Down The Memory Hole

Since the Trump administration came back into power, there’s been a concerted effort to “disappear” all kinds of historical facts and figures in our country. Trump brays that DEI (diversity, exclusivity, inclusion) or “wokeness” is the root of all the problems in America, so he and his minions are actively removing books, web pages, photos, and anything else that refers to anyone/thing that’s not white, male, straight, and Christian.

It’s straight out of 1984’s famous “Memory Hole” – although these folks use Orwell’s dystopian novel as a playbook.

Here are but a very few examples of things they’re trying to erase (and we’re not even six months into this term).

The Department of Defense website scrubbed stories about the military contributions of baseball great Jackie Robinson, the Navajo Code Talkers, the Tuskegee Airmen, and a Native American soldier who is part of that iconic photo of the raising of the flag over Iwo Jima (this material has since been restored after public outcry).

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth oversaw another huge purge of information on the DOD site about people of color. They even removed a photo of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki during WW II. Because, “gay.”

A number of top female military leaders have been ousted. The Naval Academy library has removed books about the Holocaust, feminism, racism and more.

A more disturbing twist on Trump’s “disappearing” efforts involve living human beings. A large number of people – including American citizens – have been swept up by ICE and shipped to a notoriously dangerous El Salvador prison without due process or evidence of criminal wrongdoing. One Maryland father was nabbed by “mistake” but there’s no rush to rectify that, so he languishes in this notorious place. It’s frightening.

These desperate acts to “restore” some mythical notion of America is the last gasp of a dying, outdated ideology.  No matter what they do, history has shown that you can burn all the books, disappear people, try to rewrite or bury established facts and it never, ever works.

Ever.

It reminds me of gardening. In my yard, I’m always finding little treasures that have been long buried. Most recently, it was an old bottle dating to 1910. After all these years, it had worked its way back up to the surface where I found it while cleaning up leaves.

The Memory Hole is not inevitable; despite Trump’s efforts, everything surfaces eventually.

Cindy Grogan is a writer, lover of history and "Star Trek" (TOS), and hardcore politics junkie. There was that one time she campaigned for Gerald Ford (yikes), but ever since, she's been devoted to Democratic and progressive policies.