A Massachusetts city in the Greater Boston area commissioned a pair of 10-foot-tall bronze statues heavy with cultural and historical significance to honor police and firefighters outside its new public safety headquarters.

Since the statues also carry religious significance — one depicts the winged archangel Michael stepping on the head of a demon, and the other depicts Florian, a third-century firefighting Roman Christian — the American Civil Liberties Union and a handful of secularizing activist groups joined local thin-skinned critics in suing to block the installation last May.

According to the ACLU, having the two statues as the sole adornments on the building's facade "would undermine religious pluralism in Quincy and violate the Massachusetts Constitution’s long-standing requirement that the government remain neutral in matters of religion."

'Let Quincy pay tribute to its firefighters and police.'

The ensuing legal battle has reached the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which heard oral arguments on Wednesday in the case Fitzmaurice v. City of Quincy.

The defendants' thesis, as outlined in their opening brief to the court, is that symbolism on government property should not become "illegal simply because some citizens perceive it to have religious meaning."

Some of the court's justices, Democrat-appointee Gabrielle Wolohojian in particular, did not appear to be entirely buying what the attorney for the city from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty was selling at the outset despite considering his arguments in a city already replete with public art evoking persons, symbols, and themes of religious significance, including multiple statues of Moses.

Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Image

The court proved particularly fixated on whether Florian and Michael's special recognition as saints by the Catholic Church was actually an issue in this case and raised as possibly relevant in a lower court's insinuation that the statues' primary champion, Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch, was untrustworthy and had worked clandestinely to get the statues funded and installed.

The court was not, however, overly receptive to the ACLU's arguments in favor of denying Quincy first responders their statues, which have been defended in recent months by a plethora of organizations, including the nation’s largest firefighter and police unions, various faith groups, and esteemed constitutional scholars.

One justice questioned whether:

such legal concern-mongering constitutes a "heckler's veto" that is here at risk of being normalized;
the plaintiffs were effectively asking the state's high court to "provide less protection than the Supreme Court on free exercise," or "allow more hostility to religion than the Supreme Court would tolerate"; and
the statues endorsed a particular religion — an especially dubious claim given Florian's secular, historical significance and the archangel Michael's significance in multiple distinct faiths as well as in popular culture and literature.

Tom Bowes, president of Quincy's Firefighters Local 792, said in a statement, "For generations, Florian’s legacy has inspired the brave men and women who run toward danger when others need help. We hope the court allows Quincy to honor that tradition and the first responders who live it every day."

Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket and an attorney for the city, said, "In this country, public art doesn't become off-limits just because it may make some people think about religion. We’re confident the justices will apply that commonsense rule here and let Quincy pay tribute to its firefighters and police."

Eric Rassbach, another attorney at Becket, said in the wake of the hearing on Wednesday that the ACLU's argument largely "relied on the supposedly dead legal standard known as the Lemon test, which SCOTUS abrogated."

"For decades, the unusuable Lemon test produced confusion and split decisions in cases involving religious symbols," continued Rassbach. "That changed in 2019, when SCOTUS ruled 7-2 in [American Legion v. American Humanist Association] that the First Amendment does not require removing a WWI memorial cross and made clear that Lemon no longer applies."

While the Supreme Court rejected the relevance of the test articulated by SCOTUS in its 1971 Lemon v. Kurtzman ruling as a way of guiding the court in identifying Establishment Clause violations, Norfolk Superior Court Judge William Sullivan previously leaned heavily on it in the Quincy case.

"It would be a bizarre move for Massachusetts to revive a test that failed so badly at the federal level, especially since Lemon has no grounding in the Commonwealth’s Constitution," wrote Rassbach. "That document takes a different approach: It recognizes the vital role of religion in public life while guaranteeing equal protection for all religious denominations. That’s a far cry from forcing cities to scrub anything that smacks of the religious from all public property."

The court is expected to deliver its decision sometime this fall.

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Archangel Michael statue may yet win the battle against the ACLU after an army of warriors rallies to its cause

Upon learning that the city of Quincy's new statues — one depicting Florian, a third-century firefighting Roman Christian, and the other depicting the winged archangel Michael stepping on the head of a demon — also carried religious significance, the American Civil Liberties Union and a handful of secularizing activist groups joined a few locals in suing last May to block the installation.

'The ACLU has pitted itself against the very heroes who keep our communities safe.'

The city, which will make its case before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court with the help of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty on May 6, has received an outpouring of support from first responders' groups and unions, religious groups, and others keen to defend free speech found intolerable by thin-skinned critics.

The International Association of Fire Fighters and its Bay State affiliate, among the groups that submitted court filings in support of the city, noted that "for the firefighting community, there is perhaps no better image for this project than St. Florian."

Norfolk Superior Court Judge William Sullivan, the Democratic appointee who blocked the planned installation in October, previously argued that the statues "serve no discernable secular purpose."

The IAFF flatly rejected that argument.

Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

"Florian, to be sure, is venerated as a Catholic saint. But that isn't why the City of Quincy is putting him on its public safety building," the IAFF's court filing reads. "Rather, that choice reflects a centuries-old tradition that honors Florian — entirely apart from his significance in the Catholic Church — as a symbol of the courage, selflessness, and sacrifice of firefighters around the world."

Moreover, the association underscored that Florian's legend is now "part of the cultural fabric of firefighting."

The National Association of Police Organizations similarly said of the St. Michael statue, "Although Michael's origins are religious, his significance extends far beyond that context. He is the archetype of core law-enforcement virtues: justice, courage, leadership, and defense of the innocent."

The National Fraternal Order of Police echoed this understanding and drove the point home:

The erection of these statues shows no semblance of religious subordination or favoritism. For this Court to prohibit these statues would not only run contrary to the text and purpose of the Religion Clauses of the Massachusetts Constitution but would also rob the people of Quincy of a special opportunity to honor their firefighters and police officers.

While the Knights of Columbus highlighted America's and Massachusetts' rich histories of acknowledging religion in public art, the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team and the Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty discussed the likely fallout of the ACLU prevailing in this case and how that result might disproportionately impact minority faiths.

They noted, for example, that a ruling against Quincy might set a precedent for denying practicing Jews the ability to build an eruv in public — a demarcated area, created by placing nearly invisible wires on existing utility poles, that permits Jews to carry essential items on the Sabbath.

The American Legion said in its filing that giving the secularists a win here "would put the Massachusetts Constitution on a collision court with the federal one." The Legion noted further that while a state may not favor a religion, it "also may not favor nonreligion by adopting a posture of hostility towards faith."

Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket and attorney for Quincy, stated, "By picking this fight, the ACLU has pitted itself against the very heroes who keep our communities safe."

"This broad coalition of firefighters and police — along with diverse faith communities, public policy experts, and legal scholars — proves just how out of touch the ACLU has become," Davis continued. "We’re hopeful the court will see through this attack and side with Quincy."

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'Monuments matter': Christopher Columbus statue standing tall once again even after radicals did their worst

One of personages repeatedly targeted for erasure in the American left's violent iconoclasm in 2020 has at last found asylum on the White House grounds, thanks to President Donald Trump and some other unrelenting American patriots.

Toppling giants

Liberals appear to have no issue raising and keeping statues in public spaces so long as they are culturally, morally, and/or historically subversive.

Take, for example, the golden statue of a horned monster that was erected atop the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court in January 2023.

The dehumanized figure — which Pakistani-born propagandist Shahzia Sikander purportedly designed to capture the "spirit" of the movement seeking to legalize abortion across the United States — was celebrated by radicals in and outside the courthouse. Claire Bishop, professor of art history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, excitedly told the New York Times, "Maybe she can help channel us back to reinstating Roe v. Wade."

Another statue that liberal activists not only tolerated but celebrated was the ram-headed Baphomet statue the Satanic Temple installed at the Iowa Capitol along with a satanic altar ahead of Christmas that same year.

While evidently unperturbed by demonic imagery, liberal activists have evidenced an aversion in recent years to sculptures reminiscent of America's proud past, noble beginnings, and Christian character.

'These monuments matter.'

Amid the Black Lives Matter-bannered deracination campaign of 2020, radicals vandalized and/or toppled — in many cases through official actions — numerous statutes across the country, including those depicting Spanish missionary Junípero Serra and Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington.

Christopher Columbus — the Italian "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" who sailed under the Spanish flag and whose four transatlantic voyages set the stage for American civilization — was one of the 2020 iconoclasts' most popular targets.

Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

In Baltimore, masked thugs marched through the city's Little Italy neighborhood on July 4, 2020, then toppled a Columbus statue dedicated in 1984 by former Mayor William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan — a destructive act brushed off by city officials.

After tearing down the statue and jumping on the broken Italian Carrara marble likeness of the explorer, the cheering mob threw the remains into the harbor.

The incident took place just days after President Donald Trump, then in his first term, issued an executive order aimed at protecting such statues from destruction — an order where he stated that extremists' "selection of targets reveals a deep ignorance of our history, and is indicative of a desire to indiscriminately destroy anything that honors our past."

Stoop and build 'em up

Some Americans proved unwilling to let the tide wash away American history.

Tilghman Hemsley, a local painter, sculptor, and fisherman, hired a dive team to recover the broken pieces, which were taken to his family's art studio. Hemsley's son, Will, used scans of the recovered pieces to create a replica of the 13-foot statue.

The New York Times reported that the recreation project received $30,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which awarded funds in October 2020 "to help repair and restore statues of iconic historical figures that have been damaged or vandalized, and to construct new ones, in an effort to revitalize public interest in American history in advance of the nation's 250th anniversary in 2026."

Bill Martin, an Italian-American businessman, told the Washington Post that he and his allies also chipped in, raising and spending over $100,000 on the recovery and restoration efforts.

John Pica Jr., the president of Italian American Organizations United — the group that not only commissioned and owned the original statue but reportedly backed the reconstruction efforts — told the Associated Press that he was contacted in 2025 by a middleman who indicated the White House was seeking a statue of Columbus.

Will Hemsley. Amy Davis/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images.

Basil Russo, president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, had reportedly reached out to the Trump administration after Baltimore officials refused to install the replica in public.

'In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero.'

"Columbus statues have long stood as symbols of pride and cultural identity for more than 18 million Americans of Italian descent," Russo said in a statement.

"For over a century, Columbus' legacy helped Italian immigrants navigate prejudice and hardship, serving as a source of unity and belonging as they built new lives in this country," Russo continued. "Columbus Day itself emerged in the aftermath of the 1891 New Orleans lynching, when 11 Italian immigrants were killed by a mob of thousands, an event that prompted a national effort to promote the acceptance and assimilation of Italian Americans. This history remains central to why these monuments matter."

Working in coordination with the Italian American Organizations United, the COPOMIAO gifted the statue to the White House.

On Sunday, the statue — which was reportedly transported to the White House by Tilghman and Will Hemsley along with Randsallstown resident Jeff Bayer — was installed on the north side of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House.

Trump thanked the COPOMIAO in a letter on Sunday for its "incredible generosity in gifting the Federal Government a beautiful statue of Christopher Columbus," noting that he is "truly honored that this magnificent statue will now sit on the grounds of the White House."

The president said further that the statue will "stand as an eternal memorial to courage, adventure, and the noblest aspirations of the human spirit as well as the extraordinary pride of our wonderful Italian American community."

White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Times in a statement Sunday, "In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero, and President Trump will ensure he's honored as such for generations to come."

Tilghman Hemsley told the Baltimore Sun that the statue's installation "was very climactic and it was very fulfilling."

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Blue-state city leans into battle against ACLU over archangel Michael statue honoring police

A Massachusetts city in the Greater Boston area has made abundantly clear that it will not be dominated by the sensitivities of activists — those whose apparent discomfort with America's Christian inheritance has them fighting to hide civic symbols of courage, honor, and bravery.

Dealt a legal setback in October, the city of Quincy is now asking the state's top court to weigh in on the matter of an angel and a saintly firefighter.

Saints and iconoclasts

Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch commissioned renowned sculptor Sergey Eylanbekov to design two 10-foot-tall bronze statues heavy with cultural and historical significance to honor police and firefighters outside their new public safety headquarters.

While the city had erected other statues by Eylanbekov without issue, this time was different as the new statues also carried religious significance — one depicting Florian, a 3rd-century firefighting Roman Christian, and the other depicting the winged archangel Michael stepping on the head of a demon.

The statues have many fans in the community, including Quincy Police Chief Mark Kennedy, who indicated he feels "honored" by the Michael statue, and Quincy Firefighters Local 792 president Tom Bowes, who said, "Florian embodies the values that are most important to our work as firefighters: honor, courage, and bravery."

Not all were, however, pleased.

'If beautiful art has religious meaning to anyone, it must be hidden away from everyone.'

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State joined a handful of locals in suing last May to block the installation.

Among the plaintiffs are:

a Unitarian social justice warrior;
a self-identified Catholic who finds the "violent imagery" of good triumphing over evil to be "offensive";
a local synagogue member who suggested the images "may exacerbate the current rise in anti-Semitism";
an Episcopalian who believes that walking past such statues would amount to "submission to religious symbols"; and
a lapsed Catholic who suggested the image of Michael stepping on the head of a demon was "reminiscent of how George Floyd was killed."

Their lawsuit claimed that "affixing religious icons of one particular faith to a government facility — the city's public safety building, no less — sends an alarming message that those who do not subscribe to the city's preferred religious beliefs are second-class residents who should not feel safe, welcomed, or equally respected by their government."

The complaint strategically neglected to mention the significance of Michael in other religions, in the Western literary canon, and pop culture. Similarly, it largely glossed over Florian's potential secular appeal, emphasizing his recognition by Catholics as a saint.

Detail from 17th century painting of Michael vanquishing Satan. Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images via Getty Images

Mayor Koch emphasized in an affidavit that "the selection had nothing to do with Catholic sainthood, but rather was an effort to boost morale and to symbolize the values of truth, justice, and the prevalence of good over evil."

The plaintiffs evidently saw things differently as their complaint suggested the statues' installation "will not serve a predominantly secular purpose," but rather to "promote, promulgate, and advance one faith, subordinating other faiths as well as nonreligious traditions."

Setback

Norfolk Superior Court obliged the iconoclasts in October, blocking the planned installation of the already purchased and completed statues while the case proceeds.

Judge William Sullivan, a Democratic appointee, said in his ruling that "the Complaint raises colorable concerns that members of the community not adherent to Catholicism or Christian teaching who pass beneath the two statues to report a crime may reasonably question whether they will be treated equally."

The judge suggested further that the statues "serve no discernable secular purpose."

"Although defendants argue that the public has an interest in inspiring the city's first responders in carrying out their work to maximum effectiveness, the court does not conceive the ability, commitment, and enthusiasm of members of the Quincy Police and Fire Departments to serve the communities will be appreciably undermined if the two statues are absent for the duration of this litigation," added Sullivan.

The ACLU — which has alternatively defended the erection of satanic displays on public grounds — celebrated the ruling with Massachusetts chapter staff attorney Rachel Davidson thanking Sullivan for "acknowledging the immediate harm that the installation of these statues would cause."

Onwards and upwards

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court agreed last month to hear an appeal of the lesser court's ruling — an opportunity welcomed both by the ACLU of Massachusetts and the city of Quincy.

"We look forward to defending Quincy’s plan to honor our brave first responders at the Massachusetts high court," Mayor Koch said at the time.

The city — represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Quincy solicitor James Timmins — filed a brief with the SJC on Wednesday, making mince meat of the activists' arguments and underscoring the statues' permissibility under the law.

The brief reiterated that the statues have a secular purpose; their primary effect will not be to advance religion; and their prohibition based on religious hostility would violate the U.S. Constitution.

The brief noted further that the plaintiffs lack standing "since merely observing public symbols one finds disagreeable is not a cognizable injury" and that "the placement of inanimate statues as public art on a public building does not implicate direct support of religion in any manner, let alone the subordination by law of some faiths to others."

To prohibit the statues would also be "at odds with the robust history of public display of other symbols with religious significance" in the state, said the brief.

There are, for instance, statues of Moses and "Religion" in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courthouse; a statue of Pope John Paul II — a Catholic saint — in the Boston Common; and a statue of Quaker martyr Mary Dyer outside the Massachusetts State House in Boston.

"The ACLU’s theory in this case is tragically simple: If beautiful art has religious meaning to anyone, it must be hidden away from everyone," Joseph Davis, senior counsel at Becket and an attorney for the city of Quincy, said in a statement.

"The ACLU’s radical rule flouts our nation’s civic heritage and decades of court decisions," continued Davis. "The Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court should reject the ACLU’s Puritanical demands and make clear that artworks don’t have to be purged from the public square just because they might make someone think of religion."

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'Thugs do not rule America': Replica of Columbus statue toppled by liberal mob may soon have a home — the White House

President Donald Trump is preparing to install a statue commemorating Christopher Columbus outside the White House. So there's no mistaking the counterrevolutionary and restorative nature of this act, the White House will reportedly erect a replica of the figure that iconoclasts unceremoniously tore down and tossed into Baltimore's harbor on July 4, 2020.

Columbus' four transatlantic voyages opened the way for European exploration of the Americas. While once celebrated for his courage and ambition — such that counties, cities, and towns across the United States were named after him — the Italian "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" who sailed under the Spanish flag has in recent years been subjected to routine defamation and denunciations by liberals.

Columbus' memory and likeness were especially popular targets during the left's Black Lives Matter-bannered deracination and iconoclasm campaign of 2020 that saw graves dug up, animals and places renamed, church windows busted, and cities torched.

As various municipalities and institutions such as the Smithsonian advocated for dropping Columbus Day in favor of "Indigenous Peoples' Day," radicals vandalized and toppled statues commemorating the Italian explorer across the country.

'Thugs do not rule America.'

In Baltimore, masked thugs marched through the city's Little Italy neighborhood on July 4, 2020, in search of a target. After harassing restaurant patrons and other residents, the thugs set to work on toppling a Columbus statue dedicated in 1984 by former Mayor William Donald Schaefer and President Ronald Reagan.

After tearing down the statue and jumping on the broken Italian Carrara marble likeness of the great explorer — acts that were brushed off by city officials — the cheering mob chucked the broken pieces into the harbor.

A piece of the Christopher Columbus statue is pulled from the harbor in Baltimore on July 6, 2020. Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun/Tribune News Service via Getty Images.

Artist Tilghman Hemsley hired a dive team to recover the broken pieces, which were taken to his family's art studio. Using 3D scans of the remains, the artist, working in concert with his son, digitally reassembled the statue, then created a mold to fashion a replica out of crushed marble and resin, reported the Baltimore Sun.

"We brought it out of the harbor and reconstructed it, rebuilt it," Hemsley told the Sun. "So it's not really our artwork, but we were instrumental in putting it back together. It's like Humpty Dumpty."

Bill Martin, an Italian-American businessman, told the newly thinned-out Washington Post that he and his allies ultimately raised and spent over $100,000 on the recovery and restoration efforts.

'One of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the earth.'

John Pica Jr., the president of Italian American Organizations United and a former Democratic Maryland state senator, told the Associated Press that he was contacted in 2025 by a middleman who indicated the White House was seeking a statue of Columbus.

Pica's organization took a straw vote and unanimously decided to send a statue to the White House. They reportedly signed the loan agreement on Wednesday.

Pica told the AP that he was "cautiously optimistic" that the statue would make it to the White House and noted that it could possibly be installed "within two weeks."

Two people with knowledge of the counterrevolutionary initiative told the Washington Post that the statue will likely be installed on the south side of the White House grounds, by E Street and north of the Ellipse.

Nino Mangione, a Republican member of the Maryland House of Delegates who was involved in the effort to recover the statue, stated, "Thrilled at the possibility our Columbus statue could be placed at the White House! Stolen, vandalized, and dumped in the harbor in 2020 yet never forgotten."

"Six years later it rises again as a symbol of Italian American pride. Thugs do not rule America," added Mangione.

The statue's potentially imminent installation comes just months after Trump issued a proclamation honoring Columbus, calling him "the original American hero, a giant of Western civilization, and one of the most gallant and visionary men to ever walk the face of the earth."

Trump pledged to "to reclaim his extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue from the left-wing arsonists who have sought to destroy his name and dishonor his memory."

Although the White House would not comment on any statues, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement to Blaze News, "In this White House, Christopher Columbus is a hero. And he will continue to be honored as such by President Trump."

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Plans for first Charlie Kirk statue revealed by formerly woke institution

A Charlie Kirk debate statue has been commissioned by a college that was formerly known to be a bastion of leftism.

Kirk has been honored across the country after his murder on September 10, when he was shot and killed by a suspect who allegedly admitted in text messages that he hated Kirk and that their differences could not be "negotiated."

Since, Kirk has been honored by NFL teams and NASCAR drivers, for example, but it now seems the first statue is being commissioned in his honor.

'She let her pink hair dye fade and her mullet grow out before returning to school.'

A mock-up of the memorial was shared online that showed a bronzed Kirk sitting at a table with a microphone, reaching his hand out across the table.

The endearing design was shared by the New College of Florida on Tuesday, which announced it would "commission a statue of Charlie Kirk to honor his legacy and incredible work after his tragic assassination last week."

The school noted that the statue will be privately funded by "community leaders" and will "stand on campus as a commitment by New College to defend and fight for free speech and civil discourse in American life."

While NCF is seemingly the first institution or group of people anywhere to commission a statue for Kirk, the school has not always been at the forefront of conservatism by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it was once heralded for being a safe place for LGBTQ-themed leftism.

NCF, located in Sarasota, Florida, boasts itself as being "rooted in reason [and] rising with purpose," but was described by a student in 2023 as "a tiny place of safety in this increasingly hostile state."

The student, who identified as "LGBTQ," told the New York Times that he or she was "praying that DeSantis would never find out about [the school]. But he did."

Later that year, Gov. Ron DeSantis followed through on a promise to rid the school of its "woke indoctrination" policies and subsequently eliminated its diversity office and fired its diversity chief and academic librarian. The Times noted both of these faculty members were gay. More than a third of faculty was eliminated — around 36 or so — with 125 students voluntarily leaving the school.

One outgoing student said that the school had lost everything that was "good and charming," while another remaining student was described as doing the following out of fear:

"She let her pink hair dye fade and her mullet grow out before returning to school," the Times wrote. "For fear, she said, that administrators and new students would judge her."

NCF has since increased its enrollment.

Candles and flowers are seen near a portrait of Charlie Kirk at a makeshift memorial during a candlelight vigil at Memorial Park in Provo, Utah, on September 12, 2025. (Photo by Melissa MAJCHRZAK / AFP) (Photo by MELISSA MAJCHRZAK/AFP via Getty Images)

According to a report by Fox 13 on Tuesday, NCF is seeing "record high enrollment."

About 900 students are enrolled in the college for this semester, the most in the school's history. With 300 new students, it marks the third year in a row that the school has reportedly exceeded enrollment expectations.

The location of the Kirk memorial statue has not yet been announced.

NCF was founded in 1960.

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Trump flushes woke programs at Smithsonian museums, orders return of leftist-targeted statues

The left's long march through the institutions was a resounding success. Numerous businesses, churches, libraries, law enforcement agencies, schools, and other organizations have for decades served as incubators for radical activists and amplifiers for pernicious ideologies.

Leftist marchers are, however, now being routed.

Conservatives and other normalcy advocates have in recent years undertaken a reconquest, enjoying success with certain academic institutions such as the New College of Florida as well as major businesses including Walmart, Harley-Davidson, and John Deere.

President Donald Trump — who has taken an axe to DEI, critical race theory, and gender ideology in the federal government and in federally funded organizations — continued his D.C.-focused purge of radicalism on Thursday, this time taking aim at the nation's premier museums.

Trump intends to rid the Smithsonian Institution, its 21 museums and 14 education and research centers, and the National Zoo of radical leftist programs, policies, and installations.

In an executive order titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," the president noted, "Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation's history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth."

'Museums in our Nation's capital should be places where individuals go to learn — not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination.'

"This revisionist movement seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light," continued Trump. "Under this historical revision, our Nation's unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed."

Trump slammed the Biden administration for advancing this "corrosive ideology" and cited the following as examples of the anti-American propaganda at issue.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum's exhibit "The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture," which represents that "[s]ocieties including the United States have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement."
The National Museum of African American History and Culture's assertions that the nuclear family, rugged individualism, self-reliance, prioritization of work over play, emphasis on rational linear thinking, punctuality, decisiveness, and a future-oriented outlook are "aspects and assumptions of whiteness and white culture in the United States."
The "forthcoming Smithsonian American Women's History Museum plans on celebrating the exploits of male athletes participating in women's sports."

The Smithsonian also enraged conservatives in recent years with the National Museum of American History's Hispanic exhibit portraying religion and history through a Marxist lens and the Smithsonian Institution's 2020 "Girlhood" exhibit featuring the racist founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, and a medical transvestite.

Trump directed Vice President JD Vance to work with senior staffers to "remove improper ideology" from the Smithsonian Institution and its museums, education and research centers, and the National Zoo.

Trump also tasked Vance and Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, to work with congressional lawmakers to ensure that Congress avoids bankrolling exhibits or programs at the Smithsonian Institution that "degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy."

Cognizant and critical of the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum's initiative to feature male cross-dressers in future exhibits, Trump also insisted that the museum does "not recognize men as women in any respect."

"Museums in our Nation's capital should be places where individuals go to learn — not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history," said Trump's order.

In addition to flushing leftist radicalism out of the Smithsonian museums, Trump — whose administration has been reverting the names of federal lands and military bases to what they were before Joe Biden took office — set his sights on a restoration of that which the iconoclasts of yesteryear chose to eliminate from the public consciousness.

Radicals both inside and outside government committed to a campaign of destruction and deracination in the wake of George Floyd's death in 2020, digging up graves, toppling statues, renaming animals, melting down busts, and knocking out church windows.

Trump directed Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum to figure out whether public monuments, memorials, statues, or other properties within the Interior Department's jurisdiction were removed or changed during this radical campaign "to perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology."

The president demanded further the reinstatement of pre-existing monuments that were removed.

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ACLU fights archangel Michael statue honoring cops — but court might not normalize 'heckler's veto'

Archangel Michael statue may yet win the battle against the ACLU after an army of warriors rallies to its cause

'Monuments matter': Christopher Columbus statue standing tall once again even after radicals did their worst

Toppling giants

Stoop and build 'em up

Blue-state city leans into battle against ACLU over archangel Michael statue honoring police

Saints and iconoclasts

Setback

Onwards and upwards

'Thugs do not rule America': Replica of Columbus statue toppled by liberal mob may soon have a home — the White House

Plans for first Charlie Kirk statue revealed by formerly woke institution

Trump flushes woke programs at Smithsonian museums, orders return of leftist-targeted statues

Clemson Profs Fired After Abhorrent Posts About Charlie Kirk’s Assassination

New York Judge DELAYS Trump sentencing following SCOTUS immunity ruling

Blaze News original: South Carolina Freedom Caucus stands for conservative principles while fighting the 'uniparty'

Trump Can’t ‘Drain The Swamp’ If He Keeps Endorsing Its Worst Offenders

Epstein flight logs SUBPOENAED, but what are the chances we actually see who’s on the list?

Sara Gonzales exposes Abdul El-Sayed’s disturbing donor network

The NBA Is Enabling The WNBA’s Anti-White Violence

Abdul El-Sayed Promoted Leftist 'Radicalization' Book That Endorses Violent Resistance, Praises George Floyd Rioters for 'Property Destruction'

Toppling giants

Stoop and build 'em up

Saints and iconoclasts

Setback

Onwards and upwards

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