Trump Angry at Smithsonian, for Depicting Slavery as Bad

bèlla said:

Consider the context that made it possible. The American dream is dead or dying for many that’s why former times appeal. They want to go back to a period when life was good. And if it means slavery and oppression so be it. They’re focused on the spoils.

Everything we’re witnessing was already there. We just needed a trigger to bring it out.

~bella

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The Barbarian said:

The good thing was exactly what Trump was so angry about; people said slavery was evil and sought to end it. Trump's ire was aroused because the Smithsonian is showing that slavery is evil.

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The Barbarian said:

Mostly it was good times, if you were a working-class white male, a farmer, or a small business owner. The irony is, these demographic groups are those who most support Trump, who has done everything he can to keep from going back to those times.

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A New Dawn said:

What a hateful commentary.

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The Barbarian said:

President Donald Trump escalated his campaign to purge cultural institutions of materials that conflict with his political directives on Tuesday, alleging museums were too focused on highlighting negative aspects of American history, including “how bad slavery was.”
In a Truth Social post, Trump directed his attorneys to conduct a review of museums, comparing the effort to his crackdown on universities across the country...
"The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been-"

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/19/politics/trump-slavery-museum-smithsonian?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

Big Brother is angry. History must change!

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The Barbarian said:

Teaching that slavery was bad, is too woke now...
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShermanPosting/comments/1muyctz

Tom Cotton describes slavery as a ‘necessary evil’ in bid to keep schools from teaching 1619 Project ​

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/27/politics/tom-cotton-slavery-necessary-evil-1619-project

Often the Hamites, especially the Negroes, have become actual personal servants or even slaves to the others. Possessed of a genetic character concerned mainly with mundane matters, they were eventually displaced by the intellectual and philosophical acumen of the Japhethites and the religious zeal of the Semites.”

On The Racism Of Creationist Henry Morris

In the early 1960s, Henry Morris revolutionized the young earth creationist world with his seminal work, The Genesis Flood. He was also racist---and he grounded his racism in his young earth creationist beliefs.

www.patheos.com

Make no mistake about it. Those people are out there, and they think their time has come.

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bèlla said:

With all that you could do on a Saturday you’re calling someone hateful on the internet? You must be bored.

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The Barbarian said:

Seeing as there are still people out there claiming it wasn't so bad, we need to keep pointing out that it is bad.

Teaching that slavery was bad, is too woke now...
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShermanPosting/comments/1muyctz

Tom Cotton describes slavery as a ‘necessary evil’ in bid to keep schools from teaching 1619 Project ​

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/27/politics/tom-cotton-slavery-necessary-evil-1619-project

Often the Hamites, especially the Negroes, have become actual personal servants or even slaves to the others. Possessed of a genetic character concerned mainly with mundane matters, they were eventually displaced by the intellectual and philosophical acumen of the Japhethites and the religious zeal of the Semites.”
www.patheos.com

Make no mistake about it. Those people are out there, and they think their time has come.


These are checkable facts. No point in denying them.


Anyone who wants to check and go and see.

Actually, a little over half of that died to free the slaves. A bit less than half of that died to keep them slaves.

Even if you were right (and it's telling that you declined to offer any evidence for your claims) how does that justify a republican congressman saying that slavery was a "necessary evil?"

C'mon.

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The Barbarian said:

Trump is angry at the Smithsonian for making slavery look bad.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/us/politics/trump-smithsonian-slavery.html

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The Barbarian said:

Don't see any of those. Must be like those cancer-causing windmills, um? But if I'm wrong, link to the evidence of people saying all Americans support slavery. What do you have?

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The 1619 Project - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Quote below from link above.

The 1619 Project is a long-form journalistichistoriographical work that takes a critical view of traditionally revered figures and events in American history, including the Patriots in the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers, along with Abraham Lincoln and the Union during the Civil War. It was developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, writers from The New York Times, and The New York Times Magazine. It focused on subjects of slavery and the founding of the United States, taking its name from the year that the first enslaved Africans arrived to colonial Virginia.[5] The first publication from the project was in The New York Times Magazine of August 2019. The project developed an educational curriculum, supported by the Pulitzer Center, later accompanied by a broadsheet article, live events, and a podcast. "The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story" is a book-length anthology of essays and poetry that further develops the project's ideas.

The project has become a leading subject of the American history wars,[8] receiving criticism from historians, both from the political left and the right, who question its historical accuracy. In a letter published in The New York Times in December 2019, historians Gordon S. Wood, James M. McPherson, Sean Wilentz, Victoria E. Bynum, and James Oakes applauded "all efforts to address the enduring centrality of slavery and racism to our history" and deemed the project a "praiseworthy and urgent public service," but expressed "strong reservations" about some "important aspects" of the project and requested factual corrections. These scholars denied the project's claim that slavery was essential to the beginning of the American Revolution. In response, Jake Silverstein, the editor of The New York Times Magazine, defended The 1619 Project and refused to issue corrections. On May 4, 2020, the Pulitzer Prize board announced that it was awarding the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary to Hannah-Jones for her introductory essay.........................

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American Capitalism Is Brutal. You Can Trace That to the Plantation. (Published 2019)

Slavery helped turn America into a financial colossus. And our economy is still shaped by management practices invented by enslavers and overseers.

www.nytimes.com

The Barbarian said:

Of course the Founders were mostly Christians, with some deists, Jewish believers, and some "free-thinkers." None of them wanted a system based on Christian, much less Protestant belief.

Because experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of Religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution....Because it will destroy that moderation and harmony which the forbearance of our laws to intermeddle with Religion has produced among its several sects. Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion. Time has at length revealed the true remedy. Every relaxation of narrow and rigorous policy, wherever it has been tried, has been found to assuage the disease. The American Theatre has exhibited proofs that equal and compleat liberty, if it does not wholly eradicate it, sufficiently destroys its malignant influence on the health and prosperity of the State.9 If with the salutary effects of this system under our own eyes, we begin to contract the bounds of Religious freedom, we know no name that will too severely reproach our folly...
James Madison, Against Religious Assessments

Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that it should read, "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.
Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography

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The colonists, including their philosohy in their religion, as the people up to that time had always done, were neither skeptics nor sensualilsts, but Christains. The school that bows to the senses as the sole inerpreter of truth had little share in colonizing our America. The colonists from Main to Carolina, the adventurous companies of Smith, the proscribed Puritans that freighted the fleet of Winthrop, the Quaker outlaws that fled from jails with a Newgate prisoner as their sovereign-all had faith in God and in the soul. The system which had been revealed in Judea-the system which combines and perfects the symbolic wisdom of the Orient and the reflective genius of Greece- the system, conforming to reason, yet kindling enthusiasm; always hastening reform, yet always conservative; proclaiming absolute equality among men, yet not suddenly abolishing the unequal institutions of society; guaranteeing absolute freedom, yet invoking the inexorable restrictions of duty; in the highest degree theoretical, and yet in the highest degree practical; awakening the inner man to a consciousness of his destiny, and yet adapted with exact harmony to the outward world; at once divine and human-this system was professed in every part of our widely extended country, and cradled our freedom.

Our fathers were not only Christains; they were, even in Maryland by a vast majority, elsehwere almost unanimously, Protestants. Now the Protestant reformation, considered in its largest influence on politics, was the awakening of the common people to freedom of mind.

During the decline of the Roman empire, the opressed invoked the power of Christianity to resist the supremacy of brute force; and the merciful priest assumed the office of protector. The tribunes of Rome, appointed by the people, had been declared inviolable by the popular vote; the new tribunes of humanity, deriving their office from religion, and ordained by religion to a still more venerable sanctity, defended the poor man's house against lust by the sacrament of marriage; restrained arbitrary passion by a menace of the misery due to sin unrepented of and unatoned; and taught respect for the race by sprinkling every new-born child with the water of life, confirming every youth, bearing the oil of consolation to every death-bed, and sharing freely with every human being the consecrated emblem of God present with man.

But from protectors priests grew to be usurpers. Expressing all moral truth by the mysteries of symbols, and reserving to themselves the administration of seven sacraments, they claimed a monopoly of thought and exercised an absolute spiritual dominion. Human bondage was strongly riveted; for they had fastened it on the affections, the understanding, and the reason. Ordaining thier own successors, they ruled human destiny at birth, on entering active life, at marriage, when frailty breathed its confession, when faith aspired to communion with God, and at death. (History of the United States, Bancroft Vol. 1.)​

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American Independence was Achieved Upon the Principles of Christianity
John Adams ​

Without wishing to damp the Ardor of curiosity, or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction, that after the most industrious and impartial Researches, the longest liver of you all, will find no Principles, Institutions, or Systems of Education, more fit, IN GENERAL to be transmitted to your Posterity, than those you have received from you[r] Ancestors.

Who composed that Army of fine young Fellows that was then before my Eyes? There were among them, Roman Catholicks, English Episcopalians, Scotch and American Presbyterians, Methodists, Moravians, Anababtists, German Lutherans, German Calvinists Universalists, Arians, Priestleyans, Socinians, Independents, Congregationalists, Horse Protestants and House Protestants, Deists and Atheists; and "Protestans qui ne croyent rien ["Protestants who believe nothing"]." Very few however of several of these Species. Nevertheless all Educated in the general Principles of Christianity: and the general Principles of English and American Liberty.

Could my Answer be understood, by any candid Reader or Hearer, to recommend, to all the others, the general Principles, Institutions or Systems of Education of the Roman Catholicks? Or those of the Quakers? Or those of the Presbyterians? Or those of the Menonists? Or those of the Methodists? or those of the Moravians? Or those of the Universalists? or those of the Philosophers? No.

The general Principles, on which the Fathers Atchieved Independence, were the only Principles in which that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their Address, or by me in my Answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all those Sects were united: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence.

Now I will avow, that I then believed, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God; and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System. I could therefore safely say, consistently with all my then and present Information, that I believed they would never make Discoveries in contradiction to these general Principles. In favour of these general Principles in Phylosophy, Religion and Government, I could fill Sheets of quotations from Frederick of Prussia, from Hume, Gibbon, Bolingbroke, Reausseau and Voltaire, as well as Neuton and Locke: not to mention thousands of Divines and Philosophers of inferiour Fame.

Source: John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, June 28th, 1813, from Quincy. The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The
Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams, edited by Lester J. Cappon,

1988, the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, pp. 338-340.

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The Barbarian said:

The Declaration of Independence has nothing at all to say about slavery.

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The Barbarian said:

Hopefully, no one here. But into the 1990s, one prominent YEC was saying that it was God's doing, as some races were by nature, slaves.

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The Barbarian said:

There are also left wing bigots. For every Trump or Cotton, there is an Ilhan Omar or a ... well, I can't think of another at that level, but I would be very surprised if there wasn't one. Evil is not soley on the right wing.


I'm trying to think who says that slavery should be criticized at the expense of truth. Who, exactly? Trump is furious that the Smithsonian is saying that slavery is bad. We get that. And there are some things the Smithsonian could do to balance it. For example, Washington was a supporter of slavery, but the Smithsonian could have said that he freed all slaves he personally owned at his death. Oh, wait, they did.

On the other hand, they could have said that Lincoln strongly opposed slavery, but said that he did not think whites and blacks could live together as equals. Oh, wait...

What we shouldn't do, is deify our great leaders; they were men, subject to faults, and we shouldn't try to hide those faults.


That estimate has been updated to reflect new data.

If we apply the 13% excess mortality rate to the remaining three Confederate states not in our analyses and include excess mortality from the Border States# and foreign-born fighters who fought for the Confederacy then the total estimate of deaths in the Confederacy would approach 300,000. Doing the same for the Union states would bring the death tally there to more than 400,000. Combined, these totals match the national tally of 698,000 deaths reported earlier.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2414919121

But as you see, many of those dead in the Civil War were fighting to keep black people enslaved. Interestingly, not all of them were white. There were some Native American soldiers, and while blacks were not allowed to serve as combat troops in the Confederate army, some did serve as support troops.


About 75% as high, according to best estimates.

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The Barbarian said:

For example, Hitler was actually a pretty good industrial designer, according to Albert Speer. He laid out the basic specs for the Volkswagen, for example. Richard Nixon's foreign policy was often brilliant.

And Sen Tom Cotton says that slavery was a "necessary evil"; he's kinda put out that we only want to focus on the bad things about it.

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