ss The newly installed plaques are being compared to “drawing mustaches on other people’s portraits” — a shocking analogy that has deeply divided public opinion
President Donald Trump sparked a wave of outrage on Wednesday with the unveiling of his latest addition to his so-called “Presidential Walk of Fame” at the White House.
There are now plaques below the gold-heavy display of portraits of all the U.S. presidents (with the exception of former President Joe Biden, who is represented by an image of an autopen and his signature, a nod to Trump’s unfounded attack on the previous administration). These plaques feature inflammatory language and insults, as well as unusual grammatical and stylistic choices ― including the president’s signature bizarre capitalization.
“Sleepy Joe Biden was, by far, the worst President in American History,” begins the plaque about the man to whom Trump lost the 2020 election. The one for President Barack Obama refers to him as “Barack Hussein Obama” and calls him “one of the most divisive figures in American history” despite the fact that he has the highest favorability rating among living presidents.
Other plaques appear to offer a Trump-centered view on American history ― and not necessarily a historically accurate one. President Gerald Ford’s says he “narrowly lost re-election to Jimmy Carter, probably because of his brave pardon of Richard Nixon.” President Ronald Reagan was apparently “a fan of President Donald J. Trump.”
Meanwhile, the plaque for President Warren G. Harding notes his promise to “safeguard America first, to exalt America first, to live for and revere America first.” President Theodore Roosevelt is noted to have “prevented the European invasion of Venezuela.” And others highlight tariff policies.
There are also mentions of “the Biden Crime Family,” “the Fake News Media,” “the highly ineffective ‘Unaffordable’ Care Act,” “Radical Democrat criminals and thugs” and “terrible Iran Nuclear Deal.” President Bill Clinton’s plaque ends with the sentence, “In 2016, President Clinton’s wife, Hillary, lost the Presidency to President Donald J. Trump!”
It’s all rather reminiscent of the president’s social media posts, just presented in the format of a historical exhibit at the highest level of the federal government.
But what do actual historians think of these … creative takes on presidential biographies? And what is the impact of presenting these kinds of politically charged interpretations of history in an official government setting?
HuffPost reached out to some professors for their thoughts.
“The plaques strike me as more White House decoration than anything else,” said Ellen Fitzpatrick, a professor and scholar specializing in modern American political and intellectual history. “They’re not serious history, that’s for sure, nor do they appear intended to be. Rather, they reflect idiosyncratic and politicized commentary by the current president ― or whomever in his administration wrote the text ― on his predecessors.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described the contents of the plaques as “eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind.” She added, “As a student of history, many were written directly by the President himself.”
But that “student of history” label might be a bit misplaced.
“The fact that several of them are littered with superlatives ― ‘worst President,’ ‘most corrupt,’ ‘unprecedented disasters,’ ‘most humiliating,’ and that’s just the Biden plaque ― reveals they don’t cross the threshold of serious history,” Fitzpatrick said. “In fact, they appear to violate the Trump administration’s own directives seeking the removal of ‘divisive’ narration and ideology from federal historical exhibits and sites. Though again, they seem more akin to interior decoration.”
In March, Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which directed federal agencies to eliminate what the administration characterizes as “divisive,” “negative,” “distorted” or otherwise politicized historical narrative from federal historical sites and institutions.
It’s hard to see how the new plaques fall in line with that order.
“The newly installed plaques are the equivalent of drawing mustaches on other people’s portraits,” said Michael Allen, a Northwestern University associate professor, whose work focuses on U.S. political and diplomatic history. “Like so much of President Trump’s behavior, it is a transgressive act that is beneath the dignity of the office he holds on behalf of the American people.”
He noted that sitting presidents traditionally do not lodge such personal or partisan-charged attacks on their predecessors ― “in part because every president represents the nation and its people, and because only history can judge them and its judgments change over time.”
“With this act, President Trump violates that tradition, as he has many others,” Allen added. “History will also judge him.”
Mark Brockway, an assistant teaching professor in political science at Syracuse University, described the plaques as “very much on brand” for Trump ― and, from a political‑strategy standpoint, potentially effective.
“This is where Trump gets his power ― making liberals, or whoever he’s fighting, out to be evil or the worst or incompetent, or making fun of them, teasing them, owning them, trolling them,” he explained. “He’s not good at doing policy or being a president in the way we normally think of a president.”
Brockway noted that the plaques may seem ridiculous and are certainly a ham-fisted approach to pushing a message.
“But they really are a way to reaffirm the narrative that everything that’s wrong in the world is because of somebody else,” he said. “And that Trump is going to save us from the evils and horrors that have befallen us because of these previous administrations.”
He pointed to the use of vague language and superlatives in the Biden and Obama plaques in particular ― with lines like “worst president in American history.”
“It doesn’t make clear why Biden is the worst president in history, but that lack of clarity allows anyone to latch onto the idea that he was terrible,” Brockway said. “And then Donald Trump gets his power from being the guy that is fighting these folks and having this powerful enemy he needs to go against. So the more vague and the more weird that enemy is, the more powerful Donald Trump becomes.”
Rather than advancing policy arguments, Trump taps into what Brockway called “vibes-based polarization,” as he feeds into this narrative that “Democrats are outraged and coming for us! We need to fight them!”
Brockway also pointed to the vague description of President Ronald Reagan as “a fan of President Donald J. Trump,” language that allows supporters to project whatever meaning they choose ― whether economic policy, personality or symbolism.
“If it doesn’t say much, then it’s hard to argue against it,” he said. “And it’s just so aggrandizing. It’s very on brand. Trump is able to basically show up and act like a high school student, talk trash about a bunch of stuff, post it online and people are still going to vote for him.”
While some might label the plaques as propaganda or an attempt to rewrite history, Brockway doesn’t quite see it that way.
“Frankly, if they wanted to do that, they could do a better job,” he said. “If they’re really trying to rewrite history, they would make it more serious, or they might just not have any references to Obama or Biden. With a lot of other authoritarian regimes, we see they totally wipe out any reference to past leaders. And the reason that Donald Trump doesn’t want to do that is because he doesn’t get any power from that.”
Taken together, the plaques may say less about the presidents they target than about Trump himself and his fixation on legacy.
“Sitting presidents have often been critical of the actions of their predecessors ― though rarely in this tone ― but I don’t know of anyone else who mounted a similar exhibit of this kind in the White House,” Fitzpatrick said.
In a sense, Trump is displaying a familiar presidential impulse: concern about how his administration might be viewed in the longer arc of history.
Wrap UpThe YearWith Purpose
Your SupportFuelsOur Mission
Your SupportFuelsOur Mission
A small act with lasting impact
This newsroom tells stories that reflect real lives and real stakes. Your support ensures that work continues. Join as a member today and close the year by strengthening independent reporting for all.
We remain committed to providing you with the unflinching, fact-based journalism everyone deserves.
Thank you again for your support along the way. We’re truly grateful for readers like you! Your initial support helped get us here and bolstered our newsroom, which kept us strong during uncertain times. Now as we continue, we need your help more than ever. We hope you will join us once again.
We remain committed to providing you with the unflinching, fact-based journalism everyone deserves.
Thank you again for your support along the way. We’re truly grateful for readers like you! Your initial support helped get us here and bolstered our newsroom, which kept us strong during uncertain times. Now as we continue, we need your help more than ever. We hope you will join us once again.
Already a member? Log in to hide these messages.
As the author of “History’s Memory: Writing America’s Past, 1880-1980,” Fitzpatrick knows that impulse well.
“Presidential libraries ideally ensure the record of their administrations are well documented and preserved,” she said. “Many presidents write memoirs to ensure their perspective is heard. In the end, however, as long as we have the free expression of ideas, no one can control the ever evolving nature of historical knowledge and understanding. And that’s a good thing for the country and its citizens.”
