This Week in Censorship will take Ages to Undo. So will Next Week. And So On.
The Trump administration loves censorship. They're constantly belligerent and combative against academic, media and nongovernmental institutions that challenge their power. They constantly twist information when it is not to their liking, and they use whatever means necessary so that the public cannot know of state misconduct. They constantly withhold funding from government institutions for having history displays on female and/or minority leadership. It's a censorship regime based off tantrums, petty grievances and no small degree of racism.
We've seen over the course of the six or so months that Trump has been in power how quickly this process occurs:
- An institution issues a statement or data release not to Trump's liking
- Trump and/or his cabinet target that institution
- The institution folds more or less immediately
The Smithsonian was caught removing references to Trump's impeachments in an exhibit on presidential history. When asked by reporters, they responded:
"Because the other topics in this section had not been updated since 2008, the decision was made to restore the Impeachment case back to its 2008 appearance," the statement said. The label on Trump's impeachments was "intended to be a short-term measure to address current events at the time, however, the label remained in place until July 2025," the Smithsonian said.
"A large permanent gallery like The American Presidency that opened in 2000, requires [a] significant amount of time and funding to update and renew. A future and updated exhibit will include all impeachments," the statement said, without providing a timetable for the exhibit's update.
This is the Smithsonian trying to sell the public a bridge, and the lack of timetable kind of adds a layer of disrespect on top of the removals in the first place. Taken out of context and as a single incident, it might even be excusable. However, these actions are not being issued in isolation, but in tandem with a network of executive orders designed to make history revised, erased, chopped, and reordered to Trump's preferences. He outright says it in the text for the 'Restore Truth and Sanity to American history' order: it aims to address "a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation's history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth."
Trump also demonstrates a disdain for bad numbers, data and facts in real time. As of one hour ago this afternoon (Aug 1st, 2025) , Trump ordered the firing of the Commissioner of Labor Statistics after she released job numbers not to his liking. “We need accurate Jobs Numbers,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.”
Democrat strategists are mostly busy trying to figure out what to do for Congressional elections coming up in 2026. However, the day to day decay of bureaucratic, Congressional and Judicial independence adds something of a five alarm fire in the censorship embedded in the process of Trumpian governance. As these rules, history, and policy procedures are written in real time, it adds more and more to a list of rotten government components to purge, should one ever occur. In the coming weeks, I hope to do a little more writing on propaganda and censorship to try to shed light on tactics, tools, and tricks used to seal off the public from information. Have a great weekend.
