{"id":267,"date":"2026-07-09T09:09:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T09:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=267"},"modified":"2026-07-09T09:09:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T09:09:26","slug":"whitewashing-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=267","title":{"rendered":"Whitewashing History"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I didn\u2019t know whether to laugh or cry while reading the White House report entitled Saving America\u2019s Story, wherein the current leadership of the Smithsonian Institution stands accused of ignoring the glories of the founding fathers and \u201cabandoning historical scholarship for political activism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Platner\u2019s Conspiracy-Laden, Bitter Farewell<\/a><\/p>\n

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.<\/p>\n

Here are the first four examples of alleged political advocacy in the 162-page report\u2019s indictment:<\/p>\n

Indeed, nearly half the 28 examples of alleged political activism lodged against the Smithsonian involved alleged support for \u201cillegal immigration\u201d and \u201cillegal aliens.\u201d The remainder included \u201crejecting biological reality, \u201canti-woman activism,\u201d \u201cturn(ing) America\u2019s youth into anti-gun activists,\u201d and transforming its museums \u201cinto anti-white institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, this White House wants an American history purged of all references to its diversity, its proud immigrant tradition (of which most of us owe our citizenship), and any references to the equity promised in the original Declaration of Independence. They would rewrite that document to say all white men are created equal, which is what the original Constitution guaranteed since most states placed property restrictions on the right to vote in the early years of the Republic.<\/p>\n

One of the alleged incidents of anti-white bias involved the Smithsonian forming a partnership with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which the report claimed was \u201cfound to be manufacturing racism to justify its existence.\u201d The footnote \u201cproving\u201d this allegation cited an April 2026 Justice Department press release from acting attorney general Todd Blanche and FBI director Kash Patel, which touted their grand jury indictment in Alabama accusing the SPLC of encouraging the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, the American Nazi Party and the other hate groups to engage in violate acts in order to facilitate fundraising.<\/p>\n

The paragraph started by accurately stating it was an indictment. But then used language that claimed they had already been \u201cfound\u201d guilty. For the record, SPLC pled not guilty in May. Its interim CEO Bryan Fair said: \u201cThe charges against the SPLC are provably wrong; they are based on inaccurate facts and a misapplication of law. Our informant program was successful in accomplishing its purposes: Threats and attacks were prevented, criminal activity was stopped, and information was gathered to dismantle the efforts of hate and extremist groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

It appears innocent until proven guilty (the Fifth Amendment) is no longer operative in Donald Trump\u2019s Washington. However, there are exceptions. For instance, the anti-vaccine organization previously run by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. remains steadfast in its willingness to use this bedrock American legal principle to maintain its pre-existing beliefs.<\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/em> reported this morning that an Idaho mother of twin toddlers who were found dead in their beds over a year ago was indicted for murder last week. The alleged crime was \u201ceither premeditated or taken in the course of aggravated battery.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three days after their deaths, in an interview with Children\u2019s Health Defense, RFK Jr.\u2019s anti-vaccine non-profit, the mother, 23-year-old Andrea Renee Shaw, claimed childhood vaccines were responsible for her kids\u2019 deaths. Shaw went on to become the group\u2019s lead plaintiff in its lawsuit against the American Academy of Pediatrics, which alleges the doctors\u2019 group lied when it endorsed FDA findings that the vaccines were safe.<\/p>\n

Where\u2019s Franklin?<\/strong><\/p>\n

But let\u2019s move on to another example of whitewashing American history that hasn\u2019t made news. Ironically enough, it comes from different arm of the Smithsonian Institution. My shrink-wrapped copy of the summer edition of Smithsonian magazine, appropriately entitled \u201cCelebrating America at 250,\u201d arrived in the family mailbox two weeks ago. I didn\u2019t get around to opening it until this week.<\/p>\n

Read more The UFC Cage Match Theory of Democracy<\/a><\/p>\n

Its 144 pages appropriately celebrated the many achievements of American scientists, technologists (including Benjamin Franklin), writers, artists, civil rights activists and more. Its opening essay by Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III focused, as did many of its more than three dozen essays, on America\u2019s innovative spirit.<\/p>\n

The nation\u2019s greatest presidents weren\u2019t ignored. They included George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy. Neither of the thumbnail sketches of the first two founding fathers mentioned slavery. Lincoln was touted as the only president to have earned a patent for conceiving \u201ca nifty way of freeing boats when they ran aground.\u201d No mention of his role before and during the Civil War. McKinley earned recognition for being the first to use campaign buttons while running for office, not for launching U.S. imperialism with the Spanish-American War.<\/p>\n

The editors bestowed the longest single profile of an American president on Woodrow Wilson, whose first-term legislative record \u201creflects the progressive agenda at flood tide.\u201d Achievements mentioned included the creation of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Trade Commission, the Clayton Antitrust Act, the curtailment of child labor, and the introduction of the eight-hour day for railroad workers. His negatives, also mentioned, included segregation of the federal workforce, the gross violations of civil liberties during WWI, and his \u201cstubborn refusal to compromise with Senate critics\u201d that kept the U.S. out of his own brainchild, the League of Nations.<\/p>\n

What most amazed me about this hagiographic edition was its total omission of the achievements of the only president to have served more than two terms. Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected four times to the White House, gets mentioned exactly once \u2014 in the Wilson profile that notes that the president\u2019s achievements foreshadowed the New Deal (without giving FDR credit for that political slogan).<\/p>\n

Why would there be no mention of America\u2019s longest-serving president, clearly the greatest political leader of the 20th century? You\u2019d think a Trumpified Smithsonian might worship the ground he rolled on. After all, he was a rich white man with substantial legislative achievements.<\/p>\n

Let us recount a few of them: The 1935 Wagner Act enabled a third of the workforce to become unionized, and the same year created Social Security. Both set the stage for the creation of the largest middle class the world has ever known. He ended the depression and led the U.S. during its war against fascism. He banned racial discrimination in defense industries. And his socially empathetic and activist wife, Eleanor, redefined what it meant to be a First Lady.<\/p>\n

A balanced profile could also have emphasized FDR\u2019s downsides: How he rigorously enforced the nation\u2019s 1924 anti-immigration law that prevented millions of Jews, desperate to leave Europe, from entering the country. Or, how his maintenance of a rigidly segregated military engendered the anger among returning black GIs; how many majority black occupations were excluded from labor rights protections and black communities excluded from housing subsidies; and how those indignities led the postwar generation of African Americans to launch a world-shaking civil rights movement that would secure equal rights for all.<\/p>\n

I grew up in a town named after FDR, one of the few in the U.S. It was built during the 1930s as a model community containing 200 single-family homes for unemployed garment workers. Its curving streets and pleasant cul-de-sacs surrounded a school in the center of town\u2014its only public building. The farm and factory failed, but the spirit of that tiny central New Jersey village lived on in the hearts of its 1,000 or so inhabitants and the millions of Americans who still venerate the achievements of FDR\u2019s New Deal.<\/p>\n

So, I, too, am upset with the Smithsonian for leaving out the history of white Americans\u2014in this case, the president who helped more Americans achieve middle-class status than any other, and whose achievements the oligarchy that now rules our country is destroying bit by bit, day by day.<\/p>\n

Read more Graham Platner and the Working-Class Fetish<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A White House report attacks the Smithsonian and seeks to enforce Napoleon’s maxim that history is written by the winners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,16,19,2,76],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-health-care","category-newsletter","category-politics","category-protecting-the-vote","tag-tagged-american-history-donald-trump-franklin-d-roosevelt-immigration-museums-national-museum-of-american-history-new-deal-smithsonian-institution-sou"],"yoast_head":"\nWhitewashing History - USA Business Chronicle<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=267\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Whitewashing History - USA Business Chronicle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A White House report attacks the Smithsonian and seeks to enforce Napoleon's maxim that history is written by the winners.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/usabusinesschronicle.com\/?p=267\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"USA Business Chronicle\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-09T09:09:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/usabusinesschronicle.com\\\/?p=267#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/usabusinesschronicle.com\\\/?p=267\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/usabusinesschronicle.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b63e0267c8881fa22972f2a01b50d366\"},\"headline\":\"Whitewashing History\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-09T09:09:26+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/usabusinesschronicle.com\\\/?p=267\"},\"wordCount\":1300,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/usabusinesschronicle.com\\\/?p=267#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/usabusinesschronicle.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/0b4ce839cb88a38379429c98c6dfb9de.webp\",\"keywords\":[\"Tagged: American history,\u00a0Donald Trump,\u00a0Franklin D. 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