Forcing a revisionist version of history on American citizens is not patriotic – Las Vegas Sun

President Donald Trump salutes during a military parade commemorating the Army’s 250th anniversary, coinciding with his 79th birthday, Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Washington, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and first lady Melania Trump watch. Photo by: Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP

Wednesday, June 25, 2025 | 2 a.m.

EDITORIAL: Forcing a revisionist version of history on American citizens is not patriotic

President Donald Trump salutes during a military parade commemorating the Army’s 250th anniversary, coinciding with his 79th birthday, Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Washington, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and first lady Melania Trump watch. Photo by: Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP

If the masked ICE agents at schools and sanctuaries and the uniformed soldiers on the streets of Los Angeles weren’t enough to convince you of President Donald Trump’s authoritarian instincts, look no further than the QR codes now posted across America’s national parks, museums and historic sites. The codes, which call on the American people to report the supposedly un-American activities of their fellow countrymen are subtle, scannable reminders of the nation’s democratic backsliding under Trump.

The signs and QR codes stem from an executive order misleadingly titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” That order, combined with an accompanying Interior Department directive, asks visitors to report park rangers, reenactors, historians, archaeologists, docents and other federal staff or interpretive signage that shares historical facts that might tarnish the myth of unblemished American morality and supremacy.

Instead, the order demands that signage, exhibits and staff commentary focus exclusively on “the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people,” without specifying who is included under the umbrella of “American.” Unfortunately, Trump’s obsession with erasing the history and contributions of immigrants, Indigenous Americans, people of color or other people who have traditionally lacked societal power belies the insidious goals of the order: to erase and, yes, to lie about the complex and often painful stories that define who we are as a nation and how we came to be here today.

History is not meant to be a comfort blanket, it’s an explanation. And if America can’t bear an inquiry into how we arrived here, we risk becoming a nation more committed to self-delusion than self-reflection, more committed to platitudes than progress.

Consider for a moment the origins of the country as an isolated group of colonies that, despite being vastly outgunned, successfully revolted against the greatest military power of the era. In the process, they founded a country in which certain inalienable rights are enshrined in the Constitution and “rags to riches” stories are not only possible but are at the core of what we now call “the American dream.” That story is worth celebrating on its own, but it becomes even more inspirational when put in the context of the history of tyranny and oppression faced by the colonists, and the long odds of their success.

Yet Trump’s directive would remove that context from post-Revolutionary War history by erasing references to the moments in which the American government or American people became the oppressors. The president has already targeted the Smithsonian Institution, threatening to remove exhibits and personnel he deemed “inappropriate” for their discussion of topics such as racism, sexism and homophobia. And earlier this year, the story of the Tuskegee Airmen was removed from Air Force training videos because they discussed how the celebrated WWII pilots not only faced dangerous threats in the skies above Europe but also the threat of violent racism at home.

Like the Tuskegee Airman, stories of American triumph, bravery, innovation and success are worthy of celebration. But for some of those accomplishments, the scope and scale is only magnified when put into the context of the injustices and obstacles that some Americans have overcome. Put simply, all of history should be on display, not just the good or just the bad — all of it.

Imagine being a ranger at Fort Monroe in Virginia, where some of the first enslaved Africans arrived in 1619, and later, where self-emancipated people found refuge during the Civil War. For decades, your job has been to tell that full, complicated story — the suffering and the sanctuary. Now you must weigh every word, unsure whether a smartphone-wielding visitor will scan a QR code and report you for not being “patriotic” enough to spread revisionist propaganda.

Worse still, the directive encourages Americans to turn on one another. It’s not enough for the Trump administration to rewrite the narrative, it wants to deputize everyday citizens as thought police, regardless of background, motives or expertise. Loyal federal employees will be reported on entirely false pretenses because someone scanned a bar code out of panic at learning something about our past. It’s the stuff of witch hunts and a perverse transformation of our national parks, historic sites and museums like the Smithsonian — spaces designed for education and reflection — into battlegrounds in MAGA’s ongoing culture war.

But there’s a silver lining: The American people aren’t buying it

During the first few weeks of the program, instead of flooding the Interior Department with denunciations of “woke” federal staff, park visitors have used the QR codes to push back, calling on Trump and the Interior Department to rescind the EO and accompanying directive.

At Independence Hall, the birthplace of American democracy, one comment captured the absurdity of the effort perfectly: “The truth isn’t the problem. Pretending it is — that’s the real offense.”

The Trump administration’s fear of uncomfortable facts reveals a profound misunderstanding of American exceptionalism. Our greatness does not come from pretending we’ve never erred. It comes from the fact that we are one of the few nations on earth with the capacity, the courage and the legal right to reflect, to openly call for reform and to make progress toward a better future for everyone who calls this country home.

Recalling the history of the Civil Rights Movement isn’t just a reminder of the cruel barbarity of slavery or Jim Crow, it is also a celebration of the courage and heroism of those who fought — and continued to fight to this day — for dignity and equality. The current moment of backsliding notwithstanding, our history is, generally speaking, the story of a people learning to be better over time.

Just as importantly, these events are reminders of what not to do going forward. It’s how we learn to be better as a nation. Indeed, it’s how we learn to be great, rather than just declaring ourselves great on a red hat.

Staff at federal parks, historic sites and museums deserve our support, not our surveillance. In a time when so much of our public discourse is polluted by distortion and denial, the signs urging us to report them must come down.

Museums, parks and historic sites should remain places where we can learn not only about the mountains and plains that make America beautiful, but also about the people who have worked those lands and called them home, both in the past and today.

And one day, perhaps, there will be a museum exhibit dedicated to Trump’s executive order and the moment when Americans stood up against the erasure of truth and reminded the world that confronting our past and learning from it, is part of what makes America great.

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