How the Smithsonian became the latest front in Trump’s culture war

史密森尼学会如何成为特朗普文化战争的最新前线

In November 2021, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History opened an exhibit called “The Electric Dr. Franklin,” describing “Benjamin Franklin’s pioneering contributions to electrical science.” The exhibit explained that, prior to becoming an abolitionist, he had enslaved people in his household. “Benjamin Franklin’s remarkable scientific accomplishments were, in part, enabled by slavery,” it declared. 2021年11月，史密森尼学会旗下的美国国家历史博物馆举办了一个名为“电学博士富兰克林”（The Electric Dr. Franklin）的展览，旨在介绍“本杰明·富兰克林在电学科学方面的开创性贡献”。展览解释说，在成为废奴主义者之前，富兰克林家中曾蓄奴。展览宣称：“本杰明·富兰克林卓越的科学成就，在一定程度上是建立在奴隶制基础之上的。”

The exhibit speculated that Franklin may have used enslaved people in his electrical research. “Franklin wrote about experiments in which he took shocks and used family and friends in these ways, although he seldom identified who in particular assisted him,” stated the exhibit, which closed in 2025 but can still be found online. “Indentured servants and enslaved people in his household could also have been used, although we may never know for certain.” 展览推测富兰克林可能曾利用奴隶进行电学研究。该展览于2025年关闭，但仍可在网上查阅。展览中写道：“富兰克林曾记录过他亲身尝试电击并让家人和朋友参与其中的实验，尽管他很少具体说明是谁协助了他。他家中的契约仆人和奴隶也可能被利用过，尽管我们可能永远无法确定。”

It was an eye-catching conjecture: one of the most revered of the Founding Fathers subjecting people held against their will to possibly painful shocks. And it was one of many details singled out for criticism in a blistering 162-page White House report released in July that argued that the museum had fallen victim to an “ideological capture” that “moved the Museum’s mission away from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country.” 这是一个引人注目的推测：一位最受尊崇的开国元勋竟然让违背意愿的人承受可能痛苦的电击。这是7月份白宫发布的一份长达162页的严厉报告中被点名批评的众多细节之一。报告认为，该博物馆已沦为“意识形态俘获”的受害者，其“使命已从直接的历史教育和学术研究，转向了试图改造我们国家的极端政治激进主义”。

For decades, the Smithsonian Institution, which draws some 15 million visitors every year to its assemblage of 21 museums—bounty that has no real global peer—has managed to stay mostly above the political fray. There have been occasional exceptions, such as the uproar over the National Air and Space Museum’s planned 1995 exhibit of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. By and large, though, the institution maintained bipartisan support as the guardian of America’s history, ingenuity and natural heritage, even as political polarization spread and culture wars raged. 几十年来，史密森尼学会每年吸引约1500万游客参观其旗下的21家博物馆——这种规模在全球范围内几乎没有对手——并一直设法置身于政治纷争之外。虽然偶尔也有例外，例如1995年国家航空航天博物馆计划展出“埃诺拉·盖伊”号（Enola Gay，即向广岛投下第一颗原子弹的B-29轰炸机）时引发的轩然大波。但总的来说，尽管政治极化蔓延、文化战争激烈，该机构作为美国历史、创造力和自然遗产的守护者，始终保持着两党的支持。

But that institutional exceptionalism is now imperiled as never before. In March 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that the Smithsonian had succumbed to “divisive, race-centered ideology.” This July 4, timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, came the White House report. Later in July, two House committees held back-to-back hearings on the report, where Republican members took turns lambasting the museum’s director, Anthea Hartig, and forcing her to answer questions about exhibit items such as a “chrome and rubber crotch harness” designed for sadomasochistic sex. 然而，这种机构的特殊性现在正面临前所未有的威胁。2025年3月，唐纳德·特朗普总统签署了一项行政命令，宣称史密森尼学会已经屈服于“分裂性的、以种族为中心的意识形态”。今年7月4日，正值《独立宣言》发表250周年之际，白宫发布了上述报告。7月下旬，众议院两个委员会就该报告举行了背靠背听证会，共和党议员轮番抨击博物馆馆长安西娅·哈蒂格（Anthea Hartig），并强迫她回答有关展品的问题，例如一件为施虐受虐性行为设计的“铬合金和橡胶胯部束缚带”。

That week, Trump signed an executive order instructing the Department of the Interior to erect signs outside the museum “warning visitors about the ideological capture” on display there. The signs have yet to go up, but in late August, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum sent a letter to the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents declaring that other federal agencies “cannot in good conscience continue to support the Smithsonian under current leadership.” 那周，特朗普签署了一项行政命令，指示内政部在博物馆外竖立标牌，“警告游客注意馆内存在的意识形态俘获”。虽然标牌尚未竖起，但在8月下旬，内政部长道格·伯格姆（Doug Burgum）致信史密森尼学会董事会，声明其他联邦机构“在良知上无法继续支持由当前领导层管理的史密森尼学会”。

The Smithsonian is independent of the executive branch, governed by a 17-member board led by the chief justice of the Supreme Court and with six members of Congress, three from each party, serving with nine private citizens and the vice president. But it depends on the federal government for 62% of its funding, receiving more than $1 billion per year, and warnings of deep budget cuts have grown ever louder. Finally, on Sept. 8, Smithsonian secretary Lonnie Bunch, the first African American person to lead the institution, announced he was stepping down at age 73, saying “it has been stressful.” 史密森尼学会独立于行政部门，由一个17人组成的董事会管理，该董事会由最高法院首席大法官领导，成员包括6名国会议员（两党各3名）、9名普通公民和副总统。但其62%的资金依赖联邦政府，每年获得超过10亿美元的拨款，有关大幅削减预算的警告声越来越大。最终，9月8日，史密森尼学会秘书长朗尼·邦奇（Lonnie Bunch）——该机构首位非裔领导人——宣布在73岁时辞职，称“压力太大了”。

Seen from one vantage, the battle over the Smithsonian is but another example of Trump attempting with characteristic bombast to put his stamp on Washington institutions, alongside shuttering the Kennedy Center, replacing the East Wing of the White House with a huge ballroom and planning a 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery. But unlike some conflicts initiated by Trump, this one has been festering for years, independent of him, with complaints lodged by board members before he returned to office. 从一个角度来看，围绕史密森尼学会的斗争只是特朗普试图以其典型的夸张风格在华盛顿机构打上个人烙印的又一个例子，这与他关闭肯尼迪中心、用巨大的宴会厅取代白宫东翼以及计划在阿灵顿国家公墓附近建造一座250英尺高的拱门如出一辙。但与特朗普发起的其他冲突不同，这场冲突已经酝酿多年，且独立于他之外，早在特朗普重返办公室之前，董事会成员就已提出过投诉。

The American history museum, the main focus of the administration’s ire, has wrestled for years with how, or even whether, it should present a unifying national narrative, an ambivalence that left it susceptible to the administration’s broadside. Meanwhile, the Smithsonian underwent a political awakening during the 2020 upheaval over the COVID-19 pandemic and murder of George Floyd that echoed responses in academia and other progressive realms. This left it exposed to a new administration that viewed itself as a corrective against perceived woke excesses. 作为政府愤怒的主要目标，美国历史博物馆多年来一直在纠结如何——甚至是否应该——呈现一种统一的民族叙事。这种矛盾心理使其容易受到政府的猛烈抨击。与此同时，在2020年新冠疫情和乔治·弗洛伊德遇害引发的动荡期间，史密森尼学会经历了一场政治觉醒，这与学术界和其他进步领域的反应相呼应。这使其暴露在了一个将自身视为纠正所谓“觉醒”（woke）过度行为的新政府面前。

“I said over and over again that there’s going to be a day of reckoning,” recalled Garret Graves, a Republican former congressman from Louisiana who served on the Smithsonian board in 2023 and 2024, in an interview. “You can either participate in it, help guide the Smithsonian back to something that makes more sense, or you can have an abrupt shift. I didn’t realize my words would ring as true as quickly as they did.” “我反复说过，清算之日终将来临，”曾在2023年至2024年担任史密森尼学会董事的路易斯安那州前共和党众议员加雷特·格雷夫斯（Garret Graves）在接受采访时回忆道。“你要么参与其中，帮助引导史密森尼学会回归到更合理的轨道上，要么就会经历剧烈的转变。我没想到我的话会这么快就应验。”

Now, in the year that was supposed to be a crowning celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary, the Smithsonian is instead in Trump’s crosshairs. And the question of how the country’s premier history museum should tell the nation’s story is suddenly up for grabs. The National Museum of History and Technology opened on the National Mall in 1964. Its mission, said former assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Remington Kellogg that year, was to “awaken” a “clear understanding of the inspiring story of the United States—its origins, struggles, development, traditions, strength.” As the name reflected, the museum contained duelling missions from the start, showcasin 现在，在原本应是庆祝国家建国250周年的巅峰之年，史密森尼学会却成了特朗普的攻击目标。关于这个国家首屈一指的历史博物馆应该如何讲述国家故事的问题，突然变得充满争议。国家历史与技术博物馆于1964年在国家广场开馆。史密森尼学会前助理秘书长雷明顿·凯洛格（Remington Kellogg）当年表示，其使命是“唤醒”人们对“美国鼓舞人心的故事——其起源、斗争、发展、传统和力量”的“清晰理解”。正如其名称所反映的那样，该博物馆从一开始就包含了双重使命，展示着……