On my way to visit the corrosive art that I cannot imagine Trump has actually seen, I dropped in on a school tour where the guide plopped down a bunch of sixth-graders in front of a magnificent portrait of George Washington — the most famous one, the one by Gilbert Stuart— and there she revealed that there are actually multiple versions of this portrait in existence. They're drafts. Some are just sketches; some contain just his face. They're all just rough drafts that got closer and closer to the real thing, as the artist tried his best to capture this complicated man, this founder of our country, this enslaver, this hero. And that is how history is made. Rough drafts, again and again.
"What exactly does Trump think is in the Smithsonian? Following his most recent executive order, I went in search of some 'corrosive ideology.'" Washington Post, April 2,2025.
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