In March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order forbidding federal properties such as museums, parks, and monuments from displaying “content that inappropriately disparages Americans past or living.” In May, the Department of the Interior followed up with its own order directing the National Park Service and other bureaus under its umbrella to post signage “to allow for public input as to the state of the property, its management, and its compliance with this Order.”
The result has been a proliferation of signs soliciting feedback via QR codes, in effect empowering visitors to deploy their iPhones to flag mentions of Native American genocide, slavery, and climate change found on educational plaques. In response, a loose consortium composed of “librarians, public historians, and data experts” at the University of Minnesota launched a campaign called “Save Our Signs.” Insert liberals elbowing conservatives, all with iPhones and QR codes, into your next national park visit here.
This latest culture-war skirmish is instructive, but not quite in the way either side believes. The MAGA right is at least forthright about its desire to have a guilt-free experience at national parks, even if liberals have good reasons to call this desire into question. At the same time, liberals’ defense of signage that “problematizes” American history is just as self-serving, but in ways they would be loath to admit. That is because doing so would require relinquishing their own desire for guilt-free experiences.