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Doug Burgum wants to sanitize history on public lands [1]

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Date: 2025-05-25

The Trump administration's campaign to rewrite history so white children don't feel uneasy learning about slavery has a new champion in Doug Burgum.

As Secretary of the Interior, he has domain over National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and other land management divisions in the Interior Dept. In a 5 page secretarial order, Burgum enlists park visitors to help identify historical markers and plaques that tell the truth about historic events. You know, white men massacring Native Americans, Black people, and the like, while maintaining tributes to Confederate traitors.

Trump had already done his own executive order Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History on March 27th. Burgum's is called "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History." Funny. The exact same title.

It starts out with the wrong start date, should be Jan. 20, 2021, but what the heck.

"...determine whether since January 1, 2020, public monuments, memorials, statues, markers or similar properties, within the Department's jurisdiction have been removed to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history; inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures; or include any improper partisan ideology."

They must not "contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial time), and instead focus on the greatness and achievements of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape."

That means you can't talk about the fact that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson had slaves. That marker on the Thomas Jefferson slave house goes bye-bye. An inconvenient truth. That's also the name of a documentary done by Al Gore about climate change. If he had a plaque, it would be gone, too.

Trump has already done renaming of military installations back to Confederate traitor's names and changed the name back to Mount McKinley. He just threw in the Gulf of America for the hell of it.

Burgum is just carrying out the boss's wishes. But, he isn't going to do all the work himself. He wants you to snitch on inappropriate signage, statues, monuments, and memorials in national parks.

"ENCOURAGING PUBLIC PARTICIPATION: Each land management Bureau shall post signage throughout each property, in as many locations within each property as necessary and appropriate to ensure public awareness, to allow for public input as to the state of the property, it's management, and its compliance with this Order. Each such sign shall include a QR code that links to a website managed by the land management Bureau allowing the user to make a written entry."

It's no different than banning books in schools. Teaching history while avoiding slavery, Native American land stolen, diseases spread by white people, Black history and achievements, Chinese building the railroads, and dozens of other topics.

I just used one historical marker as a example of what would be removed to sanitize history. We will be repeating history because we won't have ever learned the original.

The National Parks Conservation Association saw the order for what it was: censorship. Their CEO, Theresa Pierno said:

"As Americans, we have entrusted the brave professionals at the Park Service to tell the truth about the events that shaped our nation at Gettysburg, Birmingham, Stonewall and beyond.... These signs could have a chilling effect on rangers just trying to do their job and tell the truth. When the Trump Administration tries to rewrite history, it is the American people who will suffer the most... This new order sets a dangerous precedent of prioritizing nostalgia over truth at our parks. Secretary Burgum should reverse course and rescind this order."

From Minidoka Relocation Center.

When contacted by the National Parks Traveler, and asked whether the marker at the Minidoka Japanese internment camp would be removed because it would be thought of as criticism of FDR, Burgum's staff swore the order only covered items installed or erected since Jan. 1, 2020. Sure. We're going to believe that.

Doug Burgum is implementing Trump's executive order. History is in peril. I never thought I'd say that, but the history young-un's know is from the internet. We can't let them become the uneducated people Trump loves.

This will fly under the radar because it's low on the priority list Trump has created that needs to be opposed.

I'm thinking of Fahrenheit 451 where people memorize books so they can be passed on verbally, because it a crime to have a physical copy. We may have to do the same with history.

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