Senator Angus King Criticizes Trump Administration for 'Whitewashing History' at National Parks

National Park Service Funding and Staffing Concerns

• ⚠️ Senator Angus King criticizes the Trump administration's approach to the National Park Service, highlighting a significant reduction in budget justifications from 600 pages to just six.
• 📉 He points to a drastic decrease in staffing levels for the National Park Service, with FTEs nearly halved since the year 2000, despite record visitation.
• 💰 The administration's budget requests show massive cuts, including a 31% decrease for operations and a 42% cut for construction and major maintenance.

The Effort to 'Rewrite History'

• 📚 King expresses deep concern over the administration's efforts to 'whitewash' or 'rewrite history' within national parks by removing information about difficult aspects of American history.
• 🧠 He emphasizes the importance of understanding both the triumphs and the dark parts of history, such as slavery, Japanese American internment, and the treatment of Native Americans, to learn from them and avoid repetition.
• 🇩🇪 King draws a parallel to Germany, where studying the Holocaust is a requirement, contrasting it with the US administration's apparent desire to avoid uncomfortable historical truths.

Specific Instances of Information Removal

• 📸 At Fort Pulaski National Monument, the 'scourged back' photograph, a powerful image depicting the brutality of slavery, was removed.
• 🏞️ At Harper's Ferry, displays on slavery and the abolitionist movement have been targeted for removal, which King likens to removing model rockets from Cape Kennedy.
• 🏝️ Signage addressing Japanese internment and the dispossession of Native peoples was removed from Jamaica Bay National Wildlife Refuge.
• 🗣️ King argues that these removals do not change history but alter citizens' understanding and appreciation of it, a tactic associated with authoritarian governments.

Call for Preservation of National Parks

• 🇺🇸 King states that America's national parks are 'America's best idea' and cannot be 'gutted' for nonsensical reasons.
• 🤝 He reaffirms his commitment to working with Senator Steve Danes on these issues, despite his strong objections to the current administration's policies.