From “We Must Preserve History” to a Digital Book Burning

The Same People Who Screamed About “Erasing History” Are Now Doing Exactly That

Not long ago, the loudest voices in American politics insisted that removing Confederate statues was an unforgivable crime against history. The argument was simple: If you take down statues of Robert E. Lee or rename military bases that honored Confederate generals, you are erasing history and denying the past.

But now, those same voices are systematically deleting records of real American history—scrubbing the contributions of women, Black service members, Hispanic leaders, and LGBTQ+ figures from official government archives. Arlington National Cemetery, the Department of Defense, and other federal institutions have quietly removed pages honoring some of America’s most decorated and groundbreaking military figures.

This isn’t about historical preservation. It’s about historical control.

What we’re witnessing is a digital book burning—a calculated effort to erase inconvenient facts, rewrite the past, and ensure that only a narrow, whitewashed version of American history remains.

Who controls the past controls the future.
Who controls the present controls the past.

George Orwell, 1984

The Confederate Monument Debate Was Always About Power, Not History

The vast majority of Confederate monuments weren’t erected in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. They were put up decades later, during two key periods:

  1. The Jim Crow era (late 1800s–early 1900s) when Black Americans were being disenfranchised.
  2. The Civil Rights Movement (1950s–1960s) when Black Americans were fighting for equal rights.

These statues weren’t built to neutrally document history. They were deliberate symbols of intimidation—reminders of who still held power.

Yet, when activists pushed to take them down, the backlash was overwhelming. “You can’t erase history!” they said. “If we start removing monuments, where does it end?” The idea that these statues were not the primary way Americans learn about history didn’t matter. The idea that textbooks, museums, and primary source documents still exist didn’t matter.

What mattered was preserving a particular version of history—one that glorified the Confederacy and minimized the reality of slavery and racial violence.

Now, the same people who said history must never be erased are burning pages from it in real time.

The Digital Purge of Military History

In the last few months, the Trump administration has systematically purged government websites of references to marginalized groups in military history. Arlington National Cemetery, long considered the final resting place for American heroes, has deleted information about Black, Hispanic, and female service members from its website. A spokesperson for the cemetery confirmed that internal links directing users to pages listing notable graves of these individuals have been removed.

Here are just a few of the names now missing from Arlington’s public historical pages:

  • General Colin Powell – The first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
  • Justice Thurgood Marshall – The first Black Supreme Court justice.
  • Major General Marcelite Jordan Harris – The first African American woman brigadier general in the Air Force.
  • Lieutenant Kara Spears Hultgreen – The first female carrier-based fighter pilot in the Navy.
  • Major Marie Therese Rossi – The first American woman to fly helicopters in combat.

Entire sections detailing the histories of the Buffalo Soldiers and the Tuskegee Airmen, two of the most historically significant Black military units, have also been removed.

This is literal historical erasure—not the symbolic kind that Confederate statue defenders once railed against, but the actual destruction of public records and digital archives.

The Hypocrisy Is Blinding

So where are the voices that screamed about “erasing history” when Confederate monuments were taken down?

Where is the outrage from the people who insisted that removing statues of men who fought against the United States was an unacceptable loss to our national memory?

Now that the names being erased belong to Black soldiers, women pioneers, and LGBTQ+ service members, the silence is deafening.

Because the truth is, this was never about history.

If it were, there would be just as much anger about the removal of Colin Powell’s name from Arlington’s website as there was about renaming Fort Bragg. But that anger doesn’t exist, because for these people, some history is worth remembering and some isn’t.

What This Is Really About

This isn’t about preserving or erasing history. It’s about who gets to be remembered.

The Confederate monument debate was about protecting a specific ideological narrative—one that glorifies white supremacy, minimizes the horrors of slavery, and erases Black resistance. The DEI purge happening under the Trump administration is the exact same project in reverse: eliminating the records of anyone who challenges that narrative.

Confederate statues were defended because they reinforce a vision of America where white men are the heroes. The contributions of Black, Hispanic, female, and LGBTQ+ service members are now being erased for the exact same reason.

This is not about fairness. It is not about keeping history neutral. It is not about preventing “wokeness” in the military.

It is about rewriting the past to serve an agenda.

And the people doing it don’t even feel the need to hide it anymore.

The Digital Book Burning Is Just Beginning

What happens when we allow governments to decide which parts of history are worth keeping?

This purge has meaning far beyond Arlington National Cemetery—it’s part of a much bigger effort to reshape public knowledge. From Texas banning school curriculums that discuss systemic racism to Florida rewriting civil rights history to say that enslaved people benefited from slavery, this is an organized effort to curate the past to serve a political agenda.

The same people who claimed to defend history are now the ones destroying it.

And if we don’t push back, the digital book burning won’t stop here.

Sources Include

Similar Posts

Children and Public Protest: Thoughts for Families in Uncertain Times
|

Children and Public Protest: Thoughts for Families in Uncertain Times

ByJoel

Protest, Parenting, and the American Pattern Throughout American history, moments of deep national reckoning have often played out in the streets. From the Boston Tea Party to the Selma to Montgomery marches, from anti-war demonstrations to Standing Rock, protest has been a defining thread in the fabric of our democracy. It is how everyday people—parents,…

Optimized for Survival – The Return of Social Darwinism and Eugenics in American Policy

Optimized for Survival – The Return of Social Darwinism and Eugenics in American Policy

ByJoel

This is the architecture of a belief system—one that never fully died.A system that ranks human worth.That justifies inequality as natural.That frames failure not as structural, but as personal. And this time, it’s not hidden. “You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it is about the genes,…

Where Have All My Constitutional Conservatives Gone?
| | | |

Where Have All My Constitutional Conservatives Gone?

ByJoel

For years, conservatives argued staunchly as defenders of two core American principles: constitutional limits on government power and the rule of law. They warned of creeping authoritarianism, condemned executive overreach, and fought to preserve the separation of powers. In the past few months, that message has disappeared. Since Inauguration Day, several violations of constitutional restraint…

We’ve Already Lost the Trade War
| | |

We’ve Already Lost the Trade War

ByJoel

During his 2024 campaign, again and again, Trump promised that his tariffs would bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. The logic seemed straightforward: make imports more expensive, and companies would have no choice but to shift production to American factories, creating jobs and strengthening the economy. But here we are, less than two months…

The GOP’s Continuing Resolution – It’s Not About Spending. It’s About Power.
|

The GOP’s Continuing Resolution – It’s Not About Spending. It’s About Power.

ByJoel

Yesterday, March 11, 2025, the House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government through September. Now, the bill moves to the Senate, where Democrats face a choice: filibuster and force a shutdown, or allow it to pass and surrender congressional power. The bill includes the usual partisan priorities—Republicans increasing defense and…

America, Inc.: Is Elon Musk Taking the CEO Role?
|

America, Inc.: Is Elon Musk Taking the CEO Role?

ByJoel

From Wealthiest Man to the Most Powerful? Elon Musk has long been more than just the world’s richest man—his companies have embedded themselves into key infrastructure across multiple industries. Now, under the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), his influence within the U.S. government is expanding at an unprecedented rate. Based on how he operates his…