The White House Wages War On Truth

The administration’s attack on the Smithsonian isn’t about patriotism. It’s about control. Rewrite the past, distort the present, and steal America’s future truth by truth.

Guest article by Michael Cohen. Join him on Substack by clicking here.

Editorial credit: LI SEN / Shutterstock.com

If my years with Donald Trump taught me anything, it’s that he will do whatever it takes to bend reality to his will. When the truth doesn’t serve him, he fights it—whether through lawsuits, intimidation, or sheer repetition of the lie. I saw it happen in business, I saw it happen in politics, and now we’re watching the same tactic applied on a national stage with his administration’s push to strong-arm the Smithsonian Institution.

The Smithsonian, one of the most respected guardians of American history, is now in Trump’s sights because, in his view, it spends too much time showing “how bad slavery was.” His team has already launched an “internal review” of the museums, echoing the same strategy they used against universities: threaten funding, turn up the legal pressure, and squeeze institutions until they either pay up or fall in line. Officials are already hinting the president will “explore all options” to get the “woke” out of the Smithsonian. That’s not oversight; it’s coercion.

I know this playbook because I helped write it. Trump’s obsession has always been with controlling the story, no matter how far it drifts from reality. He once told me, “Michael, people only remember what you tell them to remember.” That philosophy defined his business, his campaign, and now his administration. It’s not enough to spin the future; he wants to rewrite the past.

Let’s not mince words. Slavery was barbaric, dehumanizing, and central to America’s development. Confronting it honestly is not “anti-American”; it’s the only way to understand how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go. But Trump’s approach is to sanitize it, as if four centuries of bondage and brutality are too much of a downer for the patriotic fairytale he prefers. In that version of America, the horrors fade into the background while the spotlight shines on “brightness” and “success.” It’s a distortion as dangerous as it is dishonest.

Civil rights advocates see the threat clearly. Black Lives Matter called it an attempt to lock the country in a fairytale. They’re right. Because once history is flattened into myth, it stops being education and starts being indoctrination. And once you allow leaders to dictate which parts of history are acceptable, nothing is safe. The Trail of Tears could be rebranded as “westward expansion.” Japanese internment camps could become “patriotic relocations.” Even January 6 could be repackaged as a “peaceful tour.” When the past is rewritten, the truth itself becomes negotiable.

This isn’t just about museum exhibits. It’s about national memory. If institutions like the Smithsonian are bullied into sanitizing their collections, future generations won’t learn the hard truths that shaped this country. They’ll inherit a curated fantasy—stripped of struggle, stripped of sacrifice, stripped of accountability. And a nation that refuses to confront its past is a nation doomed to repeat it.

I know Trumpism’s tactics because I’ve lived them. You lie until the lie feels real. You bully until the opposition breaks. You deny until denial becomes the official record. Now, that approach might win some court cases or spin headlines, but applied to American history, it’s corrosive. It robs us of the very thing that makes democracy possible: a shared understanding of where we’ve been.

The Smithsonian has stood since 1846 as a custodian of that understanding. Its purpose has never been to flatter or to soothe, but to preserve the truth in all its complexity—the triumphs and the tragedies alike. To see it threatened by political interference isn’t just troubling; it’s a flashing red warning light. Because once history becomes a tool of the powerful, America stops being a democracy and starts becoming a brand, sold to the highest bidder.

The truth can be messy. It can be painful. But it’s the only thing that keeps us honest, the only thing that keeps us free. That’s why this fight matters. Because if we let the White House rewrite history to protect its narrative, the damage won’t stop at the Smithsonian. It will spread to every classroom, every textbook, every institution charged with telling our story. And when that happens, America won’t be learning history anymore. America will be erasing it.

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