ended in 1865, civil rights heroes were politely escorted to glory, and every social problem can be blamed on immigrants, Black activists, or “liberal indoctrination.” It’s a Disney ride version of history — except even Disney has the courage to update its attractions.
Trump’s agenda is embarrassingly transparent:
If history reflects poorly on him or his supporters, he declares the history “fake.” If academics describe systems of power, he accuses them of hating America. If students want the truth, he insists they’re ungrateful.
It’s no coincidence that during his presidency, he declared teaching the historical roots of racism to be “child abuse,” labeled systemic racism a “hoax,” and pushed for “patriotic education” programs that read like they were drafted by a committee of porcelain eagles from Hobby Lobby.
Under Trump’s whitewashing doctrine, acknowledging inequality is unpatriotic. Recognizing facts is subversive. Teaching students to think critically is “Marxism.” And anyone who challenges this mythology becomes an “enemy of the people.”
This would be laughable if it weren’t so recognizable. Every authoritarian playbook starts with three moves:
- Rewrite the pastMake it simpler, cleaner, and more flattering to those in power.
- Control the narrativeAttack the credibility of anyone who teaches the truth.
- Punish dissentMake examples out of educators, journalists, and critics.
We’re watching this in real time — from statehouse proposals to censor college syllabi, to Trump’s own public vows to punish “radical left professors,” to the chilling effect that sends shockwaves across campuses. Faculty everywhere see what happened to colleagues in Florida, Texas, and Indiana when political bullies came knocking.
The point isn’t removing one professor.
The point is making all professors think twice.
America can survive bad policies, but it cannot survive the elimination of truth. Trump’s whitewashing campaign is an assault not just on education, but on collective memory. You cannot “Make America Great Again” by pretending America has never done anything wrong. You cannot build a just country if you’re terrified of naming injustice. And you certainly cannot lead a democracy by forcing citizens to live inside a cartoon.
A mature nation faces its history because strength comes from honesty — not delusion.
But Trump? He would rather rip pages out of textbooks, muzzle professors, and hermetically seal the past in nostalgia plastic wrap.
Because the truth is this:
You only have to erase history if you’re afraid the future is watching.
And Trump is terrified.
Julie Bolejack, MBA
juliebolejack.com
mindfulactivist.etsy.com
