President Donald Trump’s March 2025 Executive Order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” hit home last week with signs posted at Mesa Verde National Park and Amache and Sand Creek Massacre historic sites, near the southeastern Colorado towns of Granada and Eads, respectively, asking for visitors to report negative historical information about past or living Americans (Herald, Jun. 18).
The administration claims that over the past decade, Americans have been subject to efforts to rewrite our nation’s history replacing objective facts with a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” The EO claims that a revisionist movement has undermined the great achievements of our country by casting its history in a negative light. It claims that this effort has reconstructed our history as “racist, sexist, oppressive or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”
Tell that to Rep. Ken Buck, a Republican, who in a bipartisan effort championed in the House the bill designating Amache as a National Historic Site, or Democratic Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet who ushered the designation through the Senate.
Tracy Coppola with the southwest regional office of the National Parks Conservation Association said, “Parks have been created by folks across the aisle throughout their history. The beauty of it is that it’s for everybody, and it’s not political.”
Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum followed up Trump’s EO with a May 20 order that directs land management agencies like the National Park Service to review properties and remove within 120 days “inappropriate content” that disparages Americans. The order directs that content to be replaced with stories that focus on the greatness, achievements, and progress of the American people.
History advocates are sounding the alarm that the administration is continuing its attempts to whitewash and revise history. The Herald’s editorial board shares these concerns and wrote about the administration’s efforts to erase or rewrite history in “Juneteenth: the fight to keep history honest (Herald, Jun. 18).
“How can park rangers ‘tell a happy story’ about Colorado’s Amache National Historic Site where thousands of Japanese Americans were incarcerated? Or about the Sand Creek Massacre site where Congress condemned the slaughter as a “foul and dastardly massacre?,” we wrote.
The newly posted signs put a chill in our bones. Specifically, the request they make of visitors to report what they see, essentially deputizing visitors to serve as watchdogs of the narrative. This time it is history, but persecuting people is what comes next and is already happening with ICE’s raids on homes and businesses and subpoenas of immigrants' personal data from governments.
As with the Nazi regime that encouraged citizens to report on neighbors, friends and even family members, or the Great Purge when Stalin arrested, tried and executed those he deemed political enemies, we know where it is beginning, again, but where does it end?
What is considered negative is also subjective. Think of Japanese descendants of the incarcerated or slaughtered Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal member relatives visiting one of those sites today and seeing for the first time the real story being told. Their story. To them, that would not be considered negative. It would be a reconciliation of their family story and history as presented to the public.
We would argue that finally facing the darkest parts of our history, learning from them so as not to repeat them, has done just that. Trump’s version of history does the opposite.
