As part of his administration\u2019s war on \u201cwoke\u201d, Donald Trump has asked the American public to report anything \u201cnegative\u201d about Americans in US national parks. But the public has largely refused to support a world view without inconvenient historical facts, comments submitted from national parks and seen by the Guardian show.<\/p>\n
Notices have been erected at every National Park Service (NPS) site, which spans 433 national parks, monuments and battlefields, following an order from May entitled \u201cRestoring Truth and Sanity to American History\u201d<\/a>, issued by Trump\u2019s department of the interior. The president had demanded<\/a> a crackdown on any material that \u201cinappropriately disparages Americans\u201d.<\/p>\n The signs ask visitors to report any damage to parks as well as, via QR code, to identify \u201cany signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features\u201d.<\/p>\n But a trove of nearly 500 comments relating to the signs submitted across the US by the public in June and July, seen by the Guardian, show that visitors have mostly been reluctant to demand the removal of park materials about the darker chapters of America\u2019s past, such as slavery or the mistreatment of Native tribes.<\/p>\n \u201cAre we such weak, fragile people that we can\u2019t view the full length and breadth of our history?\u201d one visitor to Muir Woods in California wrote in July after a sign called \u201chistory under construction\u201d was taken down. \u201cAre we so afraid that we have to hide factual history from the telling of our past? Oh, please!!\u201d<\/p>\n Another visitor to Cumberland Gap national historical park in Kentucky wrote in June that \u201cthe staff that work at this park are among the kindest, most knowledgeable people you will find anywhere\u201d. They added: \u201cI hate that this administration feels that history that may depict the United States in a bad light should be covered up.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of the comments praise park rangers or call for more information on issues such as the Indigenous American experience or the climate crisis. Some complain about the decision to remove the \u2018T\u2019 from LGBT at New York\u2019s Stonewall national monument, to exclude transgender people, while some visitors demanded the unvarnished truth be told at Manzanar, a California facility where Japanese-Americans were interned during the second world war.<\/p>\n \u201cSanitizing or downplaying this history does a disservice to those who lived through it,\u201d one Manzanar tourist wrote. \u201cWhoever authorized this sign should be fired,\u201d added another visitor about the new signage. \u201cHistory belongs to all people, and any attempt to rewrite or gloss over even our darkest days should not be tolerated.\u201d<\/p>\n The QR code comments, a snapshot of public opinions that are filtered before being stored by the NPS, come at a tumultuous time for the park service. Nearly a quarter of NPS staff have departed the agency<\/a> since Trump became president, leading to overstretched and potentially dangerous conditions at storied sites often referred<\/a> to as \u201cAmerica\u2019s best idea\u201d, such as Yellowstone, the Everglades and the Statue of Liberty.<\/p>\n \u201cAmericans have demonstrated they have a deep love affair with national parks and what we\u2019ve seen from these comments is that the public has said this is an insulting and misguided effort,\u201d said John Garder, a senior director at the National Parks Conservation Association.<\/p>\n \u201cRangers shouldn\u2019t be intimidated to not talk about slavery and other things that have happened in America\u2019s past. It\u2019s outrageous and the American public have been deeply disturbed by it.\u201d<\/p>\n However, not all of the submitted comments from what some park staff call \u201csnitch signs\u201d will be used to direct the revamp of park signage. Of the comments seen by the Guardian, fewer than 40 were \u2018flagged for review\u2019 by the park service and of those, fewer than 10 were indicated to be definitely used as part of the response to the interior department order.<\/p>\n This small selection of comments mostly aligns with the administration\u2019s perspective. One complains about \u201crevisionist history based in woke religion\u201d at Muir Woods, another criticizes \u201cfashionable leftist jargon\u201d and a third, from a visitor to Washington\u2019s Rock Creek park, is upset that materials on Francis Newlands, a US senator around the time of the first world war, \u201cdisparage him as a white supremacist for holding what were common views at the time\u201d.<\/p>\n Visitors walk the boardwalk next to Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone national park, Wyoming, on 23 July 2024. Photograph: Jonathan Newton\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cThey want this virtue-washed version of history and they are trying to drive a wedge between us and the public,\u201d said one senior NPS employee, who did not want to be named for fear for retribution.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time there is a comment asking for more information on Indigenous people, it won\u2019t be acknowledged. If there\u2019s someone who says they are terribly offended by a sign, it will be flagged and sent for review.\u201d<\/p>\n The NPS staffer, part of the \u201cresistance rangers\u201d movement within the park service comprising more than 1,000 off-duty rangers that has its own podcast<\/a> in which they contribute anonymously, said that the composition of comments has recently become more pro-Trump since the park service noticed the public were mostly supportive of signs.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seems like an orchestrated effort was made, a lot of the comments appear the same or AI-generated,\u201d said the employee. The Guardian has seen no evidence that the public responses have been distorted by the administration in this way.<\/p>\n \u201cOverwhelmingly, we have a positive response from the public every day. People don\u2019t want this. Every day I have people whisper to me, \u2018we love the parks, we want to help.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The administration is expected to act soon to take down signs it deems inappropriate. On Monday, it began a separate month-long process to review and remove other materials in national park sites, such as books and posters found in gift shops. \u201cWe have to review every single pamphlet, pin and magnet,\u201d said one NPS employee. \u201cThere are going to be hundreds of items that are going to be removed.\u201d<\/p>\n A superintendent of a history-based park said there has been very little guidance on how to judge materials as problematic. \u201cIt\u2019s on the park staff, who are already underresourced, to figure out what to censor, which is really troubling,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve tried to not delegate any of this because I don\u2019t want to make staff do things that go against their values,\u201d the superintendent said of the signs.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a way to stop us talking about difficult topics and tie our hands behind our backs. Overwhelmingly, the public aren\u2019t buying it. They don\u2019t want this. When the department set this up I don\u2019t think they expected so many of the comments to be positive, it backfired a bit on them.\u201d<\/p>\n The purge is part of a wider push by the Trump administration<\/a> to bend American historical, cultural and scientific life to fit its ideological imperatives.<\/p>\n Military bases and statues<\/a> will again bear the name of Confederate generals, climate science reports will be re-edited<\/a> to potentially include discredited, fringe views while current and planned exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution, the world\u2019s largest museum and research complex, will be reviewed<\/a> to \u201cassess tone, historical framing and alignment with American ideals\u201d.<\/p>\n An NPS spokesperson said by 18 September signs found to be \u201cinconsistent\u201d with the Department of Interior order would be removed, covered up or reinstated at a later date.<\/p>\n \u201cThe National Park Service has received several substantive comments to date from across the country complimenting park programs or services, noting maintenance issues, or flagging potential inaccuracies or distortions of information out of context,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn implementing the order, the goal is to foster honest, respectful storytelling that educates visitors while honoring the complexity of our nation\u2019s shared journey and park staff are only sent actionable comments related to that goal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As part of his administration\u2019s war on \u201cwoke\u201d, Donald Trump has asked the American public to report anything…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-354456","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}