Trump and Americans’ access to good history

Anyone who has read a few of my posts here has gotten a hint that I’m a hopeless history geek.

In the US, we have a Constitution that goes back to the 18th century that frames in institutional legal terms the government we have. Obviously, the Constitution has changed with various Amendments, the first ten of which were immediately enacted by the first Congress in the 1790s. There are identifiable elements of today’s US Constitutional law that go back to the Magna Carta tradition in English law, a tradition that began in 1215.

Understanding what those mean, even in very official judicial proceedings, requires knowing something about the concrete historical situations in which those emerged. And historical symbols and images are always important to collective identities, even if we are conscious of how those understandings are often developed long after the historical events themselves. And the emergence of modern nationalism involved defining national identities based on historical experiences defined as a source of pride and identity.

The nihilistic, Know-Nothing Trump 2.0 Administration is not only threatening war in large parts of the Western Hemisphere and Nigeria. It’s also waging an ideological war on professional and honest history. The New Republic this year devoted a large part of its September issue to describing and evaluating that ideological war, which affects large parts of our national infrastructure for teaching and understanding history. (1)

As Edward Ayers writes there:

The fuller American past would not flourish without Americans who take on the responsibilities of the past as careers. The historians of the National Park Service daily work at the boundaries of celebration and commemoration, on the borders of history and memory. They know that their devotion and years of continual education will not be repaid with high salaries and will sometimes be disrupted or even ended for political purposes. Across the nation at our historical parks, sites, battlefields, and more, interpreters from the NPS explain the complexities of American history to visitors of all political persuasions, without favor or evasion. Park historians work at the birthplace of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the Japanese internment camps in California. They interpret ancient archaeological sites and the three locations of the 9/11 attacks. Their work is inspiring and essential.

Kevin Levin at his Civil War Memory blog, now in its 21st year and now on Substack (of course!(, has been following the pressures that the Trump regime is putting on the National Park Service to interfere with its efforts to present honest history to a very interested public.

This is a part of a larger effort at ideological guidance on the part of the Trumpistas, which Molly Worthen describes in her New Republic contribution as “the current campaign to cripple and humiliate universities.” Although much of her article is a repetition of tired conservative claims about ivory tower eggheads, she does make the case for the value of liberal-arts education along with scientific and professional training.

This is an old tension between power and institutions of learning. Think of Socrates being condemned to death for spreading a lot of irritating, fancy new ideas to the innocent young people of Athens. In more recent times, present-day economies and societies depend critically on scientific and technological developments. And the schools, colleges, libraries, and museum that are indispensable parts of that ability can’t be run on the same principles as a family real estate business.

History is about facts and factual events. But it’s a complicated and challenging field to understand even in a general sense. And when it’s reduced to celebrating superficial patriotism and nationalism – much les the white Christian nationalist version preferred by Trumpists - it amounts to no more than cheap ideology.

As a social media meme I’ve seen several times recently puts it, “If the history you’re reading makes you feel exclusively proud and happy, you’re not reading history. You’re reading propaganda.”

Or as Hegel put it in the pre-social media dark ages, ““The history of the world is not the ground of happiness, because the periods of happiness are blank pages in it.” Not so often quoted is what immediately follows, “the object of history is, at the least, change.” (2)

William Sturkey in his New Republic piece expresses optimism for the field that records that so-often-unhappy history, despite his justifiably dark view of the Trumpists’ attitude toward history:

Trump 2.0’s flawed and racist approach to history will probably offer little in the way of substantive change for serious historical study. The Trump allies promoting censorship are only interested in prevention, not innovative creation, ceding the field to those of us who really do care about honest history. And unfortunately for Trump and his supporters, the censors can’t reach everywhere. Knowledge today comes from many quarters. Millions of students may be blocked from learning American history in public school classrooms [!!!], but the Trump administration cannot completely block them from accessing American history from other venues. [my emphasis]

Trump issued an Executive Order in March called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” a title which appropriately enough sounds like a teaser for a FOX News show. (3)

The Organization of American Historians (OAH) made this statement a few days later:

The recent Executive Order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” represents a disturbing attack on core institutions and the public presentation of history, and indeed on historians and history itself. The directive seeks to limit the ways in which history is taught to the public and understood, especially by discouraging the incorporation of perspectives that might challenge simplified, one-dimensional, and biased views of American history. The implications of this order are far-reaching and challenge the historian’s profession to its very core. It proposes to rewrite history to reflect a glorified narrative that downplays or disappears elements of America’s history—slavery, segregation, discrimination, division—while suppressing the voices of historically excluded groups.

This is not a return to sanity. Rather, it sanitizes to destroy truth. [my emphasis] (4)

Their statement also notes, “The Executive Order is especially insidious in that it is an attack not just on history, but on the very values of intellectual curiosity and engagement that vital democracies demand of their people.” [my emphasis]

Notes:

(1) Trump Against History. The New Republic Sept. 2025, 14-37.

(2) Hegel, G.W.F. (2015): Gesammelte Werke 27:1, 54 (Nachschrift Hotho, 1822-23). Düsseldorf: Nordrhein-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Künste. My translation from the German.

(3) White House website 03/27/2025. <https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/restoring-truth-and-sanity-to-american-history/> (Accessed: 2025-11-11).

(4) Statement on Executive Order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” OAH website 03/31/2025. <https://www.oah.org/2025/03/31/statement-on-executive-order-restoring-truth-and-sanity-to-american-history/> (Accessed: 2025-11-11).