Some disputes in modern society seem both essential and inevitable. Others seem totally unnecessary. A case in point is the controversy over President Trump’s call for a systematic review of the content of the Smithsonian Institution’s exhibits over their alleged negativity about the American heritage.

As the president is wont to do, he sparked vociferous debate this week after issuing a Truth Social post, with fewer than the usual number of CAPs, about the Smithsonian:

“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future. We are not going to allow this to happen, and I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made.”

Critics in the media pounced on the president’s words, specifically his comment on slavery, which they took as dismissing concern about a defining event in American history.

This might be unfair to the president, who has not earned a reputation, it can be said, for precision in speech, especially on social media. He is not the first president, however, to endure such scrutiny, nor will he be the last. The words of national leaders are sifted especially finely. Consider the reactions to Jimmy Carter’s use of “malaise” regarding the American people, to Ronald Reagan’s offhand quip that the bombing of the Soviet Union would begin in five minutes, or to Bill Clinton’s awkward statement denying any intimate encounter with a young intern. Does President Trump believe that slavery wasn’t bad or that America did not countenance it in contradiction of its founding ideals? How difficult would it have been for him to say so? Or more generally, make clear that his concern is that the Smithsonian does not balance its narratives of American life and instead foments disputes where none exist?

Let me acknowledge that, as an American who lives hundreds of miles from any of the 21 Smithsonian museums that dominate Washington, D.C. and New York City, I have no ability to assess their content for fidelity to the historical record. But this much is true: our nation’s history is one, as are most nations’, of both tragedy and triumph. The depths from which we have risen can augment our sense of the heights that we have achieved.

Take the National Air and Space Museums on the Mall in Washington, D.C., and in the Virginia suburbs near Dulles Airport. The story is told there of the Challenger and Columbia explosions, of the fire that took the lives of the Apollo 1 crew on the launchpad. But the account of these incidents only underscores the bravery of all the astronauts and engineers who have taken part in America’s space program. Now take a look at China’s coverage of the Cultural Revolution that claimed millions of lives under Mao. It’s not a model we want to follow, where the approved narrative thrives and the truth starves for attention in the few museums that even address the murderous legacy of communism. Russia’s museums offer a more complicated account of that nation’s history, but suffice it to say a true assessment requires a visit to the private Victims of Communism Museum in our nation’s capital, not Moscow.

It seems radically unfair to President Trump to impute to him a disregard for the horror of slavery and the calamitous Civil War that claimed as many as 750,000 lives, North and South, black and white, men and boys who bore the red badge of courage and its consequences. But the critics undoubtedly have a point in one respect. While our nation’s story is best understood as the triumph of the terms of the Declaration of Independence over the depravity of human bondage, all was not made right in the stillness at Appomattox.

Legal segregation endured for nearly a century after the end of the Civil War. Federal intervention — by a Republican president — was necessary in 1957 to carry out the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Another decade passed before state laws banning interracial marriage were struck down in Loving v. Virginia. This is not ancient history. According to one source, more than 77% of the people born in the year Brown v. Board was handed down were still alive as of 2021. The badges and incidents of slavery existed in their lifetimes. Every American should know this history.

Still, it is simply false to assert that Americans’ views have not evolved on racial questions. The Gallup organization has been asking about interracial marriage since 1958. Its first poll found only 4% of Americans supported interracial marriage four years after Brown v. Board. The most recent Gallup poll dates to 2021, and it found that 94% of Americans now support interracial marriage. Strikingly, support was below 50% as recently as 1995. The hallmarks of widespread racial prejudice, or a surge in white supremacy among the American people, are just not there. It is unhelpful for network panelists to strive to stoke these fears in the face of such evidence.

At the same time, it seems disingenuous for at least some of the partisans who want to attack President Trump to paint themselves as epitomes of fairness. A decade ago a group of black Christian pastors, joined by a number of legislators, complained to the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) about the inclusion of a bronze bust of Margaret Sanger in an exhibit called “The Struggle for Justice.” A tour of the contemporary media from what could be safely called “the usual suspects,” such as NPR and The New Yorker, finds little doubt from the reporters that Sanger was a boon to civil rights and to women. The pastors, for their part, expressed profound concern about her record, quashed for decades by Planned Parenthood officials, of heedless comments and actions against supposed genetic inferiors, “human weeds,” and her plan to restrict these inferiors to camps where they could be forcibly sterilized.

To the Obama-era Smithsonian, she remained a hero. It would never have occurred to them to even ask, much less answer in the affirmative (though Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute shows such assessments can indeed be done), whether Dr. Mildred Jefferson, the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and a champion of the civil right to life, should have her bust displayed in the NPG. This too is a contemporary issue: the non-Hispanic black abortion rate is nearly four times that of the non-Hispanic white abortion rate. Every American should know this as well.

Since 2015, of course, Planned Parenthood and the Guttmacher Institute, under intense pressure from their own staff, have retreated from their fulsome praise for Mrs. Sanger because of these unpleasant beliefs and proposals. Her name has been removed from the leading Planned Parenthood clinic in Manhattan, and the annual award — given in her name to figures like Hillary Rodham Clinton, abortionist Dr. Willie Parker, and Dr. Ruth — has been suspended in recognition of her demerits.

To a few wise owls, perhaps the most ominous part of President Trump’s Truth Social post was the statement that the review he wants will be conducted by attorneys. Well. The process might require a bit more variety than that. In the end, the goal of achieving and maintaining balance, depth, and quality at the Smithsonian, and in all of the nation’s publicly supported cultural enterprises, is worth our best efforts as a people. Let the scholars contend. We have a great but imperfect story to share, and it is the hallmark of a free people that we do so with both honesty and conviction.