US President Donald Trump wants to tighten his course against museums in the United States. In a post on his Truth Social platform, he attacked the famous Smithsonian Institution, which operates numerous museums, especially in the capital Washington.
“The Smithsonian is out of control,” he wrote. Everything is just about “how terrible our country is, how bad the slavery was and how little the oppressed have achieved – nothing about success, nothing about radiance, nothing about the future”.
He had instructed his lawyers to check the museums and “start the same process exactly that was already carried out at colleges and universities, where enormous progress was made”.
Trump, 79, played on the procedure of his government to put universities under reductions in funding, for example to stop diversity programs.
Woke is Broke, Trump writes
Facilities in Washington, but also in the whole country, are the last remnant of the “Woke” culture, Trump wrote. This means that he and the US rights mean exaggerated behavior.
“This country cannot be Woke, because Woke is Broke” (for example: “Woe is bankrupt”), Trump continued. The Smithsonian Institution initially did not comment on Trump’s post.
Critics accuse Trump cultural struggle
Critics accuse Trump of having found a real cultural struggle and also restricting artistic freedom or freedom of expression. Usually, museums under Trump’s predecessors did not have to expect interventions from presidents, but the change of power in Washington has changed.
As early as spring, Trump had prescribed by decree that museums had to work on historical representations in the sense of the government.
Last week, the White House asked the Smithsonian Institution to present the government of concept designs, exhibition plans as well as catalogs and programs of all current views in order to check them for unpleasant representations of US history.
