National Park Visitors Reject Trump Administration’s Bigoted Attempt To Erase History

In Trump’s eyes, anything that doesn’t make white people appear to be the saviors of the world is something that should be buried. Whatever the phrase “fake news” won’t make go away is subject to seemingly daily government edicts that declare any recognition of racial diversity or America’s racist past (and present) to be un-American activities subject to censorship, stifling, or complete removal from the public record.

Not content to saddle businesses, law firms, the military, and the public sector generally with “anti-woke” mandates, the Department of Interior has issued guidance to the National Park Service, tasking them with setting up complaint boxes to be stuffed with bitching from park visitors who align themselves with open bigotry.

Here’s what’s being posted in national parks around the nation, thanks to DOI head Doug Burgum’s adherence to Trump’s executive order that aims to rewrite history in favor of rich white people:

An example image of a sign leaked to NPR for Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield in Missouri, the site of the second major battle of the Civil War, ahead of its potential installation, asks visitors to identify “any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.” (The sign also asks for feedback concerning areas and services that need repair or improvement.)

Supposedly, this will help “restore truth and sanity to American history,” which sounds like the title of an openly racist podcast that caters to “Christian” homeschoolers, but actually is the completely real title of a Trump Administration executive order.

This isn’t going to end up the way Trump wants it to. For one thing, his administration hasn’t learned anything from its past failures. Doomed to repeat forgotten history, the Burgum-overseen National Park Service has created an online portal for NPS-related complaints, which will certainly be overstuffed with all sorts of internet detritus before the plug is pulled on it.

But Trump has also misjudged the cultural makeup of those most likely to visit national parks. Most parks either preserve nature or big up patriotism. The US hasn’t been great about admitting its past faults and it’s certainly reluctant to make these amends in permanent, landmark form.

So, when asked to wipe out what Trump thinks shouldn’t matter, park visitors are rejecting this invitation to participate in the administration’s revisionist history program.

The Trump administration recently began posting signs on federal parks and historic sites asking for help from visitors in identifying language that negatively discussed America’s past or present and launched a process for federal agencies to remove, cover or replace flagged materials. 

In the responses submitted by visitors to National Park Service sites, however, which were obtained by Government Executive, no single submission pointed to any such examples. Instead, in the nearly 200 submissions NPS received in the first days since the solicitations were posted, visitors implored the administration not to erase U.S. history and praised agency staff for improving their experiences.  

Government Executive is putting it nicely. Direct quotes posted further down in the article make it clear people are pissed Trump is trying to erase history that doesn’t make America look like the Great White Hope the president imagines himself to be. (Side note: the headline of the GovExec article says “see” the comments posted by NPS visitors and yet, mysteriously, does not actually allow readers to view the submitted comments for themselves. [Extremely chin-in-hand HMMM face])

“There shouldn’t be signs about history that whitewash and erase the centuries of discrimination against the people who have cared for this land for generations,” a visitor to Indian Dunes National Park said.

A visitor to Independence Hall in Philadelphia called the new signs “censorship dressed up as customer service.” 

[…]

Several visitors to the Stonewall National Monument in New York lamented changes there the park’s website that removed mention of transgender individuals in the Stonewall Uprising. 

Yep. Everyone knows what the Trump Administration is trying to do here, and that includes die-hard supporters of Trump and the people in his administration. The difference is that regular Americans don’t particularly care for government meddling that aims to turn taxpayers into unpaid Hanoi Hannahs, but ones that target their fellow Americans.

And then there are my people — the people who reject government overreach with pithy swearing:

“The executive order to asking for feedback is ****,” the message read. “Parks already do an amazing job telling stories that contain hard truths and everyone is entitled to the truth to make better decisions in our lives. So what if people feel bad?” 

That’s too few asterisks for “bullshit” but there’s no doubt that’s the word that was actually used by this park visitor. If GovExec ever gets around to releasing the underlying documents (rather than pretending those pixels are worth their weight in gold), we’ll be able to see what was actually said.

Censored swear word aside, the underlying sentiment comes through loud and clear: a lot of people fucking hate the American government when it tries to pretend it has never done anything wrong. Loving your country and recognizing its failures isn’t cognitive dissonance. It’s just the way things are. Just as no marriage is perfect, neither is this “more perfect Union.” We should never seek to bury the bad things performed in our name. And the only way to grow as a nation is to recognize where we’ve gone wrong and strive to prevent these things from happening again. Unfortunately, those in power want to repeat the mistakes of the worst governments in history while simultaneously insisting the US DID NOTHING WRONG over its 250 years of existence.

If the Trump Administration wants to forget the past and seal its repetitive doom, that would be fine if it only affected those in the administration. But when a president wants an entire nation to help him forget the past, we’re all doomed, even if we haven’t forgotten.