Did Trump Force Smithsonian Director To Leave?

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch, the head of that institution, has announced his retirement recently at the age of 73. However, as with so many storylines these days, there is a Trumpian cause linked to Bunch’s departure.

Having visited the various Smithsonian museums on several occasions, it’s not difficult to notice a left-leaning tilt to the various exhibits. It’s almost like Dan Rather or Ken Burns was recruited to tell the story of American history, warts and all, that the Smithsonian portrays. While acknowledging the “warts” is all well and fine in the name of honest and fair presentation, the Smithsonian seems to go out of its way to emphasize the bad instead of the good.

Recently, the Trump administration has applied some pressure on Bunch to change some of the blatantly liberal displays at the Smithsonian to something that better reflects the positive accomplishments that took America to its greatness as a nation. For instance, a review of the Smithsonian’s 250-object anniversary exhibit found nearly two dozen items tied to liberal causes compared with seven associated with conservative movements, while only two objects appeared under the museum’s “Christians” filter.

To add some fuel to the controversy, Chief Justice John Roberts, who happens to be chancellor of the Smithsonian, heaped effusive praise on Bunch in the wake of the latter’s retirement announcement. In so doing, he essentially gave the administration a middle finger for allegedly poking its nose into the Smithsonian’s business without justification. Although this sadly comes as no surprise for the supposedly “conservative” justice who bent pretzel-like to ensure Obamacare survived, it’s nevertheless a bad signal to send in the ongoing culture war. It's another example of a “right-leaning” justice getting praise for standing up to Trump, when, chancellor position or no, he should not have been sounding like a partisan, given his more important role as Chief Justice. You can bet that if Roberts had instead acknowledged that perhaps some changes in the Smithsonian were warranted, the legacy media would have been all over him for being a Trump “toady.”

So why is this event so important? To me, the Bunch retirement and surrounding praise for him, along with thinly veiled contempt for the administration’s “bullying,” captures perfectly the left’s hold on the prevailing culture, including our educational system. To wit, the way things are presented at the Smithsonian facilities is a reflection of how these things are taught in our public schools and universities. This is the modern ecosystem of how American history is presented, and anyone who tries to change this is labeled as out-of-touch or bigoted. In short, the administration is accused of “cultural McCarthyism” every time it tries to influence modern cultural issues away from leftist dogma. That someone like Roberts could praise the Smithsonian’s head man for the way things are presented implies that there’s nothing wrong with that presentation, and the administration was out of line for even thinking that there was.

I’ve already spent a lot of time discussing the “Alinskying” of Senator Joseph McCarthy and how successfully the left has villainized him to the point that his credibility as an anti-communist fighter has been all but destroyed. In the same way, the left maintains its stranglehold on public education by villainizing anyone who dares to challenge it. We’ve seen examples of this time and again, whether it’s charter schools being accused of “stealing” public education funds and hiring unqualified teachers, or accusations of banning books in private schools (and trying to do so in public schools) that children should be allowed to read, and on and on.

In the ongoing culture wars, the left has perfected the art of cultural reinforcement. For instance, the recent protest in North Carolina by a parent concerned that his child was being taught by a transsexual teacher has been couched in the parent’s alleged intolerance. According to leftist dogma and legacy media presentation, the aggrieved parent is a bigot for not having appropriate compassion and acceptance for the teacher. Never mind the legitimate parental concerns that the transexual agenda is being promoted to impressionable children.

The left also counts on conservative people to lack staying power. A classic example of this was the election a few years ago of Glenn Youngkin as governor of Virginia, whose campaign centered on parental rights in standing up to anti-conservative educational policies that the system promoted. Four years later, however, Youngkin was not running again, and the commonwealth elected a pro-public education liberal who’s in the process of reversing whatever good was accomplished in Youngkin’s tenure. 

Unlike conservative office-holders who often leave after one or two terms to return to the private sector, the left’s politicians mostly stay put, which means they are much better at playing the long game. We, the voting public, had better start realizing how this reality impacts us going forward.