When History Becomes Inconvenient, They Delete It

History isn’t just a collection of facts—it’s power. The way history is told, who gets to tell it, and whose stories are erased shape how a country understands itself. It’s why authoritarian regimes have always sought to rewrite, distort, or outright delete the past. And right now, in real-time, we’re watching history being scrubbed, censored, and rebranded under Trump’s second administration.

The latest purge is happening across multiple fronts. In the military, the Pentagon is deleting thousands of records that highlight the contributions of women, Black and Latino service members, and historical moments that don’t align with Trump’s hard-right vision. More than 26,000 images and documents have already been flagged for removal, including tributes to WWII war heroes, the Tuskegee Airmen, and the first women to pass Marine infantry training. One particularly egregious example? The removal of the Medal of Honor page for Charles Calvin Rogers, a Black Army general recognized for extraordinary bravery in Vietnam. His story didn’t suddenly become irrelevant—it became inconvenient.

And it’s not just the military. Book bans, school curriculum crackdowns, and a full-scale attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are accelerating. Libraries are purging books, states are reworking history textbooks to remove mentions of systemic racism, and entire educational programs are being gutted under the false banner of fighting “wokeness”. Trump’s executive order to eliminate DEI programs across federal agencies has led to the dismantling of entire offices dedicated to preserving historical accuracy, equity, and representation. This isn’t about efficiency—it’s about control.

So why the full-court press on erasing history? Because the easiest way to reshape the future is to manipulate the past. When people no longer have access to historical truths, they become easier to sway with propaganda. If you erase the history of Black and Brown military heroes, it’s easier to push the idea that they never existed. If you ban books on race, gender, and LGBTQ+ issues, you create an environment where people grow up ignorant of struggles they might have otherwise fought against. If you whitewash history curricula, you make oppression, systemic racism, and government-sanctioned discrimination seem like things of the past—rather than forces that still shape our reality.

The strategy is disturbingly effective. Studies show that young people’s knowledge of history is already slipping—with significant gaps in understanding events like Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, or even how basic democratic institutions function. Now, add an education system where states can freely choose to erase, distort, or ignore inconvenient truths, and you’ve got an electorate primed to accept whatever narrative those in power want to push.

This is more than just a culture war fight over what books should be on the shelves—it’s a political power move. Authoritarian regimes have always used historical erasure to solidify control, whether it was the Soviet Union rewriting history to erase political dissidents or Nazi Germany banning books that challenged its ideology. The blueprint is the same: if you control the story, you control the people.

The consequences of this are massive. A nation that doesn’t know its history is doomed to repeat it. The more disconnected we become from the struggles that won us civil rights, labor protections, and democracy itself, the easier it becomes to undo those very protections. This isn’t just about censorship—it’s about deliberately engineering a more ignorant, more obedient population. And once that happens, the people in power can do whatever they want, with little resistance.

We are witnessing a slow-motion erasure of history, and the time to fight back is now. That means challenging these policies at every level, supporting educators, libraries, and journalists working to preserve the truth, and calling out this agenda for what it is: a coordinated, strategic attack on knowledge itself. Because once history is erased, the only thing left is whatever those in power want you to believe.