Few initiatives of the Trump administration undermine more seriously our understanding of the nation's past than Executive Order 14253 Of March 27, which promises to “restore federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and edifying public monuments.”
The order directs the Secretary of the Interior to clean all the national parks service sites of any signage that “inappropriately belittles past Americans or living” and, on the other hand, “emphasizes beauty, greatness and abundance of landscapes and other natural characteristics.” Parque service staff also received instructions to purge book stores that could be interpreted as critics of any American. In a similar line, the Smithsonian institution was ordered to eliminate the “inappropriate ideology” of its properties to ensure that they reflect “American greatness.”
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2:45 PM July 15, 2025An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the executive order that instructs the national parks that change the signaling. It was the executive order 14253, no 14023.
He is not willing to depend on the park personnel to enforce the mandate of patriotism, the Trump administration is recruiting park visitors to inform that exhibitions and guardian conversations that present an insufficiently disinfected account of US history. On June 9, the interim director of the National Parks Service, Jessica Bowron, instructed the regional directors to “publish the signage that will encourage public comments through the QR code and other viable methods” with respect to anything they find in a park site that they believe denigrates the history of the nation. (It is worth noting that when considered on the directive of the QR Code, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum reclaimed In order not to know anything about the mandate, although he signed it on May 20). How will the Trump administration respond if a visitor uses one of the mandatory QR codes to file a complaint?
And that is just the beginning. The Trump administration has also made clear He would like to eliminate entire sites that are not “national parks, in the traditionally understood sense.” That means addressing those characteristics that lack the greatness of Yosemite and the Grand Tetons: smaller parks, sites and monuments, many of which honor women and minorities. In general, lacking secays or mass throats, these sites, many in urban areas where President Trump's revisionist history has not affected, seem to describe places in California, such as the national monument César Chávez, out of Bakersfield, the National Historic Site of Manzanar and Rosie The Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond.
Trump and his ahistoric mirmidons, he alone thought That the civil war ended in 1869, regularly shows abysmal ignorance of the basic history of the United States. In his opinion, such federal (and presumably state) should present only a simplistic vision of our complex history of 249 years, one that practically ignores the contributions and struggles of hundreds of millions of Americans.
Even before seeing how many “tips”, the invitation of the parks' service causes anxious visitors for rats in the rangers, the writing of the executive order itself is chilling. Any signage or conference that “inappropriately gives off the Americans who pass or live”, and who can say what constitutes contempt? – It must be replaced by a rhetoric that emphasizes “the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people.” It is not necessary to say that the many sites that tell the stories of civil rights and the struggles against slavery, the civil war, the role of immigrants, the battles for labor rights and the rights of women and people LGBTQ+ will have a challenging moment to ensure that in any way they offend those who are willing to recognize only the “greatness” of US history. Sometimes, our greatness has been manifested by our progress towards a more perfect union, and that story cannot be told without mentioning imperfections.
It is not necessary to have a doctorate in history to appreciate the terrible threat presented by these efforts to replace historical erudition with a non -critical wave. Historians have the obligation to challenge the myth, discover obscured stories, give voice to those who could not participate fully in previous times of American history due to their race, ethnicity, gender or views. That is why our government has protected sites, including Ellis Island (which President Lyndon B. Johnson added to the statue of freedom national monument), National Monument of Civil Rights of Birmingham and Stonewall National Monument (Both recognized by President Obama). Trump's Orwellian orders seek to undo the half century of scholarship that revealed a much more complex and nuanced story than simplified versions taught to generations of schoolchildren.
Fortunately, professional historians have not been intimidated as many university leaders, law firms and others who have shamelessly capitulated Trump's assault on freedom of expression and intellectual integrity. A march statement Of more than 40 historical societies they condemned recent efforts to “purge words, phrases and content that some officials consider suspects for ideological reasons [and] Distort, manipulate and delete significant parts of the historical record. “
National parks constantly qualify as one of the most popular characteristics of the US government. Neither its rangers nor their exhibitions must be intimidated to repeat a disinfected and distorted version of the nation's past. As historians declared, “we cannot deny what happened or invent things that did not happen.” Americans must use those QR codes to send a clear message that rejects efforts to manipulate our history to adapt to an extremist ideological and political agenda.
John Lawrence is a visiting professor at the Washington Center at the University of California and former staff director of the Natural Resources Committee of the House of Representatives.
