Many Americans are understandably keeping an eye on the Middle East and other world conflicts. But for those keeping score at home, Lonnie Bunch III’s sudden departure as head of the Smithsonian marks a victory for the people in our nation’s protracted culture wars.
No, the White House does not get to declare “mission accomplished” and take its collective eye off the world’s largest museum complex. What happens next is of primal importance. The Smithsonian needs new leadership across the entire decaying institution.
Stay informed.Stay ahead.
Join Washington Examiner for unlimited access to the news, analysis, and commentary that matter most.
Already a member? Log in
But let’s not let the moment go by without noting that in this conflict to roll back the gains the Left has made in culture for the past few decades — an endeavor in which the Trump administration has been at its best — the other side blinked first.
To be sure, it blinked after a long bout of trench warfare that included multiple executive orders and letters, threats of an audit, a devastating 160-page report by the Domestic Policy Council, and threats by the Department of the Interior that it would hang signs outside the museums warning visitors they were about to encounter lies about our country.
It was then that Bunch cried “no mas” and announced on Tuesday he would be stepping down later this year from the position of secretary.
But Bunch could have hung on and continued to brazen his way through adversity. He had in his pocket the entire museum industrial complex — the art history departments at universities, accrediting institutions such as the American Alliance of Museums, big funders such as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation — as well as members of Congress with no appetite for cultural warfare.
He is outwardly a jovial man who plays well at congressional hearings, where Democrats ingratiate themselves with him and far too many Republicans meekly go along to get along.
But an examination of his record reveals a cunning infighter who has used his long career as secretary since 2019, and founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture after 2005, to delegitimize U.S. history and heritage.
For example, he manipulated institutions that had been entrusted to him to tightly embrace two efforts devoted to radically rewriting America’s story: Black Lives Matter and the 1619 Project.
Bunch enthusiastically supported BLM from its inception in 2013. In 2014, as the nation burned after the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, spread to Baltimore and other cities, Bunch instructed his curators to start collecting the debris the rioters left behind as if they were treasured historical artifacts.
“We’re taking a comprehensive approach to documenting these Black Lives Matter events,” curator Tulani Salahu-Din, whom Bunch had brought over in 2010, told Smithsonian Magazine in 2014. A year later, Bunch made clear that his intent was to justify the violence.
“There’s a lack of knowledge about everything from what does urban unrest mean, to what does it tell you historically about people who burn and destroy in their own neighborhoods,” Bunch told the magazine. “This is part of a long tradition where people who feel devalued find ways to find a voice.”
With the 1619 Project, Bunch decided early on to involve the Smithsonian by having curator Mary Elliott select items for the Project and co-author its special broadsheet section, where many of the Project’s worst inaccuracies are located.
Small wonder that the DPC report made clear how biased the Smithsonian has become, detailing how one of the main museums, the National Museum of American History, devotes its exhibits to tearing down America’s narrative. In a letter in December, DPC Director Vince Haley and OMB Director Russ Vought had to warn Bunch that “The American people will have no patience for any museum that is diffident about America’s founding.”
Bunch is not exiting gladly. He told employees Tuesday afternoon in departing remarks, “I may be going away, but I’m still going to be a pain in the ass to some people.”
But no matter how much he clamors for attention, the focus must now be redirected to the necessary next steps. There are many vacancies on the board, and House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Leader John Thune should determine how to appoint the right people for these positions.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who leads the governing Board of Regents, will now name an interim leader, as the Institution decides on a permanent one. That person needs to clean house at the Smithsonian.
While replacing all the curators, art restorers, etc., will be next to impossible, the remaining leadership loyal to Bunch and his agenda must go, beginning with Director Anthea Hartig.
Above all, the person who replaces Bunch had better understand that the mission of national museums is to preserve and transmit cultural knowledge to future generations. As I said in congressional testimonies this summer, culture is not passed down in the bloodstream. That means keeping it out of the hands of those who, like Bunch, would distort and destroy it.