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On Presidents Day, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to put back what it had removed in Philadelphia: 34 panels and videos explaining that America’s first president lived there with nine enslaved people, and that at least two of them, including Oney Judge, escaped. The Park Service had removed the displays from the President’s House site on Independence Mall in late January. U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe compared the government’s rationale to Orwell’s "Ministry of Truth."
If the White House expected the public to applaud its move to remove the panels, the polling suggests it’s a problem most Americans don’t actually have. In late 2025, in polling published in January this year, 66 percent of Americans told Pew it’s important to publicly discuss America’s historical "successes and strengths," and, strikingly, the same 66 percent said the same about its "failures and flaws." Americans are not asking to choose between patriotism and honesty. They are asking for both.
On the day the death of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader and two-time Democratic presidential candidate, was announced, this is the strange thing about "Trump’s war on history," and the "woke war on history," depending which side you are on. Both sides are responding to a demand that largely isn't there.
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Common Knowledge
The Trump team argues it’s rescuing American history. In the executive order behind the Philadelphia removals, the White House says that Americans have been fed "a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth," and says federal historic sites should become "solemn and uplifting" monuments to America’s "extraordinary heritage" and "consistent progress." White House spokesperson Davis Ingle put it more bluntly when the administration released a list of Smithsonian exhibits it objected to: "Taxpayer money should not be used for things that pit Americans against one another." Republican Indiana Senator Jim Banks has said, "It’s time to stop letting activists rewrite our past."
The other side is equally entrenched. When the Park Service removed the President’s House panels, Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro called it an effort to avoid "the truth" and said the country has to confront its "painful" past. The city of Philadelphia’s lawsuit treated the removals as an unlawful attempt to control what the public can learn.
Plenty of Americans think some institutions talk about race in ways that feel politicized or designed to cause guilt. In the Harris/AP-NORC data, Republicans were especially likely to say schools focus "too much" on racism.
Trump’s own talent for provocation makes "we’re just restoring balance" a harder sell. In Black History Month, Trump’s Truth Social account posted, and deleted about 12 hours later, a video that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. Asked about it, Trump refused to apologize and said, "No, I didn’t make a mistake." The White House initially dismissed the backlash as "fake outrage."
For critics, that episode increased the suspicion that the battle is about who gets to own America's story, and who gets reduced to a meme.
Uncommon Knowledge
In the documented Park Service cases alone, the administration’s campaign has already targeted at least 65 separate pieces of slavery-related interpretation: 34 panels and videos removed at Philadelphia’s President’s House, plus "more than 30” signs reportedly ordered removed or covered at Harpers Ferry. That’s before individual exhibit elements like the famous Civil War-era image known as "The Scourged Back."
Philadelphia is the starkest case study. The President’s House site sits inside Independence National Historical Park, where George and Martha Washington lived during the 1790s, when Philadelphia served as the nation’s capital. The exhibit, installed in 2010, memorializes nine enslaved people held at the residence, including Oney Judge and Hercules, both of whom escaped. The Park Service removed the panels in January 2026 after Trump’s order demanded that federal sites not "inappropriately disparage Americans past or living."
Judge Rufe's injunction ordered the materials restored "in their original condition" while litigation continues, and prohibited the administration from installing "replacements that explain the history differently." She also emphasized that Congress had limited officials' ability to unilaterally alter Independence National Historical Park’s exhibits.
Harpers Ferry in West Virginia is another example. Democratic Senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks wrote Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in September 2025 warning that officials had ordered the removal or covering of more than 30 signs at the park, signs that included references to racial discrimination. Their letter said it was a betrayal of the Park Service’s mission to "accurately tell the story of American history."
At Fort Pulaski in Georgia, the administration’s review led to an order to remove an image of a formerly enslaved man’s whipped, scarred back—the abolitionist icon "The Scourged Back"—from an exhibit panel at the national monument near Savannah.
At the Smithsonian, the administration has sought to pressure the institution to align with Trump’s "historical vision," and has publicly objected to exhibitions touching race, immigration, and other contested themes. The right says this is depoliticization of history. The left says it is repoliticization.
Yet Pew’s data—66 percent for both viewpoints—is a rebuke to the idea that Americans are demanding a purified story from either side.
Other surveys suggest the same centrist shape. A PRRI survey found about 94 percent agree schools should teach "both the good and bad aspects" of U.S. history, and about 88 percent oppose banning books that include depictions of slavery—with opposition high even among Republicans. Americans also clearly think some institutions have overcorrected: a University of Chicago Harris/AP-NORC poll found about a quarter say local public schools focus on racism "too much," while about a third say "too little," and Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say "too much."
That combination—broad support for frank history, plus irritation with ideological packaging—should be a road map for any administration that wants "common sense." Instead, Trump’s approach has chosen the one tactic that unites skeptics across the spectrum: removal.
America is months away from its 250th birthday. The public is ready for an anniversary story that is comfortable with contradictions.
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