Speaker 1: Here at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We effing hate art.
Speaker 1: It's one more thing I'm.
Speaker 2: Thing.
Speaker 3: I'm a member of the met.
Speaker 2: In New York.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I bought a membership because it saved us, ultimately
Speaker 3: saved me money for getting me and my two kids
Speaker 3: in ah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then the membership expires after year. I guess they
Speaker 3: hope you won't remember and you'll automatically renew, which I
Speaker 3: probably will, Oh my god, because I go to New York,
Speaker 3: you know, once every ten years.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The fact that software is now mostly subscription based makes
Speaker 1: me nuts. I get why it's a good idea in
Speaker 1: some ways, but I was signing up for one that
Speaker 1: I want. Yeah, and it's good and I think I'll
Speaker 1: use it, but it's like thirteen bucks a month now,
Speaker 1: and I had the feeling as I clicked yes and
Speaker 1: gave it my credit card info my estate eight is
Speaker 1: going to have to stop payments to this ten years
Speaker 1: after my death, right, jeezuz liked.
Speaker 3: My audible books, and every year I lose free Audible
Speaker 3: credits because I don't before the deadline a bunch of books.
Speaker 3: And I think it does that on purpose.
Speaker 1: Like who designed that system? The Marquis de sade. I.
Speaker 1: Now I have so many credits on audible that I
Speaker 1: can't let them go right, But I.
Speaker 2: Don't use them.
Speaker 1: I can't possibly use them fast enough if other too
Speaker 1: many other things I need to listen to or like
Speaker 1: to listen to, including music. Anyway, So my introduction about
Speaker 1: hating art at the Art Museum brings us to the
Speaker 1: new Domestic Policy Council report from the White House Saving
Speaker 1: America's Story. How ideological capture at the Smithsonian Institution's National
Speaker 1: Museum of American History erases our heritage.
Speaker 3: And I'm complained about this last summer when I was
Speaker 3: there with my kids, and I complained as soon as
Speaker 3: I got back about every freaking plaque about everything either
Speaker 3: brought up climate change or how Europeans drove off the
Speaker 3: original people or whatever. It had some political bent racism,
Speaker 3: every single plaque. It was so annoying, well observed.
Speaker 1: And just you know, for some of you who think
Speaker 1: I'll just speak for myself, that eye joke ediom ted
Speaker 1: critical of Donald j some of this stuff he does,
Speaker 1: and says it's just dumb on its face, and I
Speaker 1: don't like it, and I'll tell you so. But a
Speaker 1: lot of what makes me insane about him is his
Speaker 1: administration is doing such good things, and if they would
Speaker 1: stop stepping on their chances, they could keep doing those
Speaker 1: good things.
Speaker 3: And congratulations.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Hello.
Speaker 1: So here's the executive summary from this report on the
Speaker 1: ideological capture at the Smithsonian, specifically the National Museum of
Speaker 1: American History, and it's a little lengthy, but it's definitely
Speaker 1: worth hearing.
Speaker 2: Super informative. Get to it, Joe, you're saying, get to it.
Speaker 2: I'm about to start right now.
Speaker 3: Joe Getty, who delayed his presentation because of climate change.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. I'm sweaty. The Smithsonian Institution is.
Speaker 1: One of the nation's great civic treasures, a place where
Speaker 1: parents bring their children, and tourists from across the country
Speaker 1: and around the world come to learn about America. At
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, visitors, we're just going.
Speaker 2: To refer to it as the museum. Henceforth, save my voice.
Speaker 1: Visitors young and old should encounter the story of the
Speaker 1: United States told with honesty, seriousness, and pride. In particular,
Speaker 1: it should help the American people understand where America came from,
Speaker 1: what makes it distinctive and why.
Speaker 2: It is worth preserving.
Speaker 1: Now, before I go further, I want you to put
Speaker 1: into your pocket what you always hear about, say Florida's
Speaker 1: reforms of their history programs or whatever they're trying to
Speaker 1: whitewash slavery. Keep that argument in mind as I read
Speaker 1: what the Trump administration says. In making their case to
Speaker 1: Congress in nineteen fifty three for funding, Smithsonian leadership argued
Speaker 1: that one of the main reasons the museum should be
Speaker 1: created is quote, to place before millions who visit the
Speaker 1: nation's capital each year, a stimulating, permanent exposition that commemorates
Speaker 1: our heritage of freedom and highlights the basic elements of
Speaker 1: our way of life. In nineteen fifty five, then Smithsonian
Speaker 1: Secretary Leon Carmichael testify to Congress that, if authorized, the
Speaker 1: museum would tell the story of American national progress and
Speaker 1: I quote, cement to America's progress for citizen and foreign
Speaker 1: visitors alike. As he put it, continuing to quote, the
Speaker 1: museum we envision is planned to instill in each citizen
Speaker 1: a deepened faith in our country's destiny as champion of
Speaker 1: individual dignity and enterprise. Equally, it is conceived to instill
Speaker 1: in each foreign minister, I'm sorry, foreign visitor, admiration and
Speaker 1: respect for our ever expanding social and technol life logical horizons.
Speaker 1: Two months later, Congress funded it.
Speaker 3: Well, having been there a year ago, I can tell
Speaker 3: you currently, if you read the plaques, it seems that
Speaker 3: it's designed to convince you humans are bad. Males are
Speaker 3: even worse, as far as the humans an American particular,
Speaker 3: as a collection of humans is awful.
Speaker 1: Right So, Then, in nineteen sixty four, the director of
Speaker 1: the US National Museum noted at the museum's opening that
Speaker 1: the new museum was intended quote to awaken in citizen
Speaker 1: and foreigner alike, a clear understanding of the inspiring story
Speaker 1: of the United States, its origin, struggles, development, traditions, and strength.
Speaker 1: One curator, who worked at the museum for nearly four
Speaker 1: decades noted the museum's founding goal was more than simply
Speaker 1: to increase and diffuse general knowledge. The museum was intended
Speaker 1: to be quote proudly patriotic and in fact, At the
Speaker 1: dedication ceremony in nineteen sixty four, President Johnson explained his
Speaker 1: hope and belief that the museum's quote iconic artifacts should
Speaker 1: be used to foster patriotism. He stated, I would hope
Speaker 1: that there will come to this building the children of
Speaker 1: the nation, For here is recorded, as William Faulkner expressed it,
Speaker 1: the agony and the sweat of the human spirit, the
Speaker 1: victory of freedom and genius of our country. Here young
Speaker 1: children see with their own eyes, yes, even to touch
Speaker 1: with their own hands, the ripe fruit of America's historical harvest,
Speaker 1: Whitney's cotton, gin Singer sewing machine. Goes to give a
Speaker 1: bunch of different examples. They're all here a part of
Speaker 1: this treasure house of our inheritance. The more we understand
Speaker 1: the meaning of the past, the more we appreciate the
Speaker 1: winning of the future, which is the flip side of
Speaker 1: the coin that Orwell.
Speaker 2: Was always warning us about.
Speaker 1: They steal your history, so you don't know who you
Speaker 1: are anymore, then they can make you whoever they want
Speaker 1: you to be.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 3: You go ahead and say we had stuff, Johnson said,
Speaker 3: and be a democratic president now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Johnson said. If this museum did nothing more
Speaker 1: than illuminate our heritage so that others could see a
Speaker 1: little better our legacy, however so small, the glimpse it
Speaker 1: will fulfill the noble purpose. And this report by the
Speaker 1: Domestic Policy Council, they write, demonstrates the fact that if
Speaker 1: I could get a new pair of.
Speaker 3: Pants, well, the zippy has cleared out of a bunghole.
Speaker 2: A lot appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Right, exactly, you know, a little a little more room, right,
Speaker 1: A couple of a two inches down there.
Speaker 2: Greatest audio ever, it's on YouTube. Check it out, all right.
Speaker 1: So getting back to the report, the report demonstrates that
Speaker 1: the museum fails in the basic task of illuminating our heritage.
Speaker 1: Our central finding, to Jack's point, is not that the
Speaker 1: museum is simply added to overlooked stories, corrected perceived errors,
Speaker 1: or broadened its historical scope. Rather, it is that the
Speaker 1: museum leadership has explicitly adopted an ideological framework that no
Speaker 1: longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance
Speaker 1: to be taught or celebrated, but as a political instrument
Speaker 1: to divide, dispirit and discourage our citizens.
Speaker 3: Ah, that's that's a I like the dispirit and discourage.
Speaker 3: My son was really disappointed, knows, he got dispirited and
Speaker 3: discouraged reading that stuff, because who gets an end? Well,
Speaker 3: unless I guess you're a Marxist who hates the country,
Speaker 3: who gets any enjoyment out of.
Speaker 1: Reading about how we're so awful plaque after plaque. As
Speaker 1: this report shows confirmed in the words of museum leadership,
Speaker 1: this ideological capture has moved the museum's mission away from
Speaker 1: straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism
Speaker 1: that seeks to transform our country. That is one hundred
Speaker 1: percent true. That shift from history to activism is clearly
Speaker 1: documented in this report, and Antheo Haartig, the museum's director
Speaker 1: since twenty nineteen, has explicitly stated that she sees history
Speaker 1: as a quote prime tool of social justice and one
Speaker 1: of her roles as connecting quote research and scholarship to
Speaker 1: activism and advocacy. Hardigg is also stated that quote we
Speaker 1: work to reframe the traditional celebratory narrative of US history
Speaker 1: for visitors. She claims to have had a personal head
Speaker 1: start say one again, she hopes to reframe what the
Speaker 1: traditional celebratory narrative of history visitors want. That what country
Speaker 1: would want to have a celebratory tone to their history? Wow?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Then she goes on about the cushions of whiteness and
Speaker 1: the pillows of the Bourgeoise.
Speaker 3: Oh, you gotta be kidding.
Speaker 2: This is the director.
Speaker 1: Wow, she believes this is straight out of critical theory.
Speaker 1: By the way, what I'm about to say, straight out
Speaker 1: of you know, that Rogue's gallery of Frenchmen who developed
Speaker 1: critical theory in the sixties.
Speaker 3: Hertzig believed of Cato and Jacques Cousteau.
Speaker 2: And the rest of them.
Speaker 1: Hertig believes the museum profession has to quote, figure out
Speaker 1: how we're going to problematize the two hundred and fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary of the signing of the Declaration in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: that loving America is very complicated.
Speaker 3: You made these quotes up.
Speaker 2: I did not say.
Speaker 3: How in the hell did she get a point? I
Speaker 3: mean the director who did that? Biden Obama? How did
Speaker 3: she end up running the Smithsonian that.
Speaker 1: Is twenty nineteen. Fine, so Obama, that is horrifying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh my god. How many times did I shout during
Speaker 1: the campaign He's not a Muslim, He's a socialist, say attention.
Speaker 3: You know. You know what disturbs me about this is
Speaker 3: that she doesn't feel that she needs to couch it
Speaker 3: in gentler language or hide this at all, she's willing
Speaker 3: to just stay out stayed out loud. We need to
Speaker 3: take the two hundred and fiftieth birthday of this country
Speaker 3: and make sure people aren't feeling too good about it.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's our objective.
Speaker 1: A little more of her own words, the objects in
Speaker 1: the museum's collection should be used to move attention away
Speaker 1: from an Anglo centric focus on the American founding, because
Speaker 1: to achieve from Marxism anyway. At the heart of our concern,
Speaker 1: writes the report is a simple question, what should a
Speaker 1: National Museum of America History do? Now I'm going to
Speaker 1: that argument. They want a whitewash history, pretend like slavery
Speaker 1: never existed. Here's the actual report. Our conviction, like that
Speaker 1: of Secretary Carmichael, Director Kellogg, and President Johnson, is that
Speaker 1: such a museum should tell the American story clearly and fairly.
Speaker 1: It should explain the rise of the original Thirteen Colonies,
Speaker 1: the struggle for independence, the principles of the Declaration of
Speaker 1: Independence and the US Constitution, and the role these documents
Speaker 1: have played in securing Americans' most basic freedoms. It should
Speaker 1: document and share the achievements and failures of the nation
Speaker 1: and the extraordinary men and women of every color and
Speaker 1: creed who shaped its course. It should tell the truth,
Speaker 1: including the nation's mistakes and injustices, but it should do
Speaker 1: so within a coherent account of a people striving, often imperfectly,
Speaker 1: but more often nobly, to live up to our founding
Speaker 1: principles of liberty and equality under a republican form of government.
Speaker 1: It should especially teach the history of an American nation
Speaker 1: that is worthy of our affection and worth passing all
Speaker 1: to future generations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've moved a lot on the whole. We need to,
Speaker 3: you know, describe our faults. You don't want to erase
Speaker 3: that stuff, obviously, but there's no need to lean on
Speaker 3: them constantly, right, you know? I always use the example
Speaker 3: of the mayor your fiftieth wedding anniversary. You're gonna stand
Speaker 3: up there and just rehash the three worst things your
Speaker 3: husband said or did over the last fifty years, just constantly.
Speaker 3: Why what is your goal? Here? Is your goal to
Speaker 3: dissolve the marriage and tear it down and destroy it?
Speaker 3: Or in the case of that museum gal, the answer
Speaker 3: is yes, well, right, the only reason you would at
Speaker 3: your fiftieth wedding anniversary just hammer him over and over
Speaker 3: again about the three worst things he ever did would
Speaker 3: be if you want to end it, if you wanted
Speaker 3: to continue it and think it's a good thing. No, right,
Speaker 3: you might not even bring it up at all because
Speaker 3: you both know what it. Of course, you would both
Speaker 3: know it was bad, and there's no need to discuss
Speaker 3: it again. So I'm not where I used to be
Speaker 3: on the We need to make sure we teach the
Speaker 3: bad stuff. Why you you don't have time to get
Speaker 3: around to the good stuff?
Speaker 1: Well, I think it depends on the context. If you're
Speaker 1: talking about American history, you can touch on that stuff.
Speaker 3: But the difference is different than focus on.
Speaker 2: Well right exactly.
Speaker 1: The difference is that these Marxists view the United States
Speaker 1: as an evil country that's occasionally accidentally done good, as
Speaker 1: opposed to what is clearly true. That's the opposite, and
Speaker 1: so it's a question of how you present it.
Speaker 3: I'll give you the example. I don't remember if you
Speaker 3: were here when I told this story or not. The
Speaker 3: only thing my fourteen year old learned in school about
Speaker 3: capitalism was that in the early twentieth century, we had
Speaker 3: lots of kids in the factories, and they used children
Speaker 3: for labor that's it only a negative thing about capitalism.
Speaker 3: Did that happen?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Is that a negative?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Should it be? I don't even know if it's worth mentioning. Well,
Speaker 3: it's not worth mentioning if you don't have time for
Speaker 3: the Capitalism has raised more people out of poverty than
Speaker 3: any other system in the history of the world. If
Speaker 3: you can throw all that you got time left over,
Speaker 3: feel free to get into kids in the factories for
Speaker 3: a blink of an eye.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm about to quote Martin Luther King Junior. It'd
Speaker 1: be like, tell me about MLK, Dad. He was adulteress,
Speaker 1: He had sex with a bunch of different women.
Speaker 3: Hung around with a lot of communists.
Speaker 2: Right, Hey, learned a skill. That's all you needed those
Speaker 2: child labors. That's right.
Speaker 1: Tough enoughm ump, So let me finish up the report.
Speaker 1: Any proper telling of American history should, as the Reverend
Speaker 1: King noted that quote, the goal of America is freedom
Speaker 1: and bring our nation back to those great wells of
Speaker 1: democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in
Speaker 1: their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 1: That is a direct quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.
Speaker 1: According to the findings from our months long investigation, that
Speaker 1: is no longer what visitors encounter. Instead, the museum confront
Speaker 1: visitors with materials intended to undermine faith in the American
Speaker 1: institutions and long standing shared ideals of the American people.
Speaker 1: As this report shows, the Museum purposely presents America as
Speaker 1: a problematic country, irredeemably conceived, founded by deeply flawed men,
Speaker 1: and still operating today as an instrument of systemic racism
Speaker 1: and oppression. In the Museum's current telling, the country is
Speaker 1: above all defined by white supremacy, slavery, conquest, exclusion, hierarchy, racism, xenophobia, misogyny,
Speaker 1: and systemic injustice. The report identifies a broad pattern. The
Speaker 1: founders are minimized, if not entirely excluded, Traditional patriotic narratives
Speaker 1: are treated with suspicion, if not outright contempt, and the
Speaker 1: basic symbols and stories that once helped unify Americans are
Speaker 1: presented not as reasons for gratitude and inspiration, but as
Speaker 1: objects to be inherently questioned, dismantled, problematized, and reinterpreted to
Speaker 1: achieve ideological ends. To the extent that there is a
Speaker 1: story told at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
Speaker 1: It is not one of quote the victory of freedom
Speaker 1: and genius of our country, but one of regret, tragedy,
Speaker 1: and shame.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have a little hope that this is going
Speaker 3: to get turned around. I know they're working at it,
Speaker 3: but there's a lot of pushback, and then if it
Speaker 3: doesn't get done in the next two years, this all
Speaker 3: rooted out of this national parks and museums and everything
Speaker 3: like that. A democratic president's not going to do it,
Speaker 3: and I'm not even sure a lot of Republican presidents
Speaker 3: will think that's a fight they want to get into.
Speaker 3: And then you get news coverage like this, which is
Speaker 3: true on its face, but I think because it's got
Speaker 3: Trump's name in it suggests something. This was just the
Speaker 3: other day NBC News. Current and former members of the
Speaker 3: Smithsonian Board of Regents tell NBC News they're anticipating this
Speaker 3: is not the end of the White House pressure campaign,
Speaker 3: which is a prejudicial term pressure camp Sure pressure campaign
Speaker 3: to reshape the museum's presentations, which has been a focus
Speaker 3: in Trump's second term. Now, that is not a lie,
Speaker 3: that is true what they just said, but hinting using
Speaker 3: Trump's name and pressure campaign, and he's doing something untoward
Speaker 3: as opposed to something really really untoward already.
Speaker 1: Happened, right right, sickening, horrifying, indefensible, and we.
Speaker 2: Let it happen. And it's just like everybody cherished freedom
Speaker 2: in America, and it's.
Speaker 3: Being treated like all the other examples of this. We
Speaker 3: point out they get porn in the library. Then when
Speaker 3: you try to get porn out, they call you the
Speaker 3: book banner.
Speaker 1: Right right, Hey, for what it's worth, just for fun,
Speaker 1: what it would take to print this?
Speaker 2: There it is.
Speaker 1: It's one hundred and sixty two pages, this report. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's thorough and documents everything beautifully, but well, the
Speaker 1: executive summary is good enough.
Speaker 3: I can't believe that's how That's how far down the
Speaker 3: road it is that she feels she can be that
Speaker 3: blatant about No, the goal of the museum is to
Speaker 3: make people realize this is a bad country.
Speaker 2: Wow. In fact, she believes that's the goal of all museums.
Speaker 3: Wild And so then there's there's Marxists who want to
Speaker 3: tear down the country. But then there's all the people
Speaker 3: that enjoy that feeling for some reason. And that's the
Speaker 3: people I think that are mentally ill. There's some mental
Speaker 3: illness you've got that wants to feel bad about your
Speaker 3: country and people in culture.
Speaker 2: It's pathetic. That's what I think. Those people are an embarrassment.
Speaker 1: They wear their self hatred as a desperate plea for
Speaker 1: somebody to.
Speaker 2: Like them or think they're enlightened. It's just it's pathetic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm telling you it's not subtle. If you walk
Speaker 3: around the museum about the fourth plaque you read, you think,
Speaker 3: all right, I see what's going on here.
Speaker 1: You know, there are days I wish we had an
Speaker 1: enormous audience and not for financial wealth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, I'd have a yacht. How about you, Michael, yacht?
Speaker 1: Maybe a yacht. Maybe maybe we'll have a yacht for
Speaker 1: those days. You want a yacht.
Speaker 2: Better car?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they better car there. You got millions and millions
Speaker 1: of dollars. You need to think bigger, Michael. You've had
Speaker 1: that donut on your right rear wheel for how long?
Speaker 3: I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah? And duct tape come on, duct tape and plastic
Speaker 1: sheeting and not a good luck.
Speaker 2: Get a window, Get a.
Speaker 3: Window, black plastic sheeting, duct taped over the window. That's
Speaker 3: when things are not going well, if I could.
Speaker 2: Do something.
Speaker 1: To draw Americans attention to this and how bad it's gotten, man,
Speaker 1: I would do about anything.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to set myself on fire.
Speaker 1: On the steps of the Natural, not the Natural than
Speaker 1: the National History Museum. But man, this just angers me
Speaker 1: and the fact that we let it go that far,
Speaker 1: because these people use moral language and mischaracterize what they're doing,
Speaker 1: and normal, good moral people think, yeah, we should definitely
Speaker 1: tell the history of slavery. We can't hide that from people,
Speaker 1: and the museum Gal says thank you, because that's all
Speaker 1: we want to do, and then she goes all sixteen
Speaker 1: nineteen project on the freaking National History Museum.
Speaker 2: God, I hate these people. I hate them so bad.
Speaker 3: Now that's hate speech.
Speaker 2: That is hate speech.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you just got to think of something that makes
Speaker 1: you feel good, like a good pair of pants. But
Speaker 1: you see, if you can't leave me about it, an
Speaker 1: age from the ware to zipperate and uh around under my.
Speaker 2: Back of my bunghole Lyndon B.
Speaker 1: Johnson, Ladies and gentlemen, well I guess that's it.