We’ve Reached the Era of American Unhistory

It’s clear now that we are going to adapt a trope from George Orwell, who wrote in 1984 of “unpersons”: people whose existence has been disappeared because of an offense against the Party.

We have passed into the era of “unhistory.” The other day, it was announced that a famous 1863 picture of an ex-slave showing the crisscrossed scar tissue from dozens of whippings would be removed from a national park. And, as The Washington Post says, this was part of a general campaign on the part of the administration to quite literally whitewash American history as presented on our public lands.

Following Trump’s order, Interior Department officials issued policies ordering agency employees to report any information, including signage and gift shop items, that might be out of compliance. Trump officials also launched an effort asking park visitors to report offending material, but they mostly received criticisms of the administration and praise for the parks.

The latest orders include removing information at Harpers Ferry National Historic Park in West Virginia, two people familiar with the matter said, where the abolitionist John Brown led a raid seeking to arm slaves for a revolt. Staff have also been told that information at the President’s House Site in Philadelphia, where George Washington kept slaves, does not comply with the policy, according to a third individual.

Naturally, the administration’s spokespeople summoned up the essential bureaucratic gibberish to justify what is essentially a white-supremacist move.

Park Service spokesperson Rachel Pawlitz said in a statement that all signage is under review. “Interpretive materials that disproportionately emphasize negative aspects of U.S. history or historical figures, without acknowledging broader context or national progress, can unintentionally distort understanding rather than enrich it,” Pawlitz said.

If anyone can parse that web of professional PR verbiage, beyond the obvious appeal to the sensitivity of white people, please contact the shebeen. Operators are standing by.

And, as it turns out, the administration is taking roughly the same approach with regard to our most recent history. You may have noticed that there is an organized effort by the administration, working through the worst of its employees, to cast the Left as the source of political violence in this country. The problem was that people kept citing a report by former Republican FBI director Christopher Wray that the most dangerous threat of domestic extremist violence came from the Right. So ... presto! From the Hill:

The 2024 study, in which several criminal justice researchers reviewed National Institute of Justice data, found far more instances of deaths credited to right-wing groups. The study was still available on the Justice Department website last week, but a researcher on extremism posted on social media that it had been removed in the days after the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. “The number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of domestic violent extremism.”

The Justice Department did not respond to request for comment on the removal of the study, but the page now says the department is “reviewing its websites … in accordance with recent Executive Orders.” It’s not clear which executive orders would require such action.

Assuming that’s a lie, and I do, these DOJ people know exactly who’s ordering these tiny atrocities and why. And they know why they’re going along with them.

This, of course, recalls how the Obama administration showed the white feather in 2009 when Republicans complained about a study that showed that right-wing militias were recruiting veterans. The Republicans unleashed the flying monkeys and the Obama administration withdrew the report. At least this time the unhistory is out there widely.