{"id":196364,"date":"2026-06-28T15:32:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T23:32:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=196364"},"modified":"2026-06-28T15:40:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T23:40:01","slug":"restoring-truth-and-sanity-to-american-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=196364","title":{"rendered":"‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s an excerpt from the new book, Regime Change<\/a>: <\/p>\n

On March 27, 2025, the White House website had announced a new executive order titled \u201cRestoring Truth and Sanity to American History.\u201d In the order, Trump took aim at federally funded cultural institutions for being beholden to \u201ca divisive race-centered ideology\u201d that portrayed \u201cAmerican and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.\u201d Executive Order 14253 targeted several individual museums in the Smithsonian complex, as well as the Smithsonian Institution itself, as examples.<\/p>\n

Lindsey Halligan, a former insurance lawyer who had served on Trump\u2019s legal team between his terms, had come to the President early in the second term after visiting some of the Smithsonian museums. Halligan had told Trump she was horrified by what she would describe as \u201cwokeness.\u201d Trump would charge Halligan and Vice President Vance with enforcing the executive order to remove \u201cimproper ideology\u201d from the Smithsonian. Programs that degraded \u201cAmerican values\u201d or that \u201cdivided Americans based on race\u201d would be prohibited. Vance and Halligan would further be responsible for appointing new citizen members to the top Smithsonian board who were committed to the President\u2019s view.<\/p>\n

The term \u201cimproper ideology\u201d was alien to many Americans\u2019 ears, and redolent of notions of state censorship. The government would attempt to impose a new standard of art and scholarship, though in reality this was an amorphous notion, dependent on the whims of one man. The scene was now set for an extraordinary pitched battle, both inside and outside the Castle (as the Smithsonian\u2019s main building was known), as a microscope hovered over all federally funded institutions, on the lookout for violations of the new aesthetic… <\/p>\n

Was there a process for reviewing exhibits? The answer was complicated. Potential exhibitions had traditionally been assessed through a committee system to ensure accuracy, that the subject matter was appropriate and the content unbiased. These committee reviews were driven by scholarly research and peer review from experts in relevant fields. Major decisions were finalized by the secretary of the Smithsonian and the Board of Regents rather than federal agencies. In recent years, as the process began to incorporate more data on visitor experience, the Smithsonian had developed additional reviews taking into account visitor preferences. But even as the system evolved to better engage audiences, there were still differences in how they were conducted.<\/p>\n

The institutional sprawl of the Smithsonian\u2014twenty-one museums, the National Zoo, and fourteen research and education centers\u2014meant that there was no flowchart or standard process for reviewing exhibits, but rather a patchwork of different applications. One museum might take a completely different approach from another. If someone was searching for a crack in the system to rein in the Smithsonian, this was it.<\/p>\n

As Gim\u00e9nez pressed the other board members for details of how exhibitions were assessed and what filters they went through, it was clear the White House had found its opening. The regents assembled around the board table would soon realize it, too. Bunch told the group he was already trying to refine the existing process. But some would leave the room that day with a deep sense of unease about what might come next from the President\u2019s allies…<\/p>\n

The thirty-one-year-old Moss promptly pulled up an image on an iPad of the Statue of Liberty depicted as a Black transgender woman holding aloft a lamp filled with flowers. It was a painting by the artist Amy Sherald and was set to be shown at the National Portrait Gallery in September as part of a major exhibition of her work. \u201cThis image,\u201d Moss declared, \u201cis also a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sherald was one of America\u2019s foremost contemporary artists, whose iconic 2018 official portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama had made her a household name. Her upcoming National Portrait Gallery exhibition was titled American Sublime and comprised dozens of paintings in her traditional oeuvre: everyday portraits of Black Americans. The show had already been on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. The D.C. art world was eagerly awaiting its transfer to Washington.<\/p>\n

Moss held up the digital image of Trans Forming Liberty. \u201cThis,\u201d he said, \u201cis not what Americans want to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

A stunned silence descended. Was this what the White House meant by \u201cimproper ideology\u201d? John Roberts, who was known as \u201cthe Chief\u201d to his fellow regents, seemed caught off guard by the sudden shift in the meeting\u2019s topic. But Bunch\u2019s team and Roberts\u2019s advisors had anticipated a moment like this, where the Trump administration would challenge artistic content.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Under the framework of John J. Mearsheimer (b. 1947)<\/a>, the battle over the Smithsonian represents a collision between two distinct tribes competing for control over national socialization.<\/p>\n

The author of Regime Change describes the committee system of the museum as a process driven by scholarly research and peer review. Mearsheimer’s anthropology reveals this description as a classic liberal illusion. The experts and administrators within the twenty-one museums do not operate as atomistic, rational actors who discover objective truth. They are members of an elite cultural tribe. This group undergoes intense socialization during years of higher education. Their critical faculties develop within institutions that instill a specific moral code. The peer review process is the internal agreement of a socialized group protecting its tribal identity.<\/p>\n

The executive order from Donald Trump (b. 1946) targets a race-centered ideology. In the vocabulary of The Great Delusion, this ideology is a variant of universalist liberalism that fractures national cohesion. The Trump administration views this framework as a hostile value infusion that replaces traditional Western values.<\/p>\n

The struggle inside the Castle is a contest over the instruments of cultural transmission. Because humans are tribal and rely on a group for survival, the control of national institutions determines group survival. The White House uses its authority to reshape the Board of Regents and alter the patchwork process of exhibit reviews. This intervention aims to replace the liberal value infusion with a nationalist value infusion.<\/p>\n

Reason remains subordinate to socialization. Whoever controls the museum exhibits controls the narratives that shape the identities of citizens before they develop critical faculties. The unease among the board members stems from the realization that their tribe faces a challenge to its monopoly on the power to socialize the American public.<\/p>\n

The work of Stephen P. Turner<\/a> (b. 1954) on the tension between expertise and democracy shifts the focus from Mearsheimer’s tribal anthropology to the structure of the administrative state. Turner examines how the rise of specialized expert institutions creates a problem for democratic accountability. <\/p>\n

In Turner’s framework, the patchwork of committee reviews and expert peer reviews inside the Smithsonian is an example of an administrative buffer. Over decades, democratic societies delegate authority to experts to manage complex cultural and scientific decisions. This process adds layers of administrative protection between the public and the state. The experts within the Smithsonian Castle use these reviews to form an autonomous enclave. They claim cognitive authority, meaning their decisions are legitimate because they possess specialized knowledge that the public lacks. <\/p>\n

The conflict in Regime Change arises because this expert autonomy creates a democratic deficit. From a strict democratic perspective, a state funded by the public should be accountable to the public through its elected representatives. When Lindsey Halligan and Vice President Vance seek to dismantle the committee system, they use the raw legal instrument of an executive order to pierce the administrative buffer. They assert that the expert class has insulated itself from democratic control to promote an ideology that lacks majoritarian support.<\/p>\n

Turner’s work shows that this clash is a structural feature of modern liberal democracy. The administrative state creates independent expert bodies to ensure unbiased research, but these bodies inevitably drift away from direct democratic accountability. The White House recognizes the amorphous, non-standardized review process as a vulnerability. By appointing new board members who share the president’s views, the administration attempts to replace administrative autonomy with political control, forcing a specialized institution back into the arena of democratic contention.<\/p>\n

The essay by David Pinsof<\/a> dismantles the language used in Regime Change to describe the Smithsonian’s committee system. The author of the book presents the conflict as a defense of “scholarly research,” “peer review,” and “accuracy” against “improper ideology” and “state censorship.” Under Pinsof’s analysis, this presentation is a self-serving myth used by intellectuals to justify their own authority.<\/p>\n

Pinsof argues that intellectuals view the world through the lens of the “misunderstanding myth.” They claim that institutional processes exist to keep exhibitions “appropriate” and “unbiased,” as if elite curators are merely objective mechanics correcting the ignorance of the public. In reality, these committees are not engaged in an un-biased search for truth. They are maintaining elite status and control over a key cultural apparatus.<\/p>\n

When Lindsey Halligan and Vice President Vance move to enforce the executive order, they are not suffering from a “brain-fart” or a primitive misunderstanding of art and history. They are engaged in a conscious, zero-sum competition over the coercive apparatus of the state. The Smithsonian is funded by federal dollars, and the Trump administration seeks to use that state leverage to advance its own political coalition and derogate its rivals.<\/p>\n

The “deep sense of unease” felt by the board members at the end of the passage is not a concern about scholarship or accuracy. It is the anxiety of an elite tribe realizing that its closest rivals in the social hierarchy are stripping away their power. The patchwork system of different museum applications is not a technical flaw waiting to be refined; it is a defensive fortification that has been breached.<\/p>\n

Pinsof’s framework shows that both sides understand exactly what they are doing. The White House found its opening because it wants to control the narratives that confer status and power. The regents are resistant because they wish to maintain their monopoly. The stated motives of “truth” and “values” are simply the moralistic pretexts used by both factions to wage a high-stakes political war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s an excerpt from the new book, Regime Change: On March 27, 2025, the White House website had announced a new executive order titled \u201cRestoring Truth and Sanity to American History.\u201d In the order, Trump took aim at federally funded … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21791],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t