Trump's war on the Smithsonian forced Lonnie Bunch III to retire
By Alma Cordero · Reporting from El Paso ·
Lonnie Bunch III is not merely retiring; he is being evicted from the American conscience.
The Exhaustion of a Fighter
Lonnie Bunch III is not merely retiring; he is being evicted from the American conscience. After thirty-eight years within the Smithsonian Institution, the man who became its first Black secretary is stepping down, not because his work is finished, but because the cost of holding the line has become unbearable. As The Guardian reports, Bunch has faced a relentless pressure campaign from the Trump administration to dictate how we interpret our own past. ABC News notes that Bunch has spent nearly half his life as part of the Smithsonian family, yet he now leaves with a mixture of pride and sadness. He told the New York Times that the pressure to control the presentation of American values did not force his hand, but his own words betray the toll: "I have to be honest, it has been stressful. And at a certain point, I’d like to wake up in the morning and not look at my cellphone."
This isn't just about a tired administrator. This is about the state using its weight to crush the nuance required for a democracy to breathe. When Interior Secretary Doug Burgum threatened to cut off executive agency cooperation with the Smithsonian, accusing the leadership of sanctioning a "radical institutional ideology," he wasn't defending history. He was declaring war on the independence of the very institutions meant to safeguard it.
The Architecture of a Controlled Past
The administration’s playbook is as old as tyranny itself. By issuing an executive order in March 2025 to "remove improper ideology" and publishing the "Saving America’s Story" report, the White House has moved beyond mere policy into the realm of the Cultural Revolution of the Third Reich. The mechanism is identical: the state uses its executive power to synchronize cultural institutions and historical narratives with the ruling party's ideology.
The White House Domestic Policy Council’s report accused the National Museum of American History of using the American story as a "political instrument to divide." This is the same brand of narrative-control we saw during the first Trump administration (2017-2021), a pattern that has only sharpened in this second presidency. Even the physical landscape of the National Mall is being colonized; in July, Trump ordered signs placed in front of the museum accusing it of "inaccurate information."
The most sophisticated version of this argument—the one its advocates hold most dearly—is that the Smithsonian has abandoned its duty to provide a "shared national inheritance." They argue that by including the complexities of race, struggle, and systemic failure, the museums have become "untrustworthy radical activists" who teach citizens to hate their country. They claim they are simply restoring "inspiration and greatness."
But there is no greatness in a lie. A "shared inheritance" that requires the erasure of the marginalized is not a gift; it is a theft. As Anthea Hartig, Director of the National Museum of American History, has maintained, the work of the Smithsonian is to document the evidence of American life in all its breadth. To curate only the triumphs is to turn a museum into a shrine, and a shrine into a tool of propaganda.
The Death of the Uncomfortable Truth
We now face a future where the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents will likely become a battlefield for the soul of our history. If the administration succeeds in installing leadership that prioritizes "inspiration" over accuracy, we will see a comprehensive overhaul of our national memory. The halls that once allowed a person to see their own complex history reflected—as Representative Terri Sewell noted Bunch helped ensure—will be scrubbed clean of anything that doesn't serve a specific political brand.
When we trade the messy, difficult truth for a sanitized, state-approved myth, we lose the ability to learn from our mistakes. Lonnie Bunch III fought to keep the doors of inquiry open, but the machinery of the state is designed to close them. We are witnessing the beginning of an era where history is no longer a pursuit of truth, but a mandate of the powerful.