Trump asks national park visitors to tattle on 'negative' signs
Signs asking for reports have popped up at national parks and monuments.
Since the start of his second term in the White House, Donald Trump has taken several steps to target the government agency overseeing the country's 63 national parks and hundreds of national park sites.
The 2026 budget that the administration introduced at the start of May includes plans to gut the National Parks Service (NPS) with $1.2 billion in cuts; this would mean a 19% cut to visitor services, a 39% decrease in facility operations and maintenance, and a 51% cut to resource stewardship, which on the NPS website is defined as "protection of unique natural and historical features of units" of the agency.
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'Signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans'
Despite the proposed cuts to protecting and promoting history, an executive order that Trump signed on March 27 instructs several government departments to get rid of any signs that "include any improper partisan ideology" or "perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history."
As a result, the Department of the Interior required the NPS to update any signage that does not "focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or [...] the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape."
As part of Trump's wider war on anything perceived as "woke," this means updating any references to racism, civil rights, or historical explanations that provide more context or alternative perspectives on American history.
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With Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordering the NPS to update its signage to reflect Trump's order by June 13, laminated posters urging visitors to identify any signs they feel paint a negative picture of the region have popped up at national parks like Rocky Mountain in Colorado and Cuyahoga Valley in Ohio.
"Please let us know if you have identified any areas that need repair, any services that need improvement, or any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes and other natural features," the signs now read, featuring a QR code that visitors can scan to provide their feedback . Image source: Shutterstock
'An attempt to circumnavigate authority and tell accurate history'
Visitors have also spotted such signs in front of the South Carolina's Fort Sumter National Monument, where the Confederate Army's attack on Charleston Harbor began the Civil War.
Earlier this month, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also announced that they would reinstate the names of several army bases honoring Confederate figures that had been renamed under the Biden administration.
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The posters urging visitors to report on any signs they feel are negative have been called out by local historians and parks associations as a whitewashing of misdeeds against — and contributions of — many different groups.
"We're seeing this as an attempt to circumnavigate the authority of the Parks Service to tell these stories, to tell accurate history, and to make sure that we learn, particularly from the mistakes of the past," Los Angeles National Parks Conservation Association Program Manager Dennis Arguelles told CBS.
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