From The New York Times, another reminder that being a dictator means having the power to replace the historical record with self-serving propaganda:

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery removed wall text that referred to President Trump’s two impeachments — language that had upset the White House — when the museum recently replaced a portrait of him in its “America’s Presidents” exhibition.

The wall text described some of Mr. Trump’s political accomplishments… [but] it also included: ‘Impeached twice, on charges of abuse of power and incitement of insurrection after supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, he was acquitted by the Senate in both trials.’

That sentence had long bothered the Trump administration.

The Smithsonian Institution used to be “regarded as independent from the executive branch,” the Times reporter wrote. But now Trump is threatening to cut the Smithsonian’s funding unless it presents him with a list of its current and planned exhibitions, presumably because he intends to block or alter any exhibitions that don’t please him.

My neighbor Swamp Rabbit backed off when I tried to show him the whole article. “Gimme a break. I don’t want to think about that hog monster no more.”

“Dictators think they can erase history,” I said, referencing a conversation he and I had recently. “They count on chumps like you to forget what really happened.”

I was worked up because I’d just reread Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1978), which opens with an anecdote about a 1948 photograph of Klement Gottwald, Czechoslovakia’s Communist leader, standing on an outdoor balcony next to another Communist official, Vladimir Clementis, who had just placed his cap on Gottwald’s head to protect him against the cold while he spoke to a large crowd.

Kundera’s anecdote ends like this:

Four years later Clementis was charged with treason and hanged. The propaganda section immediately airbrushed him out of history and, obviously, out of all the photographs as well. Ever since, Gottwald has stood on the balcony alone. Where Clementis once stood, there is only bare palace wall. All that remains of Clementis is the cap on Gottwald’s head.

“Come on now, Trump ain’t that bad,” Swamp Rabbit said. “Even if he was, the media in this country wouldn’t let a story like that be forgot.”

I rolled my eyes. “What about Fox News? What about Washington Post? They’re trying to make us forget the real story of what happened on January 6, 2021.”

“Maybe,” he said, smiling. “But that was a long time ago, Odd Man.”