{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://cloud.house.gov/posts/the-smithsonian-has-lost-sight-of-america", "The Smithsonian Has Lost Sight of America", "2026-08-02", "2026", "2026-08", "Republican", "House", "TX", "Michael Cloud", "C001115", "cloud.house.gov", "cloud", "https://cloud.house.gov/press", "scraper", "The Smithsonian Has Lost Sight of America | Opinion\n\nNewsweek\n\nHon. Michael Cloud | August 2nd, 2026\n\nThe Smithsonian is the world\u2019s largest museum, education, and research complex, welcoming visitors from every state and country to its doors, free of charge. For generations it has been established as one of Washington\u2019s most cherished and highly sought-after attractions, making it one of our capital\u2019s highest-profile institutions. While our republic may be younger compared to other ancient civilizations, our history is an exceptional one, and the Smithsonian has been where history comes alive for many Americans, including myself.\n\nI still remember walking through the doors of the National Museum of American History (NMAH) as a child, filled with excitement to see all the stories and artifacts of our nation. As my children grew, I made sure to make the family trek to D.C. so that they too could learn and be inspired by our rich history. From the hard lessons we have learned to the amazing accomplishments achieved together. Our nation became history\u2019s brightest beacon of hope and liberty.\n\nAs we moved toward America\u2019s 250th anniversary, one could only imagine what celebration the museum might have in store. What artifacts they might pull out of their vast collection. What exhibits they would create to help tell the story of America\u2019s remarkable and providential founding and rise to greatness. Instead, visitors were greeted front and center with a reimagined oppressor/oppressed narrative that describes our history foundation as \u201cunsettling.\u201d My visit told me everything I needed to know about where this institution\u2019s loyalties lie, and the recent House Oversight hearing confirmed it.\n\nDirector Anthea Hartig explicitly stated in a 2024 presentation that the museum should \u201cget out of the \u2018America First\u2019 mentality.\u201d She went on to argue that the \u201cscope of U.S. history\u201d and the very term \u201cAmerica\u201d should expand to include \u201cthe entirety of the Americas, not just our part of North America.\u201d A museum whose sole function is to educate the world on America\u2019s history should not be in the business of erasing its borders.\n\nThat mindset is institutionalized in the museum\u2019s Center for Restorative History, which Hartig says exists to \u201caddress the harm that we\u2019ve done as the Smithsonian.\u201d Since when is preserving America\u2019s history something the Smithsonian needs to apologize for?\n\nThe center\u2019s own website says it \u201credresses exclusions in our national story using the principles of restorative justice.\u201d Elsewhere, museum staff studied materials on \u201cwhite supremacy culture,\u201d while other Smithsonian resources described the nuclear family, the scientific method, the traditional work ethic, and linear concepts of time as aspects of \u201cwhite culture.\u201d When a national museum treats the building blocks of civilization as political grievances, it has stopped serving the public and started lecturing them.\n\nThis far-left ideology is on full display in the \u201cGirlhood (it\u2019s complicated)\u201d exhibit. Rather than showcasing the American women who shaped our history, the exhibit highlights a biological male in a space dedicated to women and girls, infringing on the very idea of being a woman, alongside glorifying gun control and illegal immigration.\n\nThe Smithsonian possesses some of the finest collections of women\u2019s history artifacts in the world. The \u201cFirst Ladies\u201d exhibit is consistently one of the most popular in the entire museum, yet NMAH would rather spend their space idolizing symbols of illegal immigration while belittling motherhood. It is a shame that the NMAH would sacrifice women\u2019s achievements to satisfy modern, left-wing political priorities.\n\nThese changes are a result of a strict bureaucratic mandate. The NMAH now requires every single exhibit to address a checklist of core issues: race and identity, gender and sexuality, environmental change, immigration and migration, economic inequality, technological change, nationalism and globalism. This reads far more like a partisan legislative wish list than a framework for historical education.\n\nThe National Museum of American History should be inspiring visitors, especially the younger generation, to serve and strengthen our country. History is undeniably complicated, and wrestling with our triumphs and our struggles is what makes historical education so valuable. We cannot teach our children to resent their own heritage and expect them to preserve it.\n\nThe Smithsonian is an American treasure, generously funded by American taxpayers, and working there is a privilege, not a platform to push a political agenda on American taxpayer money. These are museums of American history, not museums of American apology, and it\u2019s time the Smithsonian remembered the difference. Smithsonian curators have no authority to edit the past to fit a present narrative. The truth distorted becomes a lie.\n\nRepresentative Michael Cloud serves Texas\u2019s 27th Congressional District.", 1, "2026-08-04T07:35:49Z", "2026-08-04T07:37:27Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://cloud.house.gov/posts/the-smithsonian-has-lost-sight-of-america"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.459835097193718, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}