The Smithsonian’s Show Trial on Capitol Hill The recent congressional hearings featuring Anthea Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution, were not merely a test of patriotism or an exercise in fact checking.
They were a deliberate attempt by House Republicans to politicize and undermine one of America's most revered cultural institutions.
Behind this manufactured drama lies a broader effort by the Trump administration to reshape public memory and impose its ideological stamp on the nation's collective heritage.