Coalition Letter in Support of Smithsonian Institution Reforms

Today, I led a coalition letter in support of President Trump’s efforts to reform the Smithsonian Institution.

Dear President Trump:

We write today in support of your efforts to reform the Smithsonian Institution. America’s museums should, as you have written, focus on our country’s success, its brightness, and its future. The District of Columbia’s Smithsonian museums, entirely free for entry, host tens of millions of visitors each year. Children come by the thousands on school field trips; visitors from every state and around the world have their image of our nation shaped by those exhibits, which is why we find attacks on your decision from organizations such as the American Historical Association so bewildering.

Her comments, accusing you of “political interference,” ignores the woke infestation of our heralded museums. When President John Quincy Adams was arguing for the establishment of the Smithsonian nearly 200 years ago, he said such an institution would work “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” However, today, as your administration has repeatedly highlighted, the Smithsonian has instead worked toward strengthening progressive, anti-American ideologies and rhetoric instead.

There are a litany of examples of exhibitions which should be nowhere near an institution as vaunted as the Smithsonian, much less featured so prominently: paintings which celebrate illegal immigration, absurd attacks on founding father Benjamin Franklin, and alliances with anti-American groups like the 1619 Project have all stained this storied institution. Until you stopped it, the Women’s History Museum – still in development – planned to highlight stories of biological males who claimed to be women. Sometimes, exhibitions and ideas have veered into the flatly ridiculous, such as when the Museum of African American History and Culture declared that “rational thinking” was a white value.

But they have not just been content to remain in Washington. The Smithsonian has even sponsored traveling exhibitions like the ongoing “The Bias Inside Us,” which encourages visitors to “retrain your brain” in order to detect the “racism, homophobia, classism, [and] ableism inside us.” The exhibit is even accompanied by a “community engagement effort….to develop a customized plan for community-initiated programming.” In short, they are trying to export their radical ideas into the hearts and minds of Americans far from D.C.

As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, we urge you to continue with the efforts you began with your executive order, signed this past March, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Our museums should reflect the truth of America’s greatness and the greatness of its people. Thank you for working to ensure that they do.

Sincerely,

Aiden Buzzetti

President

Bull Moose Project

Center for the American Way of Life

Anthony LaBruna

Executive Director

American Principles Project

Josh Hammer

Senior Counsel

Article III Project

Ryan Girdusky

Chairman

1776 Project PAC