Lonnie Bunch, the Smithsonian Institution's secretary who presided over its alarming leftward degradation, announced his resignation on Tuesday, marking the end of an era defined by the advancement of anti-American propaganda at what should be the nation's premier art, culture, and history establishment.
Bunch, who took the helm as secretary in 2019 after nearly four decades at the Smithsonian, including founding the National Museum of African American History and Culture, is set to depart by year's end. His tenure, however, has been marred by an insidious track record of partitioning museums along radical racial and gender ideology lines, a stark departure from the institution's true mission.
While Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, serving as the Smithsonian's chancellor, offered platitudes upon Bunch's departure, praising his "wisdom, vision and leadership," the reality chronicled by outlets like The Federalist tells a different story: years of stark ideological decline that have left many questioning the Smithsonian's commitment to actual American history.
Under Bunch's watch, the National Museum of American History, for example, saw its director repeatedly parrot land acknowledgments claiming the United States was built on "stolen land." A video titled "The Indian Problem" audaciously asserted that the American government committed genocide against American Indians. As John Fonte insightfully detailed, these are not nuanced narratives but rather "crude weaponized concept[s]" used to "problematize" and fundamentally delegitimize America's founding.
The American History Museum went even further, describing the very founding of America and civilizational expansion as the "profound unsettling of the continent." This isn't education; it's revisionist rhetoric designed to sow division and contempt for our nation's heritage.
This propaganda has been deeply ingrained for years. The institution partnered with the far-left Zinn Education Project (ZEP), a group notorious for its historical revisionism, to host "teach-ins" for teachers. ZEP actively advocates for abolishing Columbus Day, a federal holiday, and pushes fake, anti-American histories regarding the American Founding, the Revolution, slavery, the Civil War, World War II, and even demonizes anti-communists while sanitizing communism's role in American movements.
Adding to the cultural rot, the Smithsonian actively promoted homosexuality and argued for the inclusion of "transgender" athletes in women's sports, denying the undeniable biological advantages men possess. Meanwhile, the American flag, a symbol of unity and freedom, was either co-opted for left-wing causes like mass migration and LGBT activism, or shockingly, displayed being burnt or associated with hate groups in anti-American exhibits.
It is a tragic irony that an institution claiming to be the "memory for the nation" was systematically replacing genuine American memory with divisive, anti-American narratives at every turn.
The Museum of African Art featured exhibits advancing Black Lives Matter and the "national racial reckoning" narrative, even going so far as to equate drug overdose victim George Floyd and communist revolutionary Che Guevara with Jesus Christ.
The Museum of Natural History included a display on how cell phone footage, such as that in the George Floyd case, could be used to incite riots and protests for "social justice." And the Museum of Asian Art highlighted "transgenderism" with an exhibit that claimed to "confront notions of gender and cultural identity through photography" to "explore representations of power, place, and sexuality in today's world."
The institutional capture became so thorough that the Trump administration, soon after taking office, began a concerted push to revitalize the Smithsonian, aiming to restore it to its foundational mission: "an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."
As Matthew Spalding of Hillsdale College powerfully testified to Congress, addressing how Smithsonian bureaucrats "killed America's story," he emphasized that while "a healthy attachment to this country is neither blind to its flaws nor fanatical... each generation should be equipped with a knowledge of America's principles and history, a reverence for their liberties, and a reflective love of their country." Lonnie Bunch's departure marks a potential turning point, reminding us that preserving the truth of our nation's past is paramount to safeguarding its future, free from the corrosive ideologies that seek to undermine it.
