The term “cultural totalitarianism” (more accurately, the concept behind it) is associated with essayist Norman Mailer (see Sophie Joscelyne’s essay on this). Mailer warned that American society in the 1960s was threatened by a subtle, internalized form of totalitarianism—one rooted in cultural conformity and psychological manipulation rather than overt political coercion. This doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because an ideology captures the nation’s major sense-making institutions.
This week, the corporate media is buzzing with a new refrain (albeit not that different from things they have said before): “Trump is a Stalinist revising history at the Smithsonian!” The charge is everywhere, repeated so often that it feels like fact, especially among those prone to believe the mainstream media. But in reality, it’s an inversion of the truth.
To see why, we must remember what the Smithsonian itself was doing just a few years ago—at the height of the summer 2020 unrest, which many (including your humble narrator) have described as a “color revolution” in the United States. At that time, the institution aligned itself with the corporate-backed, self-styled “neo-Marxist” group Black Lives Matter. The BLM organization, heavily funded by corporate donors, pushed demonstrably false narratives—chief among them the claim that systemic racism drives lethal civilian–police encounters (debunked as early as 2017 by Harvard’s Roland Fryer). By 2020, such ideas, drawn from critical race theory (CRT), had already been incubated for years by the corporate media.
In July 2020, Newsweek reported that the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture had “clarified” the purpose of its new Talking About Race portal:
“At a time when the soul of our country is being tested, our ‘Talking About Race’ portal will help individuals and communities foster constructive conversations and much needed dialogue about one of our nation’s most challenging topics: Racism and its corrosive impact.”
This was published on its official Twitter channel. The Smithsonian continued:
“America is once again facing the challenge of race, a challenge that needs all of our understanding and commitment. Our portal was designed to help individuals, families, and communities talk about racism, racial identity and how forces shape every aspect of our society.”
On the surface, this may have appeared benevolent to many eyes. In practice, it amounted to the Smithsonian adopting the role George Orwell warned about in his 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four: the “Ministry of Truth” (or “Minitrue”), an institution tasked with generating and disseminating pro-regime ideology, often by rewriting history. In Orwell’s vision, the Ministry’s name was the opposite of its function.
Today’s Smithsonian—captured by “woke” progressives aligned with the emergent transnational corporate state (TCS)—operates in much the same way. The TCS is represented politically by Democrats, administratively by the technocracy progressive operatives command, culturally by compliant academic and media institutions, and strategically by the transnational corporations (TNCs) seeking hegemony over the West.
However, Trump is not “revising history.” On the contrary. He is resisting historical revisionism—pushing back against a coordinated elite effort to delegitimize America in service of corporate power and profit and the functionaries that serve these interests.
History is not the only battleground. The real-world Ministry of Truth also revises scientific reality to suit ideological ends. One glaring example is radical gender ideology (RGI). With RGI as its guide, schools are teaching children that they can change—or discard entirely—their gender.
The Smithsonian has played its part here as well. Plans for its forthcoming American Women’s History Museum included the recognition of transgender women, newspeak for men portraying themselves as women. Its materials reference, for example, Monica Helms, a Navy veteran and creator of the first transgender pride flag.
This March, Trump signed an executive order titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, which prohibits the Smithsonian’s Women’s History Museum from recognizing men imitating women in any capacity. Such actions aim to return the institution to its foundational mission—truth in sense-making—rather than letting it serve as a propaganda arm of the ruling ideology. It also notes the anti-white display noted above.
Predictably, the corporate media is framing this effort not as a restoration of truth, but as an act of historical revisionism. This is yet another example of Orwellian inversion—where insistence on historical accuracy and scientific soundness are painted as falsification.
The managed decline of the American Republic depends on such inversions. And once again, the press is doing its part to ensure the process runs smoothly.
You don’t hate the mainstream media enough.
Did Norman Mailer nail it or what? See British journalist Melanie Phillips argue that we have slipped into an age of “cultural totalitarianism.”
freedom and reason 