Assault on Our National Arts Narrative

by Liz Goldner

Illustration by Edel Rodriguez.

In March 2025 I wrote about The Coming Replay of “Degenerate Art” in the TDC eJournal. My motivation was that the Trump administration’s cultural dictatorship is striving to trivialize Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian Institution — what the Atlantic Magazine called our “country’s narrative.” The January 22, 2026 Atlantic article explains, “George Brown Goode … wanted it to consist of ‘museums of record’ — cultural institutions that tell canonical stories about the history of the nation — and today, it does. Its museums do far more than any privately funded ones to shape and crystallize our country’s narrative.”

The Smithsonian, which has resisted White House efforts to oversee its operations, is facing a deadline to turn over records about its programming and other matters to the Trump administration. Photograph courtesy of Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images.

There were many indications 10 months ago that the Trump administration was already disparaging Smithsonian exhibitions while affecting other Washington D.C. museums and cultural institutions, including the Kennedy Center. Trump had ordered the Art Museum of the Americas to cancel two shows, one featuring black artists, the other presenting queer artists. The National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian had already closed their offices supporting work by racial minorities.

I referenced Hitler’s 1937 “Entartete Kunst” (Degenerate Art) exhibition, held in Munich and throughout Germany, which “was a blatant political attack on culture,” as I wrote. “It revealed Hitler’s revenge against the modern art world, which had earlier rejected his own artistic efforts.” I compared that deranged sentiment to Trump’s growing denigration of fine and documentary art today.

National Museum of the American Indian, “Unbound, A Warrior’s Story, Honoring Grandpa Blue Bird.”

I recently published an article with a similar theme, “When Power Attacks Art,” in LMU Magazine. The article addresses the Nazis’ seizure of their nation’s culture in the 1930s and 40s. Their goal was to suppress the work of leading modernist painters, and to force their art and art institutions to conform to the Nazi definitions of “authentic” German art. While my article concentrates on the Nazis’ heinous acts, one sentence refers to our current era: “That effort (by the Nazis) provides a cautionary tale for our times, as museums nationwide are having their funds cut, and their collections are under attack for representing ‘woke’ themes, deemed politically unacceptable.”

The New York Times on January 8th reported that the Trump administration is pressuring the Smithsonian into presenting “a primarily positive” view of America. This article explains that the Smithsonian received an ultimatum from the White House that, if they did not “clean up” their act, Vice-President J.D. Vance would ensure that new appointees to the Smithsonian board are aligned with the Trump agenda. Historians, it reported, are concerned in the wake of Trump's directive that the administration is striving to rewrite history and to compromise the truth.

Also in January, The Guardian wrote that Trump “wanted museums to reflect a Maga vision of American history that was nationalist and triumphalist, and downplayed reflection on darker aspects of its past, specifically its history of slavery.” Hyperallergic reported in “House Votes to Fund the Arts, Despite Trump Threats” that the House of Representatives voted in favor of full or near-full funding for the nation’s federal cultural agencies in spite of threats from the Trump administration. That funding included an $1.08 billion appropriation for the Smithsonian.

A protester holds up a sign in support of the Smithsonian Institution at a Hands Off rally in Washington, D.C., April 2025. Photo: Amaury Laporte via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

And MSNOW reported that freedom of intellectual expression is at stake at several Smithsonian museums, including the National Museum of the American Indian. Concerned about NMAI, I recently visited the museum, aware that the venue, which opened in 2004, was an effect of the Smithsonian acknowledging that Native Americans have played a significant role in our culture and history — even as our government has historically targeted them for removal and genocide. NMAI, designed and run by Indigenous people, represents numerous Native American nations.

My visit there revealed that NMAI’s mission is intact and that it remains dedicated to telling the historical truth about our country. Among the many exhibitions on view, the expansive “Americans” is a bold installation demonstrating how Indian images, iconography, names and stories are infused into our country’s history and contemporary life. A display on the museum’s third floor describes “The Indian Removal Act of 1830.” Spearheaded by President Andrew Jackson, the Act focused on Indian nations that were regarded as obstacles to economic development, including settlers’ expansionist plans, and a threat to national security.

National Gallery of Art, January 26, 2026. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The Removal Act provided "for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi.” As the display explains, many Native leaders and government officials maintained that the act went against democratic values. “Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations” makes clear that treaties are essential to Native history and contemporary tribal life and identity. Yet most of the 368 treaties signed by U.S. commissioners and tribal leaders were not honored by the U.S. government, resulting in the devastating treatment of Native Americans.

That these NMAI installations, several accompanied by moving videos narrated by Robert Redford are still in place is a hopeful sign for the fate of the Smithsonian, and a reflection of the public’s ardent desire to preserve the nation’s history. Considering the numerous people nationwide who persist in protesting the Trump administration’s deleterious policies and actions, our Smithsonian museums will hopefully continue to tell the nuanced stories of America’s history and culture, and will not suffer the fate of Hitler’s 1937 “Entartete Kunst.”

Liz Goldner is an award-winning art writer based in Laguna Beach. She has contributed to the LA Times, LA Weekly, KCET Artbound, Artillery, AICA-USA Magazine, Orange County Register, Art Ltd. and several other print and online publications. She has written reviews for ArtScene and Visual Art Source since 2009. 

Liz Goldner’s Website.