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Washington – The staff is censoring the content you fear could bother President Donald Trump. The volunteers are angry and reflecting renouncing, even while working for free. Employees who do not talk to the press are repeatedly warned.

And the on high message is that if you care about the Smithsonian institution and its 17 museums in Washington, DC, and if you care that your colleagues keep their job or keep their own, you will keep your mouth closed on the chilling effects of Trump’s efforts to erase art and rewrite US history in the ways in which you want.

This is how some Smithsonian workers describe their works lately, the result of an intensive impulse from Trump and the White House to control Smithsonian, a collection of free museums of almost 180 years in the center of many tourist trips to the capital of the nation. Paranoia jumped on Tuesday, when the White House officials presented themselves Detailed plans To carry out Trump’s wishes to eliminate exhibitions with “inadequate ideology.”

If the Smithsonian does not accompany the censorship led by the White House, which Trump affirms that it is necessary to stop the “ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history”, the president threatens to reduce the federal financing of the Smithsonian, which represents approximately two thirds of his annual income.

But its definition of “divisive narratives” seems to be something related to gender or race, and their mandate has left Smithsonian workers with two terrible options: the censorship exhibitions so that Trump likes to maintain his work and ensure that his museum continues to obtain federal money, or stay firm in the history of history and artistic freedom knowing that he could lose his work and activate the important funds for a museum.

“Everyone is so scared,” said a Smithsonian worker who requested anonymity to protect his work.

“It is an impossible position to get us,” they said. “We cannot be politicians with our content, but they have politicized everything. We need to demonstrate that we are not partisan following this partisan directive. What are we supposed to do? It is as if it were down. It is crazy.”

“We cannot be politicians with our content, but they have politicized everything. We need to demonstrate that we are not partisan following this partisan directive. What are we supposed to do?”

– Smithsonian worker for a long time

Trump officials promise visits to the museums and request materials related to the text of the exhibitions, the presentations of walls, the websites, the educational materials and the digital and social networks in eight museums to ensure that all reflect “edifying and inclusive representations of the inheritance of the United States”.

“This initiative aims to guarantee alignment with the president’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, eliminate divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions,” says a letter from Tuesday of the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought to Lonnie Bunch, the head of the Smithsonian institution.

Smithsonian’s leadership is telling employees that they do not put any substantive communication in writing, according to an employee, for fear of repercussions. On the other hand, the work plans communicate verbally, and the email is reserved for benign messages of the entire Bunch institution that is expected to be filtered to the press.

Smithsonian volunteers and employees who spoke with News themezone on anonymity said that Bunch is “loved” and “respected” by many. And one of the reasons why people are reluctant to retreat in Trump’s review of museum exhibitions is because they want me to maintain their job.

But the strategy that Smithsonian’s leadership seems to have adopted to preserve at least part of the institution’s artistic integrity, keep your head down, flatter the White House and leave this storm, has not given much success.

The National Portrait Gallery, for example, has just lost a show of an artist who refused to eliminate a painting from a transgender woman to appease Trump. The National Museum of the United States History last month attracted the conviction to eliminate references to Trump policies of an exhibition about accused presidents, although he returned them weeks later. The National Museum of African -American History and Culture was criticized in April for returning artifacts related to civil rights to the owners who had not requested them.

“They are trying to erase the story before our own eyes,” Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA). He said Tuesday In social networks, in response to the list of White House demands to a lot.

When comments were requested, a spokesman for the Smithsonian institution said only that leadership is proud of his work and staff.

“Smithsonian’s work is based on a deep commitment to academic excellence, rigorous research and the objective and objective presentation of the story, and we are proud of our working personnel who work to carry out that mission every day,” said the spokesman.

Later on Thursday, Trump defended his efforts to censor Smithsonian exhibitions.

“We want museums to treat our country fairly,” he said in brief comments in the Oval office. “We want museums to talk about the history of our country in a fair way, not so that it woke up, or racist, which is what many of them, not all of them, but many of them are doing.”

But Trump’s choice of Smithsonian museums for the audit is not random, said Savannah Romero, co -founder of the indigenous sovereignty collective of black liberation, a group focused on repairing the historical damage of slavery and colonialism through cultural change.

“The approach to the National Museum of African -American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indians and the National Museum of the History of the United States leaves the intention of Crystal: aim at the institutions that are making light the true colonial and violent history of the United States,” Romero said in a statement.

“Museums, although imperfect and rooted in their own colonial stories, remain among our most accessible and resources public memory files,” he said. “As memory scholars have demonstrated for a long time, they control what a society remembers and you control what can become. That is why public confidence in these institutions is so strong.”

Via News

Through the tightened teeth and smiles, the workers of the portrait gallery said they were not allowed to talk about the changes in the gallery when News themezone recently visited the museum. A worker, who was curiously delayed after saying that they could not speak, said in silence how “scary” is that Trump is trying to censor the art he does not like. A volunteer in another Smithsonian Museum said that workers are often private concerns in the rest rooms, and “the 1930s” is a common chorus, which refers to the emergence of the Nazi party in Germany.

“I am often surprised how angry, furious, injured, etc. The volunteers have been, “said this volunteer.” Many of them are furious. Everything I have met that volunteer really loves Smithsonian and believes that [Trump] It aims to destroy it. “

Meanwhile, the Smithsonian worker was mentioned above in this story, he said they have been censoring the content to defend against possible Trump’s future attacks.

“I am autonomous. I am doing it,” they said, pointing out that they feel ashamed for that.

“This strategy of ‘does not respond and does not make Smithsonian an objective’ does not work,” they added. “They come for us.”

Censor the arts is a movement directly from the authoritarian play book, and it is particularly “chilling” when museums feel pressured to self -centered, he recently told News themezone, Dr. Karrie Kosel, associate professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.

Koesel, an authoritarianism expert, said it is too early to say the destructive for democracy that will be the list of White House demands to Smithsonian.

“I think it depends on the result of the exhibitions in the Smithsonian museums; we will have to wait and see what will be excluded,” he said Wednesday. “Museums must be places of learning and exchange, not the preferences of the White House.”

News themezone I recently spent a couple of days Speaking with more than a dozen tourists walking through four Smithsonian museums, asking what they made of Trump’s efforts to censor exhibitions related to American race, gender and history. Many of these people were retired, but some were younger families with children in tow. Some voted for Trump. Some did not. Some would not say. None said they liked Trump to review the museum exhibitions.

A Smithsonian worker told News themezone that they have seen people cry when they see an exhibition at the National Museum of American History. “American democracy: a great jump of faith.”

Some visitors have asked if the exhibition can stay, because they have said that they fear that American democracy itself “has left,” said this worker.

But another exhibition in this museum, called “The American presidency: a glorious burden”, It seems to be the “most emotional” for visitors, they said. This is this exhibition where Trump’s two accusations were temporarily eliminated, and then replaced.

“People are angry,” said Smithsonian’s worker. “And sad.”