Most rational human beings who know anything about American history believe that the practice of slavery was one of the United States’ original sins, and that it was allowed for too long. Untold millions suffered due to the enslavement of human beings across generations in a way that still has very real lingering effects.
Which makes slavery the most bewildering topic for Republicans to want to explore the upside of.
President Donald Trump made clear on Tuesday that he doesn’t like all this negative talk about slavery, and complained that the Smithsonian museums are too “woke.”
“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” Trump bleated on Truth Social.
White House senior associate Lindsey Halligan appeared on Fox News to underscore Trump’s message.
“What I saw when I was going through the museums personally was an overemphasis on slavery,” said the white woman. “And I think there should be more of an overemphasis on how far we’ve come since slavery.”
Related | Trump commands Smithsonian to pipe down on ‘how bad Slavery was’
In an Aug. 13 appearance on CNN, pro-MAGA celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels argued that museums like the Smithsonian give too much weight to the role of pro-white racism when discussing slavery.
“You cannot tie imperialism and racism and slavery to just one race, which is pretty much what every single exhibit does,” Michaels said.
Slavery in America was practiced for over 200 years. It involved the subjugation of Black people forced into labor for the benefit of white people. Slaves built the foundations of America’s economic supremacy and were not paid a dime for it, and many lost their lives in the process. These are not facts up for dispute or quibbling around the edges. It happened, it was well-documented, and everyone who sets foot in the country is surrounded by the aftermath of this debilitating, inhuman practice.
The MAGA drive to whitewash slavery didn’t appear out of nowhere. Trump is a racist who has pursued a racist agenda. His administration has sought to roll back or purge civil rights-era gains. Under his orders, the U.S. government is in the middle of a push to absolve and even honor the pro-slavery Confederacy. And the right wing has long sought to deemphasize slavery’s severity and downplay its ripple effect.
For instance, Republican-run states like Florida and Texas have pushed school curricula attempting to educate children on the purported upside of slavery. The Florida version of this was materials that raved over how “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” In Texas, the thought process was that children shouldn’t learn about the use of Black slaves to build notable structures, like Thomas Jefferson’s famed Monticello estate.
Conservative politics has for decades been focused on pushing white voters with racist sympathies to vote red. This has led the GOP to emphasize that group’s grievances, including praise for the Confederacy and made-up issues like “white genocide.” Arguing that slavery wasn’t all bad or at a minimum arguing that there was something positive about keeping millions of Black people as property fits within that morally bankrupt paradigm.
Conservative leaders and Republican voters have made it clear for a long time that they prefer fairy tale narratives about America’s past over the truth—because that truth could expose the legacy of white supremacy.
Of course this is not reality. Slavery was a massive mark on America and it was followed up by policies like Jim Crow and redlining, along with many of the ideas at the center of modern Republican politics. It is not a coincidence that after America twice elected a Black man named Barack Obama as president, that this generated backlash with many white voters and led to the ascendancy of a racist like Trump.
No matter how the right tries to rewrite reality for schoolchildren or manipulate museum exhibits, the facts will never change. Slavery was wrong, it was an integral part of the foundation of America, and everyone who lives in this country has to deal with its dark legacy every day of their lives.