One of Trump’s latest Executive Orders contains language that is right out of Orwell’s 1984 and should frighten everyone. “Mr. Trump directed that Vice President JD Vance work with Congress to prohibit expenditures on exhibitions or programs that “degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law.”1 Think about those last words, “ideologies inconsistent with federal law.” That is so open to interpretation that you could drive a whole fleet of semi-trucks through there. We all know that in Trump world, “ideologies inconsistent with federal law.’ are really code words for ‘anything Trump disagrees with’. Or, in short, anything extolling the accomplishments of white, Christian men are the correct ideologies and everything else is to be erased.
He specifically called out the Smithsonian Museum of African American History. This is, however, the perfect example of how Trump operates. Trump convinced a fair number of Black voters, particularly young Black men, that he was on their side and would be their best friend once elected. Now that he is in office, he no longer needs their support, so he embarks on an effort to erase Black History from the United States.
What will be next? I spent many years living in Montana which is home to many national parks and national monuments including the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument which is where General Custer and his 7th Cavalry died. The monument and associated museum are informative and describe what actually happened. How long before J.D. Vance, in his fight against unacceptable ideologies, tries to rewrite this history to depict General Custer as the hero and the native Americans as the aggressors. Or perhaps they will just choose to completely close down the monument as another government cost saving measure. That would surely be a way to try to erase this history.
The National Monument is on the Crow Reservation which is the largest reservation in Montana and encompasses about 2.2 million acres. Roughly 75 percent of the 10,000 people enrolled in the Crow Tribe live on the reservation. There are reported to be vast coal deposits on the reservation so given Trump’s ‘drill baby drill’ philosophy and complete disregard for things like climate change, will he try to take over the Crow lands like he talks about taking over Greenland?
Or perhaps the current administration will decide that all the current reservations serve as a divisive reminder of America’s past and move to eliminate them all. Farfetched? If you think so, you have not been paying attention. This administration is working with an excessively big eraser in its interpretation of “ideologies inconsistent with Federal law.”
Kristi Noem, the former governor of South Dakota and now the Secretary of Homeland Security, so offended the Indian tribes in her state that she was banned from all tribal lands. She continues to double down on the remarks connecting Mexican drug cartels to Native American reservations. Perhaps it is only a matter of time before she, Trump and Vance try to assume control over all tribal lands under the guise of national security. That is the language that is being used in a lame attempt to justify Trump’s desire to take over control of the Panama Canal, Greenland, and Canada. Can the tribal lands in the United States be far behind? They are vast tracts of land and many of the reservations, like the Crow reservation mentioned above, contain natural resources that Trump and his toadies covet. Further, many reservations now have casinos on them, and we know how Trump loves casinos.
There has already been talk about opening vast tracts of Federal lands for mineral exploration, drilling and building houses. What is to keep this administration from deciding that reservations are just a divisive relic of the past and should be eliminated altogether – in the name of national security of course and being an anachronistic ideology that is inconsistent with Federal law! Like I said, this administration is working with a big and aggressive eraser.
To my knowledge, discussions about expropriating tribal lands have not yet surfaced but it would not surprise me if there were some Signal (the new administration’s favorite!) chats going on right now about this very issue. If this administration can seriously discuss Greenland, Panama, and Canada as annexation targets, you have to believe they have their greedy, bigoted, eyes on the 56 million acres of tribal reservation land within our own borders. I could be wrong, but I’ll bet I’m not! This is the same guy, after all, who believes displacing 2 million Palestinians and turning Gaza into a resort is a good idea!
