History Memes

The NPS isnt exactly some perfect entity either. Its improved over time, but fundamentally started as a national propaganda machine and has throughout its history federalized spaces in ways that upended local usage and stewardship (sometimes for good and sometimes for bad). The propaganda aspect isnt even implied either, it literally was a stated goal at the time and throughout its history. The NPS was created to preserve exceptional American landscapes and historical sites with the express intent of those spaces being vehicles for promoting the idea of American exceptionalism and national superiority among the population.

Trump’s administration has been trying to get it back to its propagandist roots especially, for example attempts to undo all the progress that has been made in providing quality educational opportunities at NPS spaces (teaching inclusive versions of history rather than skimping on details that make the US look bad) under the guise of “eliminating DEI”. They want to send it back to the time where Americans visited NPS sites in order to get a whitewashed feel-good version of historical events and beat off to the imagination of being idolized pioneers or pilgrims.

The federalization of space is more complicated, as sometimes local areas used now-federal controlled space in ways that were destructive to the environment that was sought to be protected. But it also is not always a good thing concretely. Just look at how it has given Trump’s administration the opportunity to sell off protected space to the highest bidders for oil & gas, logging, etc. It’s a problem with NFS lands too especially, but Bears Ears National Monument is a foremost example and that is NPS space. Historically you can see a lot of problems with federalization in something more like the Gateway Arch / Jefferson monument. Not only a gigantic piece of propaganda in and of itself, but the space for the park also effectively eliminated the entire riverfront of the city of St. Louis. Like 30 square blocks just seized by the government and torn down, which then became a literal giant parking lot for several decades before they ever bothered to build the thing that they seized it for. The whole thing was basically just government propaganda meets real estate developer interests, because destroying all that property made other property around the city far more valuable. To this day the city is still fairly fucked up due to its most historically valuable area being federalized and destroyed just for the sake of building a giant pioneer-glazing croquet wicket and the worlds most boring park grounds