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Opinion Trump wages a war on truth, promoting fake history and fake science  Opinions - White House | 8 minutes ago

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Trump wages a war on truth, promoting fake history and fake science 

President Trump, who frequently denounces accurate journalism he dislikes as “fake news,” is demanding that national parks, monuments, museums and other federal sites replace facts about our past and our environment with fiction — fake history and fake science.

The president wants to turn national treasures that have educated millions of people into propaganda instruments portraying America in a positive light, even when the portrayal is false. This has led his administration to order the censoring of factual information about ugly parts of American history.

Displays and signage about slavery, the seizure of Native American lands, the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II, and continuing discrimination against racial minorities, women and gay and transgender Americans have been removed from federal property under an executive order Trump signed in March 2025.

The order directs the Interior Department to ensure that no federal sites “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” That’s an extraordinarily broad mandate.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum followed up by ordering the removal of “improper partisan ideology” from all national parks and other sites under federal control. Whatever Trump wants covered up can now be labeled “improper.” Nothing in the Constitution or federal law gives any president such unlimited censorship power.

Because Trump has called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated” — contradicting scientific facts — his administration is also barring displays about climate change on federal property. In one of many examples, the Interior Department has removed material at Glacier National Park explaining how climate change is melting the glaciers.

Fortunately, lawsuits have recently been filed by several groups challenging Trump’s war on truth in national parks and other federal properties as illegal censorship that interferes with public education.

In an early victory, a U.S. District Court judge ordered the National Park Service to return panels it removed from the site of President George Washington’s official residence in Philadelphia (where our early capital was located) that told the story of nine enslaved people Washington kept there. The Interior Department has filed an appeal seeking to overturn the ruling.

Trump’s actions echo steps taken by the dictatorship that George Orwell described in his dystopian novel “1984.” In the novel, a Ministry of Truth was actually a propaganda organization spreading lies and rewriting history in support of the changing policies of the ruling political party. What was true one day could be declared false the next, with all evidence to the contrary destroyed.

Orwell published “1984” in 1949. He patterned his fictional dictatorship after 20th century totalitarian states, including Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.

It is unfortunate that Trump is following the example of these and other dictatorships in defining the truth as whatever he says it is. But truth exists, regardless of what a leader says or how it is covered up.

For example, removing or altering exhibits about slavery at federal sites doesn’t change the fact that slavery existed in America for almost 250 years as an immoral horror, continuing despite the beautiful words of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” with the rights of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

No one can stop Trump from holding nonsensical opinions. He is free to believe that slavery wasn’t all that bad and benefitted Black people, that Native Americans eagerly sold their land to European immigrants and happily moved to reservations, that fossil fuels benefit the environment and renewable energy is harmful, that Ukraine started its war with Russia, and that he won the 2020 presidential election.

But Trump has no right to erase history and facts, even if Republican majorities controlling both houses of Congress do nothing to challenge him.

Trump’s censorship on federal properties sets a terrible precedent. Imagine the chaos and the millions of dollars in wasted spending that would result if future presidents follow Trump’s example and order changes at museums, parks and other institutions to align with their opinions. The definition of truth could change as often as every four years.

Americans are sharply divided based on our political views, but we must recognize that objective facts exist. If we can’t agree on what is factual and what is fictional, our divisions are bound to increase, harming our nation.

As Trump’s dangerous efforts to replace the truth with lies by rewriting reality move forward, the American people should heed the advice of George Orwell. Shortly after “1984” was published, Orwell said: “The moral to be drawn from this dangerous nightmare situation is a simple one. Don’t let it happen. It depends on you.” 

If Trump wins his war on truth and gets away with imposing fake history and fake science on federal sites, all Americans will lose. Congress, the courts and the rest of us must oppose this un-American power play and, as Orwell warned, not let it happen. 

A. Scott Bolden is an attorney, NewsNation contributor, former chair of the Washington, D.C. Democratic Party and a former New York state prosecutor.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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