C2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 , 2020
claims about voter fraud, the
American people need to under-
stand the Newburgh story, its
larger ramific ations and how the
successful suppression of the
rebellion continues to influence
our country’s military.
During the ceremony Wednes-
day afternoon, at which partici-
pants gathered masked in the
museum’s cavernous lobby, Army
Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reiterat-
ed the “unique” loyalty of the
Army, not “to a country, a t ribe or
religion” but to the Constitution.
But the events also included
civilian leaders, among them,
Christopher C. Miller, who be-
came acting secretary of defense
after Trump fired Secretary Mark
T. Esper via tweet on Monday, as
well as Secretary of the Army
Ryan D. McCarthy, who ordered
National Guard troops into the
streets of Washington over the
summer, and dispatched helicop-
ters that flew low over the city in
a way that many civilians found
menacing.
The Army and the Army His-
torical Foundation have devoted
substantial resources to create a
museum that now ranks among
the major public-history institu-
tions in and near the nation’s
capital. Located on a grassy plain
surrounded by forest on the
grounds of Fort Belvoi r, the
$430 million Army museum is
far more than an exercise in
institutional hagiography or, like
the National Museum of the
Marine Corps in Quantico, a
mostly theme-park recruitment
experience.
Professional and amateur his-
torians can dispute details of the
material presented, and parse
the nuances of what is empha-
sized and sometimes obfuscated.
But this is a professional mu-
seum, full of revelatory and emo-
tionally powerful objects, ar-
ranged into a narrative that
tracks not just the history of the
Army, but also the larger social
and cultural history of the Unit-
ed St ates.
The Newburgh Conspiracy,
presented in a gallery devoted to
“Founding the Nation” and again
in a large exhibition dubbed
“Army and Society,” underscores
the Army’s rock-ribbed sense of
purpose — t o support and defend
the Constitution — and its en-
during mythology — an apoliti-
cal, highly professional, unri-
valed military force. This is ap-
parent not just in the museum’s
exhibitions, but also in its archi-
tecture. Designed by the blue-
chip firm Skidmore, Owings &
Merrill (with Colin Koop as lead
partner), the shining, steel-clad
pavilions of the 185,000-square-
foot building command a g reen
plateau, yet front onto an enor-
mous open field.
The building is trim and effi-
cient and perhaps intentionally
bland in a corporate wa y, but
manicured like a well-pressed
uniform. It meets relatively high
environmental standards, with
LED lighting and gr een roofs,
and yet, unlike some recent dire
warnings (from the president in
an anti-environmental rant)
about energy-efficient design, it
has windows, and many of its
spaces feel open and bright.
The large lobby is dominated
by a black granite “campaign
wall,” which lists all of the Army’s
military campaigns. This intro-
duces a tension that is well
NOTEBOOK FROM C1
orchestrated throughout the mu-
seum, between the insider lore of
the Army and the need to explain
this lore to outsiders. The solu-
tion is to say: Our story is your
story.
Some 30 million people have
served in the Army since its
founding, and if one adds to that
number all the family and de-
scendants who feel deeply con-
nected to that service, the Army
can lay c laim to being one of the
broadest and most capacious
institutions in American life.
Throughout the museum’s gal-
leries, and spilling out onto the
entry plazas, metal pylons make
this more personal, with etched
images of individual soldiers
from all periods of the Army’s
histo ry, and text that describes
their lives and contributions.
The danger of this narrative-
driven approach, with a direct
appeal to collective experience
and feelings of common good, is
obvious. The Army isn’t just the
sum of individual experiences; it
is an instrument of power. And ithas exercised that power not just
in times of danger and vulnera-
bilit y, including the early, unsta-
ble years of the nascent country,
but also throughout our history.
It has been used to force NativeAmericans off their land, aggres-
sively conquer territory held by
other countries, including Mexi-
co, assert colonial dominion
around the globe, and engage in
unpopular wars in such places asVietnam and, later, Iraq and
Afghanistan.
These facts must be acknowl-
edged, too, and for the most part,
the museum’s curators do so. I
picked a few important touch-
stones of Army history and
looked for discussion of them,
including the My Lai Massacre in
Vietnam, the segregated Army
and the “Indian Wars” against
the rightful native inhabitants of
what is now America. All of this
is broached, though often in
language that is both madden-
ingly dispassionate and morally
obtuse. Native Americans and
American settlers clashed be-
cause they “needed the same
lands” is tone deaf, but there is at
least an acknowledgment that
the Native Americans “fought for
their freedom.” The 1968 My Lai
Massacre, a w ar crime in which
hundreds of civilians were
killed, is summed up thus: “The
event raised unsettling ques-
tions about the conduct of the
war.”
This is insufficient, and one ofthe more significant place s
where the curators have failed to
adequately explain the severity
and context of the material. But
it is a rare fumble in a museum
that also acknowledges the role
that pacifists have played in
American histor y, the relatively
early desegregation of the mili-
tary, the service of women and
the end of the anti-LGBTQ “don’t
ask, don’t tell” policy.
Years of political demagogu-
ery, oratorical bluster and super-
charged political rancor have
changed how many Americans
react to language that is bland,
bureaucratic and institutional.
Blandness can be a virtue, some-
times even in a politician. There
will be churn in every democra-
cy, but perpetual and increasing-
ly dire crisis is unsustainable.
Carefully parsed language aimed
at getting most of the story
correct — the rhetorical strategy
of in stitutions that seek public
trust — c reates a stable founda-
tion on which to have more
contentious conversations about
the d etails of the truth.
The success of this museum is
directly related to the Army’s
institutional values, its belief
that it is a nonpartisan tool of
civilian power. Whether that is
true, or has been true only some
of the time, is less important
than the fact that the Army
projects th at as an essential
value. Sometimes, especially
during periods of upheaval, what
you want to be is more important
than what you have been. It is
deeply disturbing that Joint
Chiefs chairman Milley partici-
pated in a politically divisive
photo op orchestrated by the
president outside the White
House, after troops violently dis-
persed peaceful protesters from
Lafaye tte Square. But that Mil-
ley, a g eneral who is among those
Trump has referred to as “my
generals,” apologized for doing
so also suggests the persistence
of the lessons learned at New-
burgh more than 230 years ago.
There are American univer-
sities, newspapers and corpora-
tions that are older than the U.S.
Army, but it ’s hard to think of
institutions of similar size, im-
portance and civic influence that
are older than our military
branches. And outside of reli-
gion, few institutions have been
so effective at producing sacred
historical objects — flags, uni-
forms, documents and weapons
— that are so bound up with
colle ctive emotion. These relics
have enormous power to unify
feeling, and coerce it. The Ar my
and the Army Historical Founda-
tion have managed to deploy
these things in service to history,
explained with care and context,
in exhibits designed to appeal to
a broad audience of all ages.
During this extended period of
uncertainty, when reasonable
people are warning of a potential
coup d’etat by a defeated presi-
dential candidate, we can’t be
sure what the Army will do. But
the tone of this museum, the
clarity and temperance of its
message, gives one hope that it
will indeed support and defend
the Constitution of the United
States against all enemies, for-
eign and domestic.
philip.kennico [email protected]National Museum of the United
States Army, 1775 Liberty Dr., Fort
Belvoir, Va. Open daily from 9 a.m. to
5 p.m. Free admission, but timed
tickets are required. thenmusa.org.The Army Museum and an idea that’s worth fighting for
PHOTOS BY BILL O’LEARY/THE WASHINGTON POST
T he National Museum of the United States Army is spit and polish on the outside, and inside are exhibits devoted to heroes and some of the
more ignoble moments from every era of the service’s histor y. But it’s the Army’s in stitutional values that deservedly get t he biggest hooah.The Army and the Army Historical Foundation
have devoted substantial resources to create a
museum that now ranks among the major public-
history institutions in and near the nation’s capital.
Biden. (Whether the network
may have been shamed into
this, early on, by a CNN story
about its decision-making is a
possibility, though Fox
vehemently denies it.) And the
mainstream press has given
Trump’s mewling a l ot of
attention without giving it much
credence.
Still, some of the worst
tendencies of the media are on
display, even if in muted form.
The two I’ve seen most
frequently are the endless
infatuation with dramatic
conflict and th e tendency to give
equal treatment to both sides of
any equation. Thus we get
chyrons and headlines such as
this one in Axios: “As Trump
fights the transition in D.C., the
world moves on to Biden.”
Feels about equal, right? With
Trump getting the top billing.
And then there’s the straight-
ahead repetition of dangerous
rhetoric, as in this NPR he adline
about a startling statement by
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
one he may have meant as a
joke: “Pompeo Promises a
SULLIVAN FROM C1 ‘Smooth Transition To A Second
Trump Administration.’ ”
And speaking of the “both
sides” problem, Fox media
expert Howard Kurtz, formerly
of The Washington Post, took a
drubbing Wednesday on Twitter
for writing this promo of his
column: “From Trump’s GSA
barring Biden transition
officials from federal buildings
to Whoopi Goldberg telling his
voters to suck it up, both sides
are playing the politics of
payback. Why the anger still
rage s and the election feels
endless.” (He defended himself
by saying that the column itself
was more sensible. It was, a
little.)
But some of the most effective
coverage of what’s happening
has necess arily included a f air
amount of commentary — or
straight-up opinion.
Notable in this category was
the Atlanta Journal-
Constitution’s editorial,
displayed in a very unusual
place: above the newspaper’s
front-page flag on Wednesday. It
harshly criticized Georgia ’s
senators, Republicans Kelly
Loeffler and David Perdue, for
echoing Trump’s claims with an
attack on the state’s voting
integrity.
“That is dangerous behavior,
both for this state and for this
nation,” declared the editorial.
On the Wall Street Journal’s
editorial page, even Karl Rove —
a regular pro-Trump presence
on Fox News — was calling forTrump to face the music: “The
president’s efforts are unlikely
to move a single state from Mr.
Biden’s column, and certainly
they’re not enough to change
the final outcome.” (He sounded
a li ttle less sure on the air.)
A group of political scientists
and media scholars that calls
itself the Election Coverage andDemocracy Network has come
up with recommendations for
journalists navigating this
moment. This point of theirs
deserves particular emphasis:
“Use a democracy-worthy frame,
not a p artisan one. This means
denying a platform to partisan
pundits who advance false
claims.”
The media writ large,
addicted to dramatic conflict
and false balance in the
mistaken name of fairness, finds
that exceedingly hard to do.
But some are managing to
pull it off. Jake Tapper did it
well in his initial comments
early this week on CNN’s “The
Lead,” by keeping Biden’s latest
activities in the foreground and
recapping Pompeo’s alleged joke
about a second Trump term by
noting, with undisguised
outrage , “That is madness.”
Sometimes, good journalism
comes down to the basics: an
energetic adherence to facts, as
with the New York Times’s
survey of Republican and
Democratic voting officials in all
50 states, which produced this
front-page banner headline:
“Election Officials NationwideFind No Fraud.” And tireless
fact-checking enters in, too, as
in a Washington Post debunking
of four viral videos that falsely
claimed voter fraud.
For Shachtman, of the Daily
Beast, sophisticated coverage
looks beneath the surface, too,
to real motivation, as with a
story headlined, “All the Ways
Trumpworld Wants to Cash In
On MAGA Anger Over the
Election.”
“It’s important to show,” he
wrote to me, “that, for many of
the operatives pretending to
back the president here, this is
just a grift.”
Grift, attempted coup, the
first stages (denial and anger) of
Trumpian grief? Or are they all
insidiously combined in a toxic,
anti-democratic stew?
As journalists navigate this
tricky path, I’ve seen some
stumbles, some skillful
tightrope-walking and some
bravery.
And there’s a long, dangerous
way to go.
[email protected]For more by Margaret Sullivan visit
wapo.st/sullivanMARGARET SULLIVAN
How to cover a coup attempt — or whatever this flailing president is trying
JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST
As President Trump hunkers down at the White House refusing to
admit defeat, the media faces a balancing act — c onveying the
danger of his recalcitrance without resorting to fearmongering.