By whitewashing American history, Trump vows to erase today’s misdeeds
President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing at the White House Feb. 20, 2026 in Washington, D.C., after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against his use of emergency powers to implement international trade tariffs. Also pictured on stage, left to right, are Solicitor General John Sauer and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The federal judiciary has stiffened its resolve toward the Trump administration.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 last week against the authority that President Donald Trump asserted in imposing tariffs. The decision drew Trump’s condemnation on social media. During the State of the Union address, the justices did not look comfy while sitting front and center in the House chambers.
Also, a federal judge held a lawyer for the Justice Department in contempt of court — for the first time during Trump’s second term. The New York Times found at least 34 other instances in which federal judges issued orders requiring the government to explain why it “should not be similarly punished for violating court orders.”
Even so, a different recent decision caught my eye.
Since last fall, I have been tracking the Trump administration’s brazen attempts to change what visitors learn at places managed by the National Park Service. A nationwide review of national park signage signaled that some of these displays, posters, signs and exhibits would be eliminated.
At the time, I wondered who would have leverage to prevent these acts of civic censorship. Even more, I couldn’t imagine who would have sufficient legal standing to sue — let alone win. Who could sue to prevent the whitewashing of national parks, if it happened?
As if in response to my question, I heard the bad news … and the good news this week.
The bad news came in the form of brutish attempts by the National Park Service to alter the history of George Washington by removing references to his enslavement of people at his home in Philadelphia, a location that is now a national monument. The changes — to the President’s House Site — happened in January, but headlines reemerged this week.
Those headlines trumpeted the good news: a federal judge, appointed by George W. Bush, ordered that the history be restored to tell the truth about Washington. Indeed, our first president was not only a slave owner, but he also strategically moved enslaved people from state to state so they would never gain freedom.
In Washington’s time, an enslaved person was considered free after spending six months in Pennsylvania. The website for Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, explains that to “evade the statute, Washington sent the enslaved cook, waiters, and maids out of state every six months, instructing his secretary to move the slaves ‘in a way that will deceive both them and the public.’ ”
It seems perverse to be grateful that Mount Vernon isn’t a National Park — but in this case, it likely shields the site from censorship.
In her opinion about Washington’s home in Philadelphia, Judge Cynthia Rufe blasted the whitewashing of presidential and national history by invoking the altered history created by the omnipotent government in George Orwell’s “1984.”
She wrote: “Each person who visits the President’s House and does not learn of the realities of founding-era slavery, receives a false account of this country’s history.”
(It’s easy to imagine a censorship case about one of the national parks in Kansas arriving in a nearby courtroom, if history is erased at one of the six sites. Let’s hope that the three Kansans nominated last week to the U.S. District Court will show similar mettle as Rufe, if they decide such a case.)
We are rightfully concerned about histories that are changed and erased because of the impact on what we learn about the past.
With gratitude to Rufe, I want to take her argument further.
By editing the embarrassing, amoral and ignorant acts of the past, our federal government provides cover for a broad spectrum of today’s misdeeds.
How does the administration’s historical whitewashing affect the actions of Trump’s emissaries today? His appointees, including Doug Burgum, who has overseen the national parks censorship, have created a shameful resume of thuggery that could guide future generations.
For instance, deleting the truth about climate change from a plaque emboldens a government worker to further shred environmental protections. Forgiving a past president for his subjugation of slaves signals acceptance of racism. Waving away the 1940s internment of Japanese Americans provides psychic cover for suburban Kansas City warehouses to be converted into immigration detainment centers.
The administration’s censorship of history has become a dog whistle — if not a rallying cry — to Trump’s acolytes.
You have our permission, they hear the dog whistle chirp. Your moral failings will likely be forgotten, just like those of President Washington! Future generations will never know our cruelty.
Overlay the administration’s stated policy goals with the content being censored at national parks and you can see uncomfortable overlap. Save Our Signs, a guerrilla effort to document park signs before they vanish, provides a growing spreadsheet of alterations reported in the press.
(Note that 12 of the 16 items have appeared since the start of 2026.)
The administration’s hostility toward climate change happens by dismantling the power of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — but also through the signage at Muir Woods National Monument and Glacier National Park. Removing signage that references “women’s rights and liberty” at the Gateway National Recreation Area aligns conveniently with the scaling back of affirmative action and diversity, equity and inclusion programs that benefitted women.
Changing the available history of Native Americans at national parks tracks with last year’s cuts to grant funding that helped tribes. Eliminating the pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument extends Trump’s animosity toward folks in the LGBTQ+ community.
Seen like this, the administration’s animus — rhetorical, historical, political and administrative — appears comprehensive.
If Rufe’s order doesn’t seem like enough to reverse this tide, have faith. Citizens have rhetorical and political power too: power to tell our true histories.
We can each counter the whitewashed history of national parks as we tell more complete accounts in our homes, our classrooms or our faith communities.
Even more urgent is accurately describing what is happening around us each day remaining in the Trump administration — writing the first draft of history as completely and courageously as we can.
This does not mean that citizens should shovel out overheated rhetoric that blindly brands every federal action as racist, sexist, violent or corrupt. This degrades history as effectively as Trump’s efforts, just from the opposite extreme. Avoid being polemic simply for the sake of scoring points.
Instead, each one of us has a role to play by describing the administration’s actions as they are, remaining rooted in facts.
After all, that’s what we expect from our history: a full recounting, regardless of its inconvenient truths.
Eric Thomas teaches visual journalism and photojournalism at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.