Acts of Revisionism: Hitler, Stalin and Trump

Authoritarian leaders typically attempt a radical reshaping of civic life.  Every area of life—from culture and the arts to education and science—becomes subordinated to the preferences of the leader.  Hitler was unusually successful, reordering every aspect of German society and gradually winning the acceptance of the German people.  Stalin created an atmosphere of terror and fear, and more were killed in his purges in Russia than were killed at the hands of the Gestapo and Nazis in Germany.  Trump’s villainy and retributions are designed to intimidate political opponents, particularly liberals and progressives in the states that voted against him in 2016, 2020, and 2024.

These three authoritarians engaged in acts of historical revisionism, which are designed to alter presumed historical facts and rewrite existing historiography.    In 1933, Stalin restored history to a prominent place in the academic curriculum, giving prominence to the achievements of the tsars and the goal of teaching devotion to the motherland.  Hitler made sure that his photograph was displayed prominently in every classroom in the country, and that reading primers included a picture of the Fuhrer.  The teaching of biology was revamped to emphasize the laws of heredity and racial teaching.

Trump’s revisionism is not yet as threatening as the actions of Hitler and Stalin, but is similarly centered on higher education, libraries, and cultural institutions. The New York Times reported last month that the “National Park Service was taking a crowbar to U.S. history.”  On Trump’s orders, Philadelphia’s Independence National Park, visited by several million people annually, took down an exhibit on the contradictions between George Washington’s ownership of enslaved people and the Declaration Of Independence’s promise of liberty.  A plaque at the Muir Woods National Monument in California was dismantled because it noted that the tallest trees on the planet could store carbon dioxide and slow the Earth’s dangerous warming.

In 2025 and 2026, Trump pressured the Smithsonian Institution to pivot away from what he called “divisive,” race-focused narratives toward a more “celebratory” version of American history.  He is using executive orders and funding threats to demand a review of museum content for “improper ideology.”  In renaming the Kennedy Center, he installed a new board of directors and emphasized that traditional and patriotic performances would replace “woke” programming.  White supremacists are being placed in key positions, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which was created to protect our civil rights infrastructure.

All three authoritarians tried to take advantage of perceived international weakness.  Hitler made incremental challenges in Europe, and decided that England and France were not willing to challenge him.  Stalin used terror to establish his basis of power.  Trump perceived a European Union weakened by Brexit in England; the support of right-wing populists in Hungary, France, and Italy; and weak responses from a divided Democratic Party at home and the Western powers in general abroad.  He’s giving freer rein to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and beating up on neighbors in the Western Hemisphere.

As Timothy Snyder warned, “ history does not repeat, but it does instruct.”  Trump is using ugly and dangerous words to describe two American citizens who were executed in Minneapolis (e.g., “urban terrorists,” “insurrectionists”), which suggests that martial law could be forthcoming.  He has sent the director of national intelligence to Georgia in support of voting records from the 2020 election, which he believes was stolen. Trump’s FBI is now arresting journalists.  As Garrison Keillor warned in the past, events will get worse before they get worse.

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