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Whitewashing American history The Trump Presidency as a project of erasure
Hat tip, Wikipedia
Can We Still Govern?
Whitewashing American history
The Trump Presidency as a project of erasure
DON MOYNIHAN
MAR 15, 2025
When I teach my students about organizational culture, one of the things we talk about are artifacts: visual representations of norms and meaning. These could be art, posters, websites or office layouts. What is the organization telling you about what it is, what values it cares about? Sometimes, the answer reflects decades or even centuries of organic and incremental choices and compromises. And sometimes it reflects a stark decision to impose a certain narrative, to make certain histories, ideas or even people disappear.
Right now, the federal government is engaged in a dramatic purging of visual representations of American history and its current workforce. Some of this is a Stalinist removal of former officials. The official portraits of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, and Trump Secretary of Defense Mark Esper are gone. An NIH mural featuring Anthony Fauci was removed.
More systematically, it also the removal of women, persons of color, and trans people, following executive orders around DEI and gender. Here, the removals signal the end one form of representation that valued inclusiveness and a broader understanding and acknowledgment of people whose stories were not always told. … Trump is a TV guy obsessed with visuals — how many times has he described someone as “straight out of central casting”? — with a very clear vision of who is in the picture when it comes to American history.
In the Pentagon, about 26,000 images have already been flagged for removal and could lead to up to 100,000 images being cut on military websites. Videos of the World War II Tuskegee airmen were removed from the Air Force. After public pushback, the Trump administration restored the content and complained about “malicious compliance” —but how exactly are bureaucrats supposed to know which images of non-white soldiers are acceptable, and which are DEI?
{snip}
Whitewashing American history
The Trump Presidency as a project of erasure
DON MOYNIHAN
MAR 15, 2025
When I teach my students about organizational culture, one of the things we talk about are artifacts: visual representations of norms and meaning. These could be art, posters, websites or office layouts. What is the organization telling you about what it is, what values it cares about? Sometimes, the answer reflects decades or even centuries of organic and incremental choices and compromises. And sometimes it reflects a stark decision to impose a certain narrative, to make certain histories, ideas or even people disappear.
Right now, the federal government is engaged in a dramatic purging of visual representations of American history and its current workforce. Some of this is a Stalinist removal of former officials. The official portraits of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, and Trump Secretary of Defense Mark Esper are gone. An NIH mural featuring Anthony Fauci was removed.
More systematically, it also the removal of women, persons of color, and trans people, following executive orders around DEI and gender. Here, the removals signal the end one form of representation that valued inclusiveness and a broader understanding and acknowledgment of people whose stories were not always told. … Trump is a TV guy obsessed with visuals — how many times has he described someone as “straight out of central casting”? — with a very clear vision of who is in the picture when it comes to American history.
In the Pentagon, about 26,000 images have already been flagged for removal and could lead to up to 100,000 images being cut on military websites. Videos of the World War II Tuskegee airmen were removed from the Air Force. After public pushback, the Trump administration restored the content and complained about “malicious compliance” —but how exactly are bureaucrats supposed to know which images of non-white soldiers are acceptable, and which are DEI?
{snip}
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