The White House recently commissioned a new history exhibit in Washington, D.C. created by the far-right “education” group PragerU. The exhibit features 82 paintings and 40 AI videos, presenting a rather distorted view of America’s founding.
The AI-generated videos even include fake quotes from the founding fathers, including one that seems like a joke. But the folks at PragerU are serious about their mission, even if the intention is to own the libs.
What kind of quotes are we talking about? The video of an AI-generated John Adams, which is available online at Prager U’s website, shows the second president saying, “facts do not care about our feelings.” That’s a phrase that became popularized in the 2010s by far-right influencers like Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk.
Historically, White House exhibits haven’t included such obvious attempts at trolling.
It should be noted that the closed captioning reads “your feelings” rather than “our feelings,” the latter being how it’s spoken by the AI John Adams for whatever reason. But that’s precisely the kind of attention to detail you’d expect from PragerU.
The new exhibit is dubbed the Founders Museum and was created for the lead-up to the semiquincentennial celebration (250th anniversary) that will be happening in 2026. PragerU created the exhibit with the White House Task Force 250, which is overseeing the semiquincentennial activities, according to NPR.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who has said she’s trying to put herself out of a job by shutting down the Department of Education, is featured on PragerU’s website in a promotional video insisting that the new exhibit’s “patriotic education does not mean propaganda.” McMahon infamously referred to AI as “A1” (like the steak sauce) at a recent speaking engagement.
The PragerU videos are also filled with the kind of AI-generated distortions and anomalies that we’ve come to expect. Some of the videos include figures with either too many or too few fingers. Generative AI tools still struggle with human hands, creating alien-like figures that seem to haunt the PragerU creations, as you can see below in a screenshot from the John Adams video.
© PragerU / GizmodoPragerU is notorious for creating inaccurate learning materials that sanitize history. One video that went viral in recent years shows Christopher Columbus scolding children for judging him about slavery. “Being taken as a slave is better than being killed, no? I don’t see the problem,” the animated Columbus says.
It’s no surprise that PragerU would create ridiculous nonsense. The shocking part is that their version of history is being legitimized by the U.S. government. The new videos also inject plenty of mentions of God, which is certainly a choice. The founder of PragerU, Dennis Prager, often talks about spreading “Judeo-Christian values.”
Aside from the larger fabrications, like John Adams quoting Ben Shapiro, there are also countless smaller issues with the way the history is presented at the new exhibit. For example, Samuel Adams says that he was called a “troublemaker,” a word that didn’t exist until four decades after his death and wouldn’t actually become popular until the 20th century. It’s a small issue, of course, but it’s the kind of thing that probably wouldn’t have been permitted by museum curators who actually know any history.
PragerU is an unaccredited “university” that doesn’t hold classes or issue diplomas. But its materials are still finding their way into the hands of impressionable kids. PragerU’s materials have been approved for use in public schools in at least ten states, according to the company’s website, including Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. That’s up from five states in early 2024.
Donald Trump has major issues with the way history is taught in the 21st century. The president has criticized leaders at the Smithsonian, calling the institution “out of control,” during his regular rants. Trump even complained in one post on Truth Social that the Smithsonian was discussing “how bad Slavery was,” among other things. To be clear, slavery is bad, no matter what folks like Trump and PragerU’s animated Christopher Columbus might insist. And learning about slavery is necessary to understand American history.
PragerU is becoming normalized as a reliable source of information, whether it’s in America’s classrooms or at the White House. And the nation is certainly going to be dumber and more fascist as a result. But it doesn’t seem like there’s much that can be done about any of that at the moment.
Trump is picking off America’s institutions one by one, destroying our understanding of U.S. history and bulldozing any opposition. All of that is happening while America’s “opposition” leaders like Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries insist fighting back isn’t the savvy thing to do.
What would a guy like John Adams think about bowing to tyrants like Trump?
English (US) ·