Whitewashing history is the wrong path

Everything, everywhere, all at once is the title to a best picture winner, but it also describes the Trump presidency. Flood the zone, ignore the law, obliterate norms, stomp on rights, huff and puff in all CAPS. Why? Retribution. Ego.

How does he get away with it? A gift “stay out of jail” card by the Supreme Court, an enabling GOP Congress that has ceded its Article 1 powers to him and a MAGA base showing their true colors.

There are so many examples that highlight Trump’s ineptitude, ignorance, incompetence, bullyism and authoritarian ways, but I will highlight only one; Trump’s desire to whitewash the Smithsonian Institution’s 17 national/public museums. Trump wants our official public history to reflect his view of “American Exceptionalism,” a view that erases or clouds all truths that are ugly in his opinion.

I’ve never liked the term “American Exceptionalism” as it implies that Americans are the only people who have figured out the right way to live and govern. That said, I can accept the term if it stands for a nation built on personal freedoms of all people, democracy, a market-based mixed economy, tolerance, acceptance, welcoming and, most importantly, a country that acknowledges, learns from and always strives to correct its mistakes. Whitewashing the parts of our history that Trump does not like turns exceptionalism into repulsiveness. Yes, some (maybe most) people try to make America a more perfect union, but whitewashing our history is a major step in the wrong direction.

William Dean Bruno

Sugar Grove