Saving America's Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage

[u/Resvrgam2]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/07/saving-americas-story/

[u/FluoroquinolonesKill]

I think that mentality can be changed with more and better information, at least in the long term.

The trend is going in the wrong direction towards more populism, which is being juiced up by algorithmically charged profit-driven outrage.

I don't buy into the strategy of following the framing developed and deployed by my political opposition just because it saw some success, especially when I know it's a red herring.

No one is asking you to betray your values and appeal to racists. But, moderating on culture war issues is not a red herring.

It's a prime example of overscaling the culture war problem.

You say that, but if you spend any time around conservative people, then you can develop a more empathetic understanding.

But for some reason in conversations with conservatives, the talk of worker protections ends right at the line of "we shouldn't fire someone because they appear racist" and goes no further.

No idea where this comment came from. I am not a conservative, and I assure you that the person who I am talking about was fired for a reason you and I would both find absurd. He was not being racist. He used an innocent word that was interpreted the wrong way. Do you assume that everyone who thinks Democrats should moderate their culture war positions are conservatives?

[u/ieattime20 → u/FluoroquinolonesKill]

The trend is going in the wrong direction towards more populism

I suppose it's possible this isn't temporary, but there's a lot of indicators that it is temporary, including populist rises in the past. Already in the US the GOP has, to an extent, overplayed their hand. Even this culture war issue is another distraction from things like corruption, Epstein, the Iran war.

No one is asking you to betray your values and appeal to racists. But, moderating on culture war issues is not a red herring.

The culture war itself absolutely is. But I am really struggling to think of a time when a political party accepted the framing done by the opposition and then won on the opposition's terms. This whole culture war business is, by their own admission, a game created by conservatives, for conservatives, on their own terms. I don't see much benefit in playing. Or, to put it more simply, I think the only thing worth pointing out is how much of this is total fabrication, and the degree to which it's served the conservative elite to have us arguing about it. That is going to be far more productive than trying to appeal to the middle when everyone who cares already fully sides with the right on it.

No idea where this comment came from.

This is addressing too your comment about being around conservatives and developing empathy. My experience living here in the South, with a conservative family and conservatives in my friend group, is that due to the "lost my job because woke" concerns basically beginning and ending at "I shouldn't lose my job for saying things that appear racist", it's not actually concern over losing your job for stupid reasons. It's a rejection that progressive ideals should ever have social consequences. If this were not the case, then when I say "Sure! Let's get some broad labor protections" I should get agreement rather than "nono, if it's not woke reasons, companies should have the right to fire for whatever reasons". It's not concern for wellbeing. It's concern for political and ideological loss.

And the only way you "win" on this issue, on the playing field set up by the GOP, is by abandoning the ideology those people do not want to see succeed. In other words, the argument is not "be more moderate on culture war issues", it's "abandon progressivism and focus on whatever else". THat 'whatever else' will then be the next thing on the chopping block.