Attack on Smithsonian continues as Trump rewrites history
Tariffs cost North County $1 million in revenue on Ogdensburg bridge crossing
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Americans love their history.
I know I do.
And there may be no greater place to experience it than the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C..
It’s America’s attic.
It has the Wright Flyer, the Apollo 11 capsule, the Star Spangled Banner, the Hope Diamond, a lunch counter from Greensboro, North Carolina and Kermit the Frog.
It is a cross section of our shared national experience.
It’s even free.
President Trump seemed to concur when he visited the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History in February 2017, calling it a “reminder of why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance and hatred in all of its very ugly forms.”
He has changed his mind about that.
He now believes there are too many reminders of “bigotry, intolerance and hatred in all its ugly forms” in the Smithsonian and he is demanding they be removed from the museum’s walls and exhibits for a larger celebration of American exceptionalism.
What could be more exceptional than overcoming “bigotry, intolerance and hatred?”
Trump signed an executive order last March titled “Restoring truth and sanity to American history” and said he had instructed his attorneys to bring museum exhibitions into alignment and celebrate “America exceptionalism.”
Last fall, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery was asked to remove wall text by his presidential portrait that referred to not only President Trump’s political accomplishments, but also his two impeachments.
It complied.
Then Trump fired its executive director, an art historian.
Shortly after the executive order was issued, the Smithsonian’s 21 museums were asked to hand over wall text from their galleries, all inventories and all exhibitions plans and budgets, including those for the upcoming 250th anniversary.
Remember, there are 157 million items in its collection.
A strongly worded letter was sent to the Smithsonian in December because it had fallen far short of meeting its deadlines for turning over all that content. The letter suggested the museum’s $1 billion budget might be scrutinized because of this.
The Trump administration’s war on historians was also under way.
But if you look at the executive order, it appears that Trump is trying to rewrite history the way he sees it.
His executive order states:
Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.
I go to a lot of museums and I haven’t seen it.
With the White House continuing a pressure campaign, the Smithsonian secretary, Lonnie G. Bunch III, told staff he had submitted additional materials to the White House in an effort to be transparent.
The American story, as Ken Burns pointed out recently with his documentary on the American Revolution, is filled with inspirational and shocking accounts of our past. It’s part of what makes our country great because we have overcome our worst moments and remain committed to our “better angels.”
It turns out the attack on the Smithsonian, on our country’s history is just another one of those challenges.
Glens Falls connection
After my column Tuesday on the latest college basketball point-shaving scandal, retired Post-Star reporter Maury Thompson reminded me that Glens Falls had a connection to the first big college scandal back in 1951.
Long Island University star Sherman White had previously participated in the Eastern States Basketball Tournament in Glens Falls.
White, who was closing in on the all-time scoring record in college basketball when he was implicated in the scandal, played in the 1947 Eastern States Tournament in Glens Falls and won the Hubert C. Brown trophy as Most Valuable Player.
Thompson reported in a 2022 story that the tournament was held annually in Glens Falls from 1920 to 1955, although it was canceled a couple times during World War II.
Thompson reported that, after the scandal, White lost favor in the sports world. He was imprisoned for 12 months at Rikers Island and was permanently banned form playing in the NBA.
Border Revenue
If you wondering about the effect of Trump’s tariffs and threats against Canada, you can see it in the revenue from the Ogdensburg-Prescott International Bridge.
North Country Now reported that revenues from border crossings were down nearly a million dollars in 2025.
The Port Authority CEO Steve Lawrence blamed the downturn on Trump’s tariffs.
The Port Authority chairman, Sam Burns, told North Country Now that in January 2025, before tariffs were announced on Canadian goods, the bridge saw just a 5% reduction in traffic. That jumped to between 25% and 40% for the rest of the calendar year.
How much?
I wanted to draw your attention to an important Times Union story that ran this weekend.
Staff writer Ezra Bitterman writes that New York is one of 12 states that does not provide a fiscal analysis on legislation that could impact state revenues or expenditures.
Essentially, that handicaps lawmakers - and the public - from understanding how much new laws will cost the state. None of us would hire a lawn care service if we did not have the money to pay for it. The same principle is at work here.
Bitterman reports that legislation in New York includes a “fiscal implications” section that is written by partisan legislators.
He pointed out that in 2022, state lawmakers signed off on a series of multibillion dollar expenditures for the semiconductor industry. But under “fiscal implications,” it read TBD - to be determined.
“Everyone knows that the memos that accompany bills are a joke,” said Rachael Fauss, senior policy advisor at Reinvent Albany to the Times Union.
It’s another reason the state budget is out of control.
I urge you to read the entire story.
Hot chocolate
While attending the Tulane-North Texas men’s basketball game on Sunday, I saw something I had never seen in New Orleans.
At the concession stand was a prominent sign: Hot chocolate $4.15.
New Orleans was experiencing a cold snap with 45-degree temperatures outside.
Going to the moon
If you haven’t been following the latest plans of NASA lately, you might be surprised to learn that the United States is going back to the moon - soon!
The mammoth Artemis II rocket is currently being rolled out to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral in Florida and is expected to be launched with four astronauts aboard as early as Feb. 6, although no lunar landing will be attempted.
It still has to go through a dress rehearsal, so the flight still could be delayed until March.
Now what
Since Rep. Elise Stefanik was unable to land the job as U.N. ambassador the first time around, she might be able to get a position at Trump’s new United Nations.
Reuters and Bloomberg reported this weekend that the Trump administration is proposing that nations pay $1 billion to be seated permanently on the “Board of Peace.”
The Board of Peace was created last fall to oversee the Israel-Hamas ceasefire. President Trump proposes he serve as chairman and would choose which countries to invite to be on the board. While a majority vote would be required to make decisions, the chairman would have final approval and get to select his successor.
It is unclear where the money collected from countries would be held or how it would be controlled.
It sounds a little bit like Trump is trying to become emperor of the world.
Another new low
Congress came close to setting another new low for legislation in 2025.
The New York Times reported over the weekend that House members cast just 362 votes in 2025. That is less than one per day. It is the second lowest count in the last quarter century.
The only year worse was in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Bad first year
A new CNN poll on Friday told us what we already knew: Most people think Trump’s first year back in office was a failure, despite what he says.
The new poll showed that 58 percent of Americans believe Trump’s first year back was a failure. The poll also showed that while Americans’ No. 1 concern was the economy, the future of democracy was not far behind.
Sixty-six percent of the people said they do not think that Trump cares about people like them and 53 percent think he doesn’t have the stamina and sharpness to serve as president.
And finally, 65 percent of Americans said Trump is not someone they are proud to have as president.
60 Minutes
A month ago, CBS editor-in-chief Bari Weiss held a piece by 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi about the infamous CECOT prison in El Salvador because it did not have a reaction from the White House.
Alfonsi objected at the time because she said the White House was stalling in hopes of delaying the piece.
The 13-minute segment finally ran Sunday - a month late, although it had previously aired in Canada - and it still did not have any significant reaction from the White House.
ICE enforcement
The New York Times reported this about some of ICE’s enforcement in Minneapolis so far this year:
A protester detained, her bra removed and wedding ring cut off, and some of her clothes never returned. The “gratuitous deployment” of pepper spray. A couple’s car surrounded by agents, who pointed semiautomatic weapons at them at close range.
This information all came out in federal court in Minneapolis where a federal judge found a pattern of misconduct by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and ordered them and other immigration agents to stop using excessive force against protesters while conducting their operations in the city.
It will be interest to see if they oblige.
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book “The Last American Newspaper” into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
How do we learn from the mistakes of the past if we don't acknowledge them, learn from them, and move toward that "more perfect union" that our forefathers wrote about based on studying them? Museums are a great place to display the good, the bad, and the ugly of our history. To bury the unpleasant is to doom yourself to the likelihood of repeating the same mistakes. I will put in a shameless promotion plug to visit the Underground Railroad Museum in Ausable Chasm NY, which is now closed for the winter but will reopen Friday - Sunday starting Memorial Day Weekend. It is small and narrowly focused, and a great place to learn about that chapter in our history.
“To accept one’s past – one’s history – is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.”
- James Baldwin