A counterattack was bound to come.

On July 4, the White House released a report titled Saving America’s Story, accusing the Smithsonian of extreme political activism and of presenting the United States primarily through slavery, racism, white supremacy, misogyny, and systemic injustice. The administration had also launched a review of selected Smithsonian museums and raised the prospect of withholding federal funds.

Anthea Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History, was called to testify at a hearing titled “Rewriting American History: Examining the Smithsonian’s Efforts to Reshape the Past,” convened on July 21, 2026, by the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency.

One of the most contentious issues concerned the treatment of gender and sexual diversity in the exhibitions. Republican lawmakers singled out a show that included the diary of a thirteen-year-old whose gender identity differed from the one assigned at birth. Subcommittee Chair Tim Burchett asked Hartig whether such material belonged in an exhibition accessible to children. Representative Nancy Mace went so far as to ask Hartig when her own gender had been revealed to her.

The broader direction of the historical narrative also came under scrutiny. Republican members of Congress argued that the Smithsonian should place greater emphasis on the achievements of the United States and project a more patriotic image. Hartig replied that the museum works from historical evidence, competing perspectives, and documented debate. Historian David Blight warned that triumphalist history flattens nuance, contradiction, and uncomfortable facts.

Democrats denounced what they described as another witch hunt and introduced legislation intended to bar federal officials from interfering with the Smithsonian’s historical interpretation. From the opposite camp, Mike Gonzalez of The Heritage Foundation argued that revising the exhibitions would accomplish little and called for the museum’s leadership to be replaced. The conflict between Smithsonian autonomy and the government’s determination to direct its narrative now lies in plain sight.

In earlier eras, incidents of this kind multiplied and flourished in a thousand different forms. In the recent past, both sides went straight to the trenches and abandoned dialogue. Their insistence on defending their positions at any cost ended up polarizing society as a whole. It is a fact. Reapportioning blame or reconstructing motives serves little purpose now. Sooner or later, every action produces a reaction of equal force. That is physics. It works even in the social and subjective realms.

At a different scale, this is what the West has been witnessing for so long. We have finally reached a point where one of America’s most important museums is accused by the government of insufficient patriotism. If this happened in Cuba, nothing would happen. They would turn the museum inside out and put a soldier in the director’s chair. Yet I have heard that this is the freest country in the world.

Any dialogue that begins at the extremes and descends into a shouting match ends in incomprehension. The importance and necessity of consensus must be acknowledged. Society exists because we have agreed to respect a common mythology, along with its hierarchies and values. What may save us from barbarism is a clear marking of the center and renewed visibility for the intermediate zones, where nearly every actor could, at least in theory, find some shelter. Right now, even that appears impossible.