Lonnie Bunch was the first professional historian to lead the Smithsonian Institution. His tenure turned into an unmitigated disaster. After seven years at the helm, he is retiring. And not a moment too soon.
Bunch's race had nothing to do with the Smithsonian's precipitous fall into degraded wokism. There are plenty of black historians, even left-wing historians, who could have avoided the destruction of the Smithsonian as a place where scholarship and education exist to enlighten and provoke thought about who we are, where we came from, and how we got here.
Bunch betrayed the Smithsonian's primary mission to facilitate "the increase and diffusion of knowledge." The Smithsonian was established in 1846 through a bequest by British scientist James Smithson, who left his estate to the United States to found an establishment under that exact phrasing. The Institution interprets this mandate by a dedicated focus on public exhibits, scholarly research, preserving our national heritage, and bringing history, science, education, and the arts to the public.
Until 2019, when Bunch became secretary of the Smithsonian, few controversies arose. Congress debated Smithson's funding for more than a decade, with prominent members like John C. Calhoun arguing against accepting "foreign money."
In the 1990s, an exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum about the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, caused intense opposition. Veterans' groups and members of Congress strongly criticized the proposed text and artifacts, arguing that the script portrayed Japan primarily as a victim and cast American actions in a morally questionable light. Following a political backlash and congressional hearings, the Smithsonian canceled the planned script, leading to the resignation of the museum's director, Martin Harwit.
In 1991, an exhibit at the National Museum of American Art challenged traditional narratives of westward expansion and Manifest Destiny. By framing expansion around topics like displacement, environmental impact, and industrial exploitation, it drew sharp criticism from conservative lawmakers, who threatened to cut the Smithsonian's federal funding over what they viewed as a revisionist and anti-American presentation.
I should point out that there is not one interpretation of American history. There are undisputed facts, to be sure. The interpretation of those facts and the weight historians give to their importance is what's at issue. The displacement of native tribes, America's early industrialization that exploited workers, and even the environmental impact of westward expansion are all important parts of the story of the way west.
But placing those stories above the drive for land by hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who were willing to risk everything for a new life and the belief that settling the continent was a God-given task is a deliberate slight to the people, regardless of color, who created a new nation.
Bunch eschewed that narrative and substituted something alien and, dare I say, un-American.
No one following the Trump administration’s efforts to restore “truth and sanity to American history” will be surprised by Lonnie Bunch’s departure. The first black head of the sprawling congeries of museums and educational initiatives that make up the Smithsonian Institution have long been marinated in the ideological stew we now call “woke”: that compact of anti-American, sexually exotic, grievance-filled animus that the initials “DEI” were concocted to support. Bunch himself said that DEI must be “integral to excellence in museum practice.” Have you noticed how popular acronyms deployed by the left tend to lengthen as time goes on? Thus LGB, for “lesbian, gay, and bisexual,” grew into first into “LGBT,” then “LGBTQ,” then into “LGBTQ+,” that plus sign taking the pressure off the typesetters for a moment. It is an interesting question why this practice of alphabetical inflation should be so common on the left but not the right. Whatever the answer, Bunch is on board with it. “DEAI” is integral to excellence in museum practice,” he said. “FULL STOP.” For the curious, that “A” means “accessibility.”
"In an interview from 2019, Bunch admitted that he wanted the Smithsonian to make “diversity and inclusion so central that it’s no longer talked about," writes The Spectator's Roger Kimball. "He wanted to make DEI central, but he did not want to stop talking about it."
You probably remember "The 1619 Project," the execrable New York Times series by author Nikole Hannah-Jones. It marks the year 1619, when the first ship carrying enslaved Africans arrived in the British colony of Virginia, as a starting date for the United States.
“We call ourselves the Great Convener, Bunch said, “but we’re really a great legitimizer. And I want the Smithsonian to legitimize important issues, whether it’s 1619 or climate change.”
Kimball concludes his critique of Bunch's tenure:
Let me conclude with two points. On the one hand, Bunch claims that he is apolitical. On the other, he strained every fiber to bring politics into the rhetoric and practice of the Smithsonian. Perhaps that is an instance of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s contention that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” In a deeper sense, though, I think Lonnie Bunch’s truck with contradiction is evidence of his susceptibility to one of the prime features of the left-liberal mindset: the conviction that politics is something the other fellow, the chap who disagrees with you, suffers from.
That might be some of the most prescient words about the Left I've heard. Holding contradictory viewpoints about race and class and believing it's not "political," but rather "truth," is the left's de facto fallback position when confronted with the reality of their paradoxical thinking.
The left will see Bunch as a martyr. This should keep his schedule full of speaking engagements where he can regale his left-wing audiences about his heroic battle with the Trump administration for "truth."