Source: The Washington Post / Getty
again attacked the
Smithsonian Institution as “woke” and focusing too much on slavery, prompting online observers to call him out.
On
Tuesday (August 19), President Donald Trump once again
attacked the Smithsonian Institution and its museums, raging that they’ve become too “woke” and complaining that showing “how bad Slavery was” is harming the nation. His words were met with severe pushback online, with many calling him out for racism and hypocrisy, and others claiming its another distraction from his haphazard and unpopular second presidential term.
“The Museums throughout Washington, but all over the Country are, essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE’,” Trump began in his Truth Social post. “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.”
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He added, “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.”
A multitude of people expressed their outrage over Trump’s post. CNN host Abby Phillip brought up the remarks on her primetime show that evening in discussion with political historian Leah Wright Rigeur, and played a clip from Trump’s first term showing him praising the National Museum of African American History and Culture after a tour in 2017.
It’s believed that Trump’s focus is on the National Museum of African American History and Culture, although he didn’t name it in this recent Truth Social post. The Smithsonian is not solely under Trump’s control, as it’s
governed by a Board of Regents which includes the Chief Justice of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, three members of the United States Senate, three members of the United States House of Representatives, and nine citizens. It has already stood up to Trump when he sought to fire Kim Sajet, the director of the National Portrait Gallery.
Others called out how Trump’s post is another attempt by him to further entrench authoritarian rule in the United States in order to take the focus off of several issues his administration is dealing with in his second term. These include the deliberate lack of transparency over government files related to Jeffrey Epstein, as well as his attempts to take over the police force in Washington D.C.
