Of all things, an article in The Cut, a digital section of New York magazine, about the death of Gloria Steinem on September 2 at 92 spurred me to write this piece about Donald Trump and the Smithsonian’s interpretations of history.
Frankly, I’ve never thought much about Gloria Steinem, but for some reason I was intrigued and pored over the entire 5,948-word article. What a fascinating life!
“She was a talented, driven, and powerfully charismatic emblem for a movement that was always more complicated and sometimes more radical than she herself was,” wrote Rebecca Traister. “Her life, her work, and her contradictions together provide a remarkable illustration of the political and social disruption mainstream America is willing to tolerate, occasionally celebrate, and also revile.”
Traister wrote that Steinem frequently said she hoped to live to 100. “I’ve so loved being here,” she said in the HBO documentary. “I love it so much. I never want it to end.”
So what’s the connection of all this with Donald Trump and the Smithsonian?
The Washington Post reported on September 2 that the Trump administration is threatening to cut off executive agencies’ cooperation with the Smithsonian Institution “…if its leaders do not abandon what the administration described as “an ideological agenda that seeks to transform both the Smithsonian and the country.”
Trump set off a misguided attack on The Smithsonian when he launched his campaign against the institution last March. that was when he signed an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that instructed his administration to eliminate what it called “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology” from the Smithsonian and restore it as “a symbol of inspiration and American greatness.”
The executive order instructed Vice President JD Vance, who sits on the Smithsonian’s board, to work with Congress and the Office of Management and Budget to withhold funding for exhibits or programs that “degrade shared American values” or “divide Americans based on race.”
What the order really did was order that the telling of America’s history conform to Trump’s ideological view that there be just one public interpretation of American history, his.
But the fact is history is constantly being reviewed, re-interpreted, revised, re-thought. Topics of intense interest to one generation slip back as new topics emerge. Historical revisionism is a fundamental element of the discipline as new evidence emerges and societal perspectives change. Interest in some figures declines as new heroes and villains emerge.
My decision to examine more closely Gloria Steinem’s life was a reflection of a new interest in somebody with whom I was only vaguely familiar. In a similar vein, I’ve been tackling books that offer new perspectives on historical events.
For quite a while there was a widespread belief that North America, for example, was some vast, wild, untouched wilderness barely populated by primitives before more sophisticated and civilized Europeans arrived. You will be dissuaded of that notion if you read Cahokia: Ancient America’s Great City on the Mississippi by archaeologist Timothy R. Pauketat. Research has revealed that in pre-Columbian America native civilizations built massive urban centers like Cahokia in southwestern Illinois which was populated by tens of thousands of people.
I long admired Apple’s leaps into China to grow its business, but I got a new perspective, and new concerns, on the implications of Apple becoming so deeply intertwined with China when I read “Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company” by Patrick McGee.
As the son of a man who served proudly in the U.S. Navy during WWII, I have always been interested in President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bomb, wondering whether it was the right decision, particularly as some revisionists have challenged it. I’ve read multiple books on the war and that decision, arriving at the conclusion it was the right one in the face of up to a million American casualties if an invasion went forward. And, by the way, historians have been constantly re-evaluating Harry Truman the man and his presidency.
I’ve read the first two books of Rick Atkin’s trilogy on the American revolution, Bernard Bailyn’s “The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution”, Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”, Ron Chernow’s “Alexander Hamilton” and countless others to better understand that world-changing event.
Before seeing Ken Burns’ documentary, The American Revolution, were you aware of the astonishing effort led by Boston bookseller Henry Knox to haul 59 heavy cannons and mortars from captured from British forces at Fort Ticonderoga across 300 miles of frozen wilderness to Boston, forcing a British evacuation of the city without a shot being fired? Wow! It spurred me to read an entire book, Henry Knox’s Noble Train by William Hazelgrove, about the endeavor.
The Noble Train
I’ve been taken aback to read of the extent to which slavery extended far beyond the South into into New England, even into the Norman Rockwell-perfect small town of Wallingford, Connecticut where I grew up. As Anne Farrow wrote in “The Logbooks: Connecticut’s Slave Ships and Human Memory”, In Connecticut and elsewhere in New England, “All the best families owned ‘captives’.”
Slaves on a tobacco farm in Connecticut
I grew up as a child idolizing Charles Lindbergh for his single-handed crossing of the Atlantic to Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis. I even made a special trip during a later visit to Hawaii to visit his grave on the grounds of the Palapala Ho’omau Church at the end of the road to Hana on the coast.
t wasn’t until I read numerous books about his life that I learned he was a leading spokesman for the America First Committee that opposed America’s entry into WWII. Also, although many Americans shared his early opinions, Lindbergh went further, blaming “the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt Administration” for pressing for American intervention. I also learned after he died in 1974 that he led a double life, starting a romance with a woman in Munich, Germany in 1957 and having three children with her who knew him only as ”Mr. Careu Kent”.
Charles Lindbergh speaking at an America First Committee rally in Fort Wayne, Indiana, October 3, 1941.
Suffice it to say, every time I turn around I find stories that challenge my views on people and issues of historical significance.
On July 4th, of all days, White House Domestic Policy Council Director Vince Haley released “Saving America’s Story,” a 162-page report accusing the National Museum of American History of “extreme political activism”. The report’s key finding: “museum leadership has explicitly adopted an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated, but as a political instrument to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens.”
What ought to dispirit all Americans is something else. That’s the Trump’s administration’s impulsive and capricious efforts to shut down debate on America’s glorious, and yes, flawed, history.
If you have a few minutes, I’d like to begin by telling you about Edwin Bell Forsythe because his service to our country and his dedication to liberty are instructive.
Forsythe was a true public servant. A devoted Quaker from Moorestown, New Jersey, he served honorably in the House of Representatives as a Republican from 1970 until his death in 1984. I worked for Forsythe and remember keenly his decency and dignity.
Rep. Edwin B. Forsythe and his wife, Mary, at the Capitol.
A continuing reminder of Forsythe is the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, NJ. The refuge includes over 32,000 acres of coastal salt meadows, uplandbrush and woodlands, and open bays and channels along the New Jersey shore.
At the dedication of that refuge, Ed Welch, Chief Counsel of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, praised Forsythe for his effective leadership, the ability to take divisive controversies and hammer out strong bipartisan compromises in an atmosphere of fairness and civility. “The policy differences between Republicans and Democrats were never ignored, but they were not permitted to obstruct the essential workings of the Committee,” Welch said.
“Ed Forsythe was a man of integrity and principle,” said Rep. William J. Hughes of New Jersey, who served as a Democratic Member of the House of Representatives from 1975 to 1995, “He represented the very best that this nation has to offer, serving quietly but tirelessly and effectively for the people of his district. There was not an ounce of pomposity or pretension in Ed Forsythe. Ed’s unfortunate death has taken from us a great legislator and a fine individual. We have all been enriched by his presence among us.”
”His sensitivity, wisdom and quiet voice of reason will be missed,” added New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean.
In today’s tumultuous political environment, “sensitivity, “wisdom and (a) quiet voice of reason” are sadly missing. Can you name even a handful of members of Congress who are spoken of with such respect today?
In their place we have rancorous, narcissistic exhibitionists focused more on messaging and publicity than on driving good public policy.
In 2015, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for example, a shape-shifting individual, called Mr. Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” a “kook,” “crazy” and a man who was “unfit for office.” He’s now one of Trump’s most sycophantic defenders when it suits him.
Then there’s Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Despite being a doctor, who’s obligation is “First, do no harm”, he voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has made multiple outrageous medical statements, as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Even Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a supposed moderate, has lost her bearings. A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee for 12 years, she voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard, a politician with a history of troubling statements and actions, to be the Director of National Intelligence, putting American security at risk.
Republican Senator Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, a combat veteran and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in the face of Trump’s threat of supporting a primary competitor, voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. This despite serious allegations of personal misconduct and lack of judgement on his part, as well as minimal executive experience essential to managing a Department of Defense with about 3.4 million civilian and military personnel and an $850 billion annual budget.
The list of weak-kneed Republican members of Congress could go on as the Republican Party has fallen into the trap of slavishly bowing down to President Trump, less because they agree with his erratic pronouncements than because they fear losing their prestigious positions.
House Republicans are no better. In bowing to Trump’s will, they are consciously compromising their authority.
In the midst of all this stands Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, an evangelical Christian who daily declares his fealty not to the constitution, but to an erratic, morally compromised president.
On August 7, 2015, Johnson wrote on Facebook, “The thing about Donald Trump is that he lacks the character and the moral center we desperately need again in the White House.”
These days, don’t count on Johnson to try to put the brakes on any of Trump’s questionable autocratic moves. As Johnson told reporters in January, “There is a new sheriff in town.”
And reveling in his position at the top of the Republican hierarchy stands Donald Trump, who sees himself as a wonder of the world, comparable to the Colossus of Rhodes constructed in homage to Helios, the original god of the Sun in ancient Greek mythology.
Wishing to be unburdened by common standards of decency and respect, Trump has even tried to fire an executive branch ethics watchdog who heads the Office of Special Counsel.
With a brusque two sentence email, the White House Personnel Office leader was dismissed on Feb. 7, 2025, with little more than a “Thank you for your service”. The firing is only on hold because a federal district court issued a temporary order keeping the lawyer in office through a hearing scheduled for Feb. 26, 2025.
The behavior of senior people serving under Trump is no better. Their abandonment of civility is exemplified by “Border Czar” Tom Homan who callously said of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a Feb. 17 Newsmax interview, “She’s the dumbest congresswoman ever elected to Congress and she proves that every day.”
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller is no more reticent. A fanatical Trump devotee, he was accused by the chairman of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol of “efforts to spread false information about alleged voter fraud” and encouraging state legislatures to alter the outcome of the 2020 election by appointing alternate electors.
Considered a racist by some of his detractors, Miller was a lead author of the zero tolerance policies that led to immigrant children being separated from their parents during Trump’s first term.
“America is for Americans and Americans only” Miller bellowed at a Madison Square Garden Trump campaign rally on October 27, 2024, “With your vote, you can smash this broken establishment” he concluded.
Trump has also brought into government efforts to indiscriminately hollow out the federal civil service. Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government efficiency, or DOGE, is hacking away with abandon at multiple federal departments. Regardless of what Trump and Musk might say, the goal is not so much to diminish the federal workforce as to replace it with clones of Trump’s most rabid supporters. Meanwhile, Republicans stand idly by.
Affected agencies include the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department oi Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Federal Aviation Administration. The IRS is also expected to lay off thousands of probationary workers in the middle of tax season.
A DOGE purge across the Department of Energy that targeted about 2,000 employees led to embarrassment and a recall when it was discovered that many of them worked on the nation’s critical nuclear weapons programs. The Associated Press noted that the firings came as the National Nuclear Security Administration “is in the midst of a major $750 billion nuclear weapons modernization effort, including new land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, new stealth bombers and new submarine-launched warheads.”
“The goal here is to dismantle the merit system and return the government to the spoils system, awarding the president who gets into office and punish people who worked for the prior administration,” Kevin Owen, a lawyer who represents federal employees in civil service and whistleblower litigation, told the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, issues of privacy and data security are arising. Democrats and tax experts are sounding alarms, for example, about a plan by Elon Musk’s DOGE team to gain access to an IRS system that contains detailed financial information about millions of taxpayers, including their tax returns.
“This is a five-alarm warning,” Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees the IRS, said in a post on X, calling the move an “illegal and blatant power grab.”
Also raising alarms are DOGE moves at the Social Security Administration, where Elon Musk’s team, alleging unsubstantiated concerns about fraud, is reportedly attempting to access reams of sensitive information. The acting head of the SSA, Michelle King, has already resigned over the intrusion. Yet, again, elected Republicans casually ignore the threat.
And I haven’t even begun to address the international chaos emerging under Trump and his servile minions.
Nowhere is this chaos more evident than in Trump’s handing of the Ukraine war. Word of impending negotiations with Russia was, first of all, a shock to Ukraine and America’s European allies.
Then, when negotiations on the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia between the U.S. Delegation, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Russian Delegation led by Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, conspicuously absent were any representatives from Ukraine or Europe. The move was perceived by both as a slap in the face.
“Making sense of Trump’s plan – if there is one” read the headline of a Kyiv Independent article on the negotiations.
One thing was clear, though. “Decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in address at a Munich Security Conference. “From now on, things will be different…”
On Feb.18, Trump lambasted our European allies and Ukraine for letting the war go on. “Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should’ve ended it in three years,” he said. “You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.”
On February 17, Trump went so far in a Truth Social post as to directly insult Zenenskyy , calling him “a modestly successful comedian” and ” A Dictator without Elections”.
” Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left,” Trump wrote. ” In the meantime, we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only “TRUMP,” and the Trump Administration, can do.”
“Trump sold his soul and our country to Putin,” said one commenter. “Hard to believe we’re defending Russia instead of the Ukrainian freedom fighters.
But Russia is likely thrilled by Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine as well as by Vice President Vance’s remarks critical of Europe and supportive of far-right forces on the continent.
“The Kremlin for years has sought to weaken Europe by boosting parties that Mr. Vance argued must be allowed to flourish,” reporter Paul Sonne wrote in the New York Times on February 16. “The same day as his remarks at the conference, Mr. Vance met with the leader of Germany’s extreme right movement, which is contesting national elections this month, boosting a party Russia has sought to legitimize. Moscow has also sought to drive a wedge between the United States and Europe, realizing that a destruction of the longstanding Euro-Atlantic alliance from within would lead to a world where Moscow can wield far more power.”
Echoing Sonne, Ian Bond, deputy director of the Center for European Reform in London, commented online, “Some of the most shameful comments uttered by a president in my lifetime. Trump is siding with the aggressor, blaming the victim. In the Kremlin they must be jumping for joy.”
If Trump’s usual bull in a china shop approach to foreign affairs, complemented by his vice president, leads to the abandonment of Ukraine and a reinvigorated Russia, the risk for Europe will be great and another American threat, China, will be emboldened.
The United States has also inserted itself into a flammable situation with Trump’s proposal that the United States take control of the Gaza Strip and push the Palestinians into other countries, principally Jordan and Egypt. The land by the Mediterranean Sea is a potential French “Riviera,” something that would be worth a “long-term ownership position,” Trump said in early February. Typical of Trump, his vague proposal was an apparent surprise even to his closest advisors and stunned Congressional Republicans.
It was all reminiscent of Trump in his first term trying to convince North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un that his country was ripe for development as a popular destination spotif he gave up his militaristic nuclear weapons program. If you can believe this, Trump even showed him a slick video the White House National Security Council came up with showing what North Korea could become if it concluded a rapprochement with the United States. “They have great beaches,” Trump said.
Where are the members of Congress voicing concerns? Where is today’s Wayne Morse, a vocal critic of the Vietnam war and an outspoken defender of the Constitution’s checks and balances during his 24-year tenure in the U.S. Senate representing Oregon from1945-69?
Fariborz S. Fatemi, who worked on foreign policy issues on the staff of U.S. Sen. Frank Church, told of how Morse frequently went to the floor of the Senate to deliver riveting and informative speeches about the rule of law, separation of powers and how the Senate and the House were slowly giving their powers away to an already powerful executive.
Way back in 2018, Berry Craig, a state AFL-CIO official, saw the relevance of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, to Trump’s behavior. President Lincoln “wanted men who would tell him what he needed to win the war, save the union and put slavery on the road to extinction – not what they thought he wanted to hear,” Craig said. “It’s the opposite with Trump. He demands obsequiousness.”
That’s still true. Instead of strong, valiant, principled members standing up to Trump on myriad issues for their institution, we have toadies worried only about their next election.
That must change.
George Washington, in his 1796 farewell address, cautioned his fellow Americans about the rise of a man like Trump. “The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty,” he warned.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said on Fox TV about Trump’s push to control Greenland, “I met with the Danish Ambassador this past week. They said Greenland is not for sale. I said, ‘Everything is for sale.’”
We already know Marco Rubio is. He previously portrayed Trump as “a pathological liar”, a “sniveling coward” and “utterly amoral”. Now Trump’s his best buddy.
So far, the Republican Party, Republican members of Congress and obedient Republican staff seem to be for sale, too. They need to act to protect America from Trump’s lunacies.
Challenging Trump won’t be easy.
In the movie “The Apprentice”, Sebastian Stan portrays a young Donald Trump determined to make his mark in 1970s New York. Reflecting on what he saw in Trump, Stan said in a New York Times story. “What I’ve always seen in his journey, and certainly we were exploring in the film, was the solidifying of a person into stone, the loss of humanity.”
Despite his public efforts to appear amiable and open, Donald J. Trump is a cold-hearted vindictive man who will fight tooth and nail.
ThinkingOregon 