Education
Are Trump’s Actions Unprecedented? We Asked Historians (Again).
Since the start of his second term, President Trump has cut budgets, made demands on public institutions, and attacked the media and speech in actions regularly called unprecedented.
In April, we asked presidential historians if they could come up with comparable examples in previous administrations — and to tell us when they couldn’t. You can read that earlier article here.
We went back to the historians (and some political scientists) to help us categorize the administration’s actions and pronouncements that have happened since: whether they’re unprecedented, relatively common or somewhere in between.
No clear precedent
President Trump has taken some actions that do not have a comparable historical example, according to historians.
Used the military to attack and kill suspected drug smugglers
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
President Trump has ordered the military to kill people aboard boats he says have been smuggling drugs, claiming the power to redefine drug trafficking as armed conflict.
IN THE PAST
Historians said the closest parallels to Mr. Trump’s strikes in international waters were attacks on pirates — from Thomas Jefferson’s attacks on Barbary corsairs to Barack Obama’s use of military force against Somali pirates in 2009. But President Obama’s efforts were largely rescue missions; Jefferson was also responding to the capture of American ships.
“Since the 1970s, presidents have claimed the right to take military action, including murderous assaults, against nonstate actors who threaten the United States,” said Jeremi Suri, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. However, he said, “the United States has generally not targeted drug smugglers in this way.”
“The U.S. has helped other governments in Central America to apprehend drug traffickers. No presidents have unilaterally killed alleged drug smugglers in international waters.”
Manisha Sinha
Professor of American History, University of Connecticut
No clear precedent
Cast doubt on vaccine efficacy and safety
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary, the Trump administration has begun to overhaul American vaccine policy. A vaccine skeptic, Mr. Kennedy replaced a vaccine advisory panel with handpicked members. The panel ended a decades-long recommendation to vaccinate babies against hepatitis B at birth. Mr. Kennedy also canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and contracts to develop mRNA vaccines. Mr. Trump hailed Covid vaccines as a miracle during his first term but has since questioned whether they work, and Mr. Kennedy has called them “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
IN THE PAST
Previous presidents have typically promoted vaccines. The government has changed the vaccine schedule and pulled recommendations for vaccines before, including for a rotavirus gastroenteritis vaccine in the 1990s. And manufacturers have voluntarily withdrawn vaccines from the market. But no presidential administration has made such an effort to dismantle vaccine policy.
“Other presidents tried to expand vaccines. This goes all the way back to George Washington during the Revolutionary War, who mandated smallpox inoculations for his army.”
Robert Watson
Professor of History, Lynn University
No clear precedent
Asked states to gerrymander to add more seats for his party
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
President Trump and his aides have pushed for lawmakers across the country to redraw maps in favor of Republicans.
IN THE PAST
This has not been done publicly, though an adviser to George W. Bush, Karl Rove, was reported to have lobbied state legislators to redistrict in 2003.
“No previous president has done this so overtly, but gerrymandering for political advantage has been a basic tool of political parties since the earliest years of the republic.”
Kendrick Clements
Professor, University of South Carolina
No clear precedent
Owned a company that received a major investment from a sovereign state
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
Earlier this year, a state-controlled United Arab Emirates firm used $2 billion of cryptocurrency issued by World Liberty Financial — a start-up owned by the Trump family — to invest in a crypto exchange. That effectively serves as a huge deposit for World Liberty, which can then generate returns in the tens of millions of dollars each year.
IN THE PAST
Historians said there was no comparable example.
“Past presidents took pains to put their holdings in a blind trust or to divest entirely from identifiable individual companies.”
Andrew Rudalevige Professor of Government, Bowdoin College
No clear precedent
Tried to remove a member of the Federal Reserve Board
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
President Trump tried to fire a Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook, accusing her of mortgage fraud. (The Supreme Court stopped the firing until it could hear arguments in January, and she maintains her innocence.) It’s part of a broader, stated effort to gain more influence over the board.
IN THE PAST
Presidents have fought with the Fed before; under President Harry Truman, the head of the Board of Governors resigned amid a disagreement with the administration. But no president has directly fired a Federal Reserve official.
“They have often put pressure on the Fed, but I don’t know of any president who has claimed the power to fire a sitting governor and tried to carry it out.”
David Greenberg Professor of History, Rutgers University
No clear precedent
Ended data collection efforts across government
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
The Trump administration has stopped or plans to stop collecting data on environmental disasters, climate change, food insecurity, emissions from polluters and more.
IN THE PAST
No president has stopped data collection at such a scale.
“There have been other presidents who have appointed people as heads of agencies but who opposed the missions of those agencies. But that is a far cry from eliminating the government’s longstanding practices of producing reliable data, on nearly everything of concern to the public and for which the government is responsible.”
Michael Gerhardt
Professor of Jurisprudence, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Law School
No clear precedent
Ordered a review of public museums to align with administration views
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
The White House told the Smithsonian Institution — a museum group founded and funded by the federal government — that it would have 120 days to change any content that the administration found problematic in “tone, historical framing and alignment with American ideals.”
IN THE PAST
There’s no comparison for such a broad and public demand on the nation’s museums, historians said.
There have been instances of perceived pressure, or limited influence. A former Smithsonian administrator claimed that the National Museum of Natural History toned down an exhibit on climate change during the George W. Bush administration. And it was reported that the Nixon administration told what is now the National Museum of American History to close an exhibit on voting rights ahead of a ball that was part of Nixon’s second inauguration.
No clear precedent
Cast doubt on official Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs numbers
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
President Trump claimed without evidence that weak job numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics were “rigged” and fired the agency’s commissioner.
IN THE PAST
No president has done this publicly and so directly in the years the Bureau of Labor has been collecting and publishing data. (Since the late 1800s.) Ronald Reagan once said a framing of B.L.S. data was misleading, but didn’t question the data itself. Richard Nixon’s administration made some changes to how B.L.S. reported monthly data. But when he threw doubt on the B.L.S., it was in private conversation. (It was eventually revealed that he had blamed Jewish people working at the agency for unfavorable statistics.)
“Presidents have always spun bad numbers; few have declared war on arithmetic itself.”
Alexis Coe
Presidential historian and senior fellow at New America
No clear precedent
Sought damages from the Justice Department for federal investigations into him
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
President Trump is reported to have demanded that the Justice Department pay him $230 million in compensation for past investigations into his actions.
IN THE PAST
There’s no real comparison, historians say. Andrew Jackson was once fined for suspending habeas corpus; he lobbied Congress for a refund. But that lobbying took place after his presidency, said Matthew Warshauer, professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. (It was successful.)
Has happened, but under different circumstances
In several cases, Mr. Trump’s actions are precedented, but there are details that make them different: scale, context, motivation or results.
The following are events in which our scholars did not always agree on the extent of a precedent.
Sent the National Guard to cities
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
President Trump has expanded the role of the National Guard, deploying its troops to cities as part of a stated federal crackdown on crime. In several cases, governors or local officials have sued to block the deployments.
IN THE PAST
Presidents have deployed the National Guard to cities numerous times, including to protect civil rights advocates marching from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama; to enforce Brown v. Board of Education in Little Rock, Ark.; in response to the 1992 Los Angeles riots; to quell a riot in Detroit in 1943; and to help Hurricane Andrew relief efforts in Florida.
But in most cases, unlike President Trump, presidents deployed the National Guard at the request of, or with the cooperation of, state lawmakers. (That was not the case when presidents used the National Guard to support integration in Arkansas and protect civil rights activists in Alabama.)
“With the exception of using troops to protect American citizens during the height of civil rights reform, American presidents have typically respected the authority of states and only mobilized troops at the request of state lawmakers.”
Nicole L. Anslover
Associate Professor of History, Florida Atlantic University
Has happened, but under different circumstances
Directed the attorney general to investigate or prosecute political rivals
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
President Trump has pushed Attorney General Pam Bondi and his Justice Department to investigate or seek criminal charges against his perceived enemies, including George Soros, the billionaire Democratic donor; the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey; and the New York attorney general Letitia James.
IN THE PAST
Nixon also tried to use the federal government — including the Department of Justice — to go after his “enemies list” through investigations and other legal harassment. One memo from his White House counsel describes “how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.”
But “it was on a limited case-by-case basis, and many of his own appointees and federal workers thwarted his illegalities,” said Robert Watson, a professor of history at Lynn University.
“Nixon tried to act in secrecy and deny his vendettas.”
Jeremi Suri
Professor of History and Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin
Has happened, but under different circumstances
Carried out large-scale immigration raids
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
Federal agents have conducted immigration enforcement raids in several Democrat-led cities, arresting and detaining thousands in Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and Charlotte, N.C., among others.
IN THE PAST
Eisenhower carried out deportations of illegal immigrants, known at the time as “Operation Wetback.” These targeted Mexican migrants, and they were more focused on agricultural border areas than major cities.
Has happened, but under different circumstances
Arranged for a government stake in a U.S. company
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
The Trump administration allowed Japan’s Nippon Steel to take over U.S. Steel in exchange for a “golden share” giving the White House a permanent say in the company’s business. (The Trump administration has also purchased shares or options in other private companies involved in minerals, nuclear energy and semiconductors.)
IN THE PAST
The U.S. government received shares of auto companies while bailing them out during the Great Recession in 2009, but it sold those within a few years to recoup some of the money it had spent.
The Trump effort has centered on national security concerns. Prior administrations have taken control of the private sector briefly during wartime, but those were not ongoing ownership stakes.
“I can’t think of an example when companies were forced to pay premiums of this sort to the U.S. government — even giving federal actors formal long-term decision-making authority for corporate behavior — as a cost of doing business.”
Andrew Rudalevige
Professor of Government, Bowdoin College
Has happened, but under different circumstances
Carried out a major demolition and renovation of the White House
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
The Trump administration took down the East Wing of the White House to build a 90,000-square-foot ballroom.
IN THE PAST
The White House went through a demolition and renovation under President Truman, when the building was in danger of physical collapse.
Other presidents have made renovations — including significant expansions — but historians could not name another demolition of a major part of the building.
Has happened, but under different circumstances
Struck a deal with drug companies to sell prescriptions at lower prices and set up an online drugstore with the president’s name
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
President Trump has tried to lower prescription drug prices through two primary channels: He has made deals with numerous major drugmakers (including Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly) to sell drugs to Medicaid at lower prices; and he has committed to starting TrumpRx, a portal through which patients can buy drugs directly from drugmakers.
IN THE PAST
Previous presidents have tried various strategies to make prescription drugs more affordable, including negotiating with industry. (Most recently, the Biden administration brought drugmakers to the negotiating table.)
A marketplace with the president’s name on it is new.
“Earlier efforts to cut drug costs — Bill Clinton’s aborted price-control proposals, George W. Bush’s Medicare Part D expansion, Barack Obama’s negotiation push under the Affordable Care Act — were policy fights, not product launches.”
Alexis Coe Presidential historian and senior fellow at New America
Has happened, but under different circumstances
Pulled back public infrastructure grants in mostly blue states
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
The Trump administration has frozen and terminated grants for infrastructure that were largely set to be in districts that vote Democratic, and the president has bragged about it. “A lot of good can come down from shutdowns,” Mr. Trump said in October. “We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want, and they’d be Democrat things.” (Some Republican districts have also lost projects.)
IN THE PAST
Pulling back funds already allocated is unusual, scholars told The Times. Presidents have often directed government benefits to key constituencies and favored states and districts, but not in such a public and direct manner.
When Nixon’s administration made large cuts to military bases in the early 1970s, states in the Northeast were hit the hardest, leading to speculation that politics played a role.
“Presidents have always played politics with public monies, although often as discreetly as possible.”
Stephen F. Knott
Emeritus Professor of National Security Affairs, United States Naval War College
Has happened, but under different circumstances
Signed large cuts to health care programs into law
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
The sprawling policy bill pushed by the president and passed by Republicans in July contained more than $1.1 trillion in cuts to health care programs, including roughly $900 billion in cuts to Medicaid — about 11 percent of projected spending on the program over a decade.
IN THE PAST
Under President Reagan, Congress reduced Medicaid and Medicare spending. Medicaid cuts in the early 1980s totaled $1 billion each year, around 5 percent of annual Medicaid spending. The cuts came in the form of smaller payments to states, which then cut services. (People forced off welfare rolls by Reagan’s administration often lost Medicaid benefits, too.) George W. Bush signed into law policy changes that made smaller reductions in Medicaid spending.
The Affordable Care Act, signed by President Obama in 2010, included more than $700 billion in reductions to Medicare, though the bill increased spending on health care overall.
“Since the beginning of federal health care programs in the 1930s, policymakers have been more likely to expand than cut such programs.”
Kendrick Clements Professor, University of South Carolina
Has happened, but under different circumstances
Auctioned face-to-face access
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
Mr. Trump invited people who spent the most on his personal cryptocurrency to a White House gala dinner.
IN THE PAST
Many presidents have rewarded their major donors with special privileges. (Bill Clinton gave some top donors meals, outings and overnight stays; major fund-raisers also stayed overnight in George W. Bush’s White House; and inaugurations have long been a way for donors to get close to the president.) But Mr. Trump, not his campaign, personally benefited from the crypto investments.
“The standards of White House conduct related to maintaining proper distance from acts of bribery, perceived or real, have demonstrably deteriorated over the years. In 1958, White House chief of staff Sherman Adams was forced to resign from the Eisenhower administration because he had accepted a vicuña overcoat and a rug from a Boston businessman under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.”
Russell Riley
Professor of Ethics and Institutions, University of Virginia’s Miller Center
Has happened, but under different circumstances
Attacked the media, including suing newspapers
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
President Trump has directed defamation lawsuits against The Wall Street Journal and The Times. He has also sued Paramount (before starting his second term) over a Kamala Harris interview; blocked reporters from parts of the White House where they’ve been allowed for decades; threatened to pull broadcasters’ licences over late-night hosts he dislikes; imposed restrictions on military reporters; and persuaded Congress to cut funding for public media.
IN THE PAST
No other sitting president has specifically filed a defamation lawsuit against a newspaper. (Theodore Roosevelt did sue a small-town newspaper for libel for accusations of drunkenness, but only after leaving office.)
There is, however, a long history of attempts by presidential administrations to pressure the news media over critical coverage. Abraham Lincoln shut down pro-Confederacy newspapers during the Civil War and arrested their editors; in World War I, the government charged some journalists who opposed the war under the Espionage Act; the Nixon administration tried to stop the publication of the Pentagon Papers. Nixon also listed journalists on his “enemies list” and ordered wiretaps of reporters.
“White House grumping about critical coverage is an age-old feature of the Washington community. But rarely has this gone beyond a sharp elbow in the press room or maybe a back-channel call to the publisher to yelp.”
Russell Riley
Professor of Ethics and Institutions, University of Virginia’s Miller Center
Not uncommon
A few of Mr. Trump’s moves are, if not standard practice, still actions that other U.S. presidents have taken in recent decades.
Put on a military parade
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
In June, President Trump presided over a procession of troops, weaponry and military vehicles in Washington in commemoration of the Army’s 250th birthday and his own 79th.
IN THE PAST
Large-scale military parades aren’t uncommon, though they often happen during or at the close of a war. Among other examples, George H.W. Bush held a large military parade in 1991 after the Persian Gulf War, and John F. Kennedy hosted one during his inaugural in 1961, at the height of the Cold War.
Not uncommon
Established fast-track visas for wealthy immigrants
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
The president has launched a program that is intended to allow people to buy legal residency in the U.S. with a $1 million “contribution” to the U.S. government.
IN THE PAST
The U.S. has long had a program that allows entrance to wealthy immigrants: the EB-5 program, for people willing to invest $1 million (less in some circumstances) in a business that would hire Americans. President Trump’s program is new in style — it’s called the “gold card” — but not in function.
“Bill Clinton created the Immigrant Investor Pilot Program, with Obama extending the idea to the Regional Center Pilot Program. It’s actually not a new thing what President Trump is doing.”
Thomas Balcerski
Presidential Historian, Eastern Connecticut State University
Not uncommon
Helped broker an agreement for a cease-fire in Gaza, and an exchange of hostages and prisoners
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
The administration’s deal between Hamas and Israel in October — which Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, helped broker — resulted in a cease-fire and the release of the remaining Israeli hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
IN THE PAST
It’s common for American presidents to step in and help negotiate deals between Israel and Arab nations; President Biden negotiated a cease-fire and prisoner exchange, though the deal fell apart.
“President Trump should be applauded for his effort in the Mideast. This is his greatest foreign policy achievement so far.”
Wilbur C. Rich
Emeritus Professor of Political Science, Wellesley College
Not uncommon
Pulled back United Nations funding
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
President Trump has withdrawn or frozen U.S. funding for several agencies within the U.N., including the World Health Organization and the Human Rights Council.
IN THE PAST
The Reagan administration, claiming mismanagement at the U.N., withheld funds in the 1980s. George W. Bush withheld money from the U.N.’s Population Fund over concerns about abortion and other family planning issues.
“The anti-U.N. rhetoric has been part of the Republican political discourse for some time.”
Manisha Sinha
Professor of American History, University of Connecticut
Not uncommon
Attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities
TRUMP’S ACTIONS
President Trump ordered an attack on three key nuclear sites in Iran in June, without seeking congressional authorization.
IN THE PAST
Though Mr. Trump was the first to bomb Iranian nuclear sites, previous administrations have engaged in sabotage of Iranian nuclear systems — including the George W. Bush and Obama administrations’ development and use of the computer worm Stuxnet. (That was a destructive program that targeted centrifuges and delayed Tehran’s ability to make nuclear weapons.)
More broadly, presidents have long taken military actions without congressional sign-off.
About the data
For this project, we reached out to dozens of historians and political scientists, including some participants of C-SPAN’s Presidential Historians Survey. We asked them to provide us with relevant precedent to specific Trump actions, if there were any, and to describe how those precedents were and were not similar to what Mr. Trump has done.
We received responses from 36 experts. In addition to those we quoted, we used notes and research from: Andrew Bacevich, Paul Brandus, Vernon Burton, Jeffrey Engel, Michael A. Genovese, Harold Holzer, Chandler James, Scott Kaufman, Thomas J. Knock, Douglas L. Kriner, Allan Lichtman, Bruce Miroff, Barbara Perry, Gary Richardson, Robert Schmuhl, Craig Shirley, Brooks Simpson, Robert Strong, Tevi Troy, Mark K. Updegrove, Ted Widmer, B. Dan Wood and David B. Woolner.
We categorized actions based on the overall responses, along with additional reporting and research.
Justin Vaughn and Brandon Rottinghaus of the Presidential Greatness Project assisted in establishing a list of historians and constructing the initial survey.
U.S.A. at 250
Yale’s Bicentennial Schlock collection offers a window into the star-spangled commercialism that swept the country 50 years ago.
The Beinecke Library at Yale is home to countless treasures, including a Gutenberg Bible, an original printing of the Declaration of Independence and hand-drawn maps from the Lewis and Clark expedition.
But on a recent afternoon, in the basement reading room, Joshua Cochran, the library’s curator of American history, reached into one of a dozen archival boxes loaded on a cart and carefully unwrapped a humbler item — a paper cup imprinted with the image of Paul Revere’s lantern.
Also in the boxes were sugar packets with presidential portraits, a Bicentennial burger wrapper and, taped to an index card, a withered “all-American novelty condom,” emblazoned with the slogan “One Time for Old Glory.”
And then there was a rumpled piece of plastic, which on closer inspection turned out to be a “Ben Franklin kite” stamped with the words of the Declaration.
“History is not just about presidents and kings and diplomats, but a lived daily experience for people,” Cochran said. “Looking at this collection, it really reminds you of the everydayness of history.”
The Bicentennial Schlock collection, totaling just over 100 artifacts, is one of Yale’s quirkier holdings. Assembled in 1976 by the historian Jesse Lemisch, it endures as a lively (if a bit grungy) testament to the star-spangled commercialism that swept across the country in the run-up to the 200th anniversary of American independence.
Today, it can be hard to grasp the scale of the swag. By the time the confetti stopped falling, according to one estimate, more than 25,000 items had been produced, from a limited-edition replica of George Washington’s sword to independence-themed toilet paper.
This being the 1970s, the commercialism prompted a countercultural pushback, along with charges that “Buy-centennial” huckersterism had sold out the true radical spirit of ’76.
“You know damn well that we’re going to be inundated for two years with an attempt to sell a plastic image of America to sell cars and cornflakes,” the activist Jeremy Rifkin, a founder of the People’s Bicentennial Commission, an anti-corporate group, told The New York Times in 1974. “To me that’s treason.”
Lemisch, as a lifelong man of the left, was politically sympathetic. But as both a scholar and a self-described “terminal Bicentennial freak,” he also saw an opportunity.
“How many of us,” he wrote in The New Republic in 1976, “are lucky enough to see the central passion of our creative lives translated into the Disney version, and for sale, in this translation, in every supermarket?”
Lemisch, who died in 2018, was not the only one cataloging the goofier manifestations of the Bicentennial. The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum in Grand Rapids, Mich., has a trove of memorabilia, including a can of “Bicentennial air.” And the University of Central Florida has a “Bicentennial Junk” collection. But Lemisch’s comes with an intellectual pedigree forged in the history wars of the ’60s and ’70s.
Lemisch, who got his doctorate from Yale in 1963, was part of a generation of social historians who challenged both the conservative bent of scholarship on early America and what they saw as the historical profession’s complacent, complicit relationship with American power.
In his influential 1967 essay “The American Revolution Seen From the Bottom Up,” he argued that the Revolution wasn’t just a top-down affair but also a genuinely democratic uprising driven by the aspirations of the artisan and working classes, which were ultimately thwarted by wealthy elites.
He also pushed for democratization of the archival record. In a 1971 essay called “The American Revolution Bicentennial and the Papers of Great White Men,” Lemisch lamented that the ambitious and well-funded scholarly editing projects undertaken for the anniversary neglected rabble-rousers like Thomas Paine and Sam Adams, to say nothing of women, Black Americans and Native Americans.
Those projects, he argued, reflected the “arrogant nationalism and elitism” of the 1950s that historians, like the nation itself, were already leaving behind.
The schlock collection had its origins in an undergraduate class Lemisch taught at the State University of New York, Buffalo, in the spring of 1976. The course included scholarly reading, but Lemisch also instructed the students to gather as much Bicentennial junk as they could find.
“We owe it to Those Who Will Come After Us to preserve and interpret these priceless relics,” he wrote in his syllabus. “Let us fill a time capsule with a deeply embarrassing heritage for 2076.”
Forget the quality commemorative items from the Franklin Mint and Colonial Williamsburg. He wanted “real schlock, available schlock, cheap schlock,” ideally costing less than a dollar. And it needed to be properly documented.
“Please,” he wrote, “do not bury me in unannotated schlock!”
Lemisch and his students organized a museum-style exhibition in Buffalo in October 1976. As news stories about this unlikely “Schlock Czar” spread, he started getting fan letters from people across the country, along with additional specimens.
A woman from Brooklyn sent “a piece of Bicentennial Patriotism good enough to eat.” A woman from Muncie, Ind., contributed stars-and-stripes paper surgical caps worn, to her surprise, by the team that had recently operated on her.
Two correspondents sent Lemisch the identical sanitary disposal bags, printed with the Liberty Bell, that had suddenly appeared in the women’s bathroom in their campus library.
“Although the Bicentennial has passed, I can still remember my amazement at being confronted with ‘200 Years of Freedom’ upon entering the toilet,” a student at Rutgers wrote.
At first Lemisch reveled in the public interest. But the attention — someone in San Jose, Calif., he claimed, had even named an omelet after him — left him feeling ambivalent.
“By the time I cut off the interviews,” he wrote in The New Republic that November, “I had become Bicentennial Schlock.”
Still, he staged a revival of the exhibition in New York City in August 1977, at the headquarters of a union. In 1981, he donated the collection to Yale.
“I believe that future researchers will find the material a distinctive collection for reconstructing Americans’ views of the past in 1976,” he wrote at the time.
Since then, Cochran said, it has seen use by classes and researchers. And an Uncle Sam Pez dispenser is currently on view in the Beinecke’s new exhibition, “Unfurling the Flag: Reflections on Patriotism,” alongside non-schlock like Yale’s first printing of the Declaration and a typescript draft of Langston Hughes’s poem “Let America Be America Again.”
“We want to prompt people to think about where their ideas about patriotism come from,” Cochran said. “The Bicentennial was a formative moment for a lot of people, when the iconography was inescapable.”
Today, you can find the same Pez dispenser on eBay, along with tens of thousands of Bicentennial listings running heavily to coins, stamps, plates and ersatz Paul Revere pewter. But Lemisch’s collection includes many items so lowly — wet wipes, dry-cleaning bags, plastic straws in patriotic sleeves — that they may survive nowhere else.
Patriotic Dixie cups and cereal boxes might seem to epitomize the kind of populist “history from below” that Lemisch championed. But he saw things differently.
Bicentennial schlock, Lemisch wrote in The New Republic, had “floated down from above, and responded to no popular longing to celebrate the Bicentennial.” It was “the Watergate of patriotism” — a “healthy demystification” that made Americans “wisely cynical” about the official history they were peddled.
“Since Schlock was the Bicentennial’s most pervasive manifestation and perhaps its most enduring heritage,” he wrote, “it almost seems, emotionally speaking, as if there was no Bicentennial at all.”
Today, historians take a more sanguine view. For all its tensions and contradictions, they argue, the Bicentennial added up a powerful cultural moment. It spawned both new scholarship and a boom in popular history, powered by a more emotional, personal way of relating to the past. And Lemisch’s deadpan museum — along with the delighted public response to it — was very much a part of it.
And this year’s Semiquincentennial? Then, as now, there has been debate over its focus and political meaning, which has intensified as President Trump has moved to put his own stamp on the anniversary. And while there are plenty of exhibitions and events on tap across the country, there has been much less investment and enthusiasm overall.
Which isn’t to say there is no merch. The websites for both America250, the nonpartisan federal planning group created by Congress in 2016, and Freedom 250, an alternate effort backed by President Trump, offer tasteful hats, mugs, playing cards and pickleball paddles. But so far, unapologetic 1976-style schlock appears thin on the ground.
You could chalk the schlock gap up to shifts in consumer culture, growing political polarization or the fact that schlock — or slop? — has moved online. But even back in 1976, Professor Lemisch struggled to draw definitive conclusions.
“What does Bicentennial Schlock mean?” he wrote. “I don’t exactly know. I find that deeply embarrassing.”
“More research,” he added, “is needed.”
new video loaded: Can Olive Oil Be Too Flavorful?
April 28, 2026
Two teenage brothers from the Republic of Congo were living their version of the American dream. They were leaders on their high school basketball team and involved in their local church. The elder was weeks away from graduating.
That dream was thrown into upheaval this month when the brothers were detained by ICE agents who had waited outside their guardians’ home in Diamondhead, Miss. Israel Makoka, 18, and Max Makoka, 15, were leaving to take the bus to school when they were arrested and later moved to separate facilities, in Louisiana and Texas, where they remained on Wednesday.
Their detention has crushed the school community in their conservative small town.
“I’m heartbroken over what’s taking place,” said Stacy Campbell, a history teacher at the brothers’ school, Hancock High in Kiln, Miss., who knows the Makokas. “They definitely do not deserve this. Some of the students are just starting to talk about it, and they are very worried. They want their classmates back at school.”
The Makoka brothers entered the United States legally on F-1 student visas to attend the Piney Woods School, a prominent, historically Black boarding institution. But they felt unhappy there last year, so they transferred to a public school in their host family’s neighborhood.
Before the teenagers transferred to Hancock High in August, a local lawyer advised their host family to become their legal guardians so that they could remain in the country. A judge granted the guardianship request.
The staff at Piney Woods did not warn the family that the teenagers’ transfer to a public school would affect their immigration status, regardless of guardianship, said Amy Maldonado, the immigration lawyer representing the brothers.
Despite doing what they could to follow the law, said Gail Baptiste, one of their guardians, nobody knew until the teenagers’ arrest last week that moving from Piney Woods had nullified their status. Hancock High was not allowed to host people on student visas, and the switch got the attention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The brothers are now facing deportation.
“The kids did nothing — they did nothing at all — and we did not do anything intentionally,” Ms. Baptiste said. She later added, “We hope we’re given a chance to set this right, for their sake.”
Ms. Baptiste remembered that when she tried to show her guardianship documents to immigration agents last week, one told her, “This is worth nothing.” An officer also told her that someone had called “and reported that there were two African kids at Hancock.”
Government documents indicate that the older brother, Israel, was targeted by ICE agents because government officials believed his student visa expired in 2024. He entered the United States in 2023 under an F-1 visa, a temporary student visa, as a minor. Mr. Makoka only recently became a legal adult — his birthday was in March.
His younger brother, Max, entered the country under the same visa a year later. In a statement, a spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday evening that the brothers had “violated their student visas by failing to attend classes at Piney Woods School.”
“They were granted the opportunity to participate in a student exchange program,” the statement said. “However, they failed to attend that school. Because they violated their visas, they are subject to removal.”
Ms. Maldonado said that she submitted a motion for Israel to be released on bond and will petition for Max to be released to his guardians. She added on Wednesday that the brothers would reapply for F-1 status.
“In a situation like this, where everyone was trying to do the right thing, there’s no need to handcuff the children and drag them off,” Ms. Maldonado said. She added, “These are kids that do not need to be deported on taxpayer expense. They just want to finish the school year.”
In its mass deportation campaign, the Trump administration has been particularly aggressive toward people in the United States on student visas. Last year, the administration sought to cancel more than a thousand student visas. International students were given no reasons for the cancellations in some cases, while in others there had been documented minor infractions.
At the same time, U.S. officials have arrested college students for their involvement in pro-Palestinian protests, saying they had undermined the U.S. foreign policy goal of lessening antisemitism.
Community leaders and teachers at Hancock High School said that friends of the brothers have grieved their absence and that students have become concerned for their well-being.
Conner Entriken, the boys’ basketball coach, said that the Makoka brothers were good students who had a strong work ethic and commitment to their team and community. In the short time they attended Hancock, he said, they became involved and loved by many others.
Nothing speaks more to their character, he said, than when they joined an extra run required of teammates who had lost a drill at practice even though the brothers had been on the winning side.
“Max and Israel really took charge of that to show that they were supporting them and then the team did it without asking,” Mr. Entriken said. “You’re not going to meet two better men, period.”
Kirsten Noyes contributed research.
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