In Donald Trump’s world, nothing says freedom like targeting art and museums.
In the wake of recent attacks on the Smithsonian’s choice to feature more than just straight, white artists, the White House has created a detailed list of artists it deems too woke.
“This is ‘art’ from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery commemorating the act of illegally crossing the ‘exclusionary’ border,” a White House X account wrote alongside a painting by Rigoberto A. Gonzalez.
“This is what President Trump means when he says the Smithsonian is ‘OUT OF CONTROL.’”
The painting in question features a realistic depiction of a family of four at the southern border wall as a mother, holding a baby in her arms, scales a ladder.
But the White House didn’t stop there.
In their attempt to drive home the right-wing talking point of how crazy and woke the Smithsonian truly is, officials created an entire webpage listing out each piece of art featured at the museum at one time or another that crossed some imaginary line.
The list, it appears, only includes artists who depict people of color or queer individuals. And predictably, the administration made it a point to bash artists who featured immigrants as well.
“A exhibit [sic] at the American History Museum depicts migrants watching Independence Day fireworks ‘through an opening in the U.S.-Mexico border wall’ and says America’s founders ‘feared non-White immigration,’” the White House wrote.
It seems as if the administration takes issue with the statement that the founders painted non-white immigrants in a negative light. Then again, the Trump regime labeled Venezuelan immigrants with no criminal record as dangerous gang members before throwing them into a foreign prison that’s notorious for torturing inmates.
The artwork’s description also points out how Latin American immigrants are often labeled as “invaders.” And with an administration and president insistent on calling them “illegal aliens” while making sweeping generalizations that immigrants coming from the southern border are murderers and rapists, the shoe sure does seem to fit.
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But it’s not just messaging on immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community that MAGA is fuming over.
Trump’s minions also pushed to make sure that the Smithsonian wiped any mention of the president’s two impeachments from an exhibit. Public outcry and critical media coverage resulted in the exhibit being restored—but with new, softer language describing Trump’s transgressions.
If that’s not outrageous enough, Trump has also instructed the museum to downplay slavery’s role in American history.
But turn back the clock just a few years to Trump’s first term as president, and remember how his administration was pointing fingers at the left for participating in censorship and “cancel” culture.
As always, the projection is strong with Trump and company.