Commentary by Jerry Lanson
Hey parents.
You may want to think twice before sending your kids off on that class trip to the White House.
It’s not because of the man occupying the Oval Office or the wreckage of what was the East Wing. It’s because of the propaganda they may be inundated with once they arrive.
PBSreposted a PolitiFact article over the holidays about the plaques Donald Trump has put up, lining a walkway for visitors. They are ugly. Here is the rather refined way in which PolitiFact tiptoed into the issue.
“In a break with tradition, Donald Trump decorated the White House walkway with bronze plaques for each US president. In an even sharper break with tradition, the plaques were written in a style echoing Trump’s Truth Social posts, with misleading or false descriptions of recent Democratic presidents.
Translation: They are loaded with lies.
• President Barack Obama’s plaque calls him “one of the most divisive political figures in American history.” That may be true among those KKK descendants in MAGA-land, but it’s certainly not true for the American public. A 2025 poll identified Obama as the most favorably viewed of the last five presidents, at 59 percent, PolitiFact reported.
• The Obama plaque also says that the Affordable Care Act, known as Obama Care, was “highly ineffective,” although the number of uninsured Americans dropped by 8.6 percent between its passage and his final year in office, PolitiFact notes. Starting January 1, 2026, some 22 million Americans will see their premiums soar because of the GOP’s refusal to extend subsidies designed to keep the cost of insurance affordable. Millions are expected to drop out of the program, leaving them vulnerable and likely driving up overall medical costs in the country.
• President Joe Biden is depicted on the wall with an autopen, not a picture of him. His plaque says he took office in 2021 “as a result of the most corrupt Election ever seen in the United States,” an overt lie made clear by Trump’s failure to overturn the results after five dozen lawsuits. Biden’s plaque also says he oversaw the highest inflation ever recorded in the United States – also demonstrably false (if you’re in your mid-60s or older, you might recall the inflationary struggles of the late 1970s when the country lived through double-digit inflation).
And so it goes.
It’s important to note that, unlike Trump’s regular rants on Truth Social, these words are cast in bronze for visitors to the White House to read. One can only presume Trump hopes visitors will take them at face value. (I wish PolitiFact had reported on what was said about each of the presidents.)
Of course, this information should come without surprise, particularly given the ongoing screes launched by Trump over the holidays. On Christmas Eve, for example, he wrote: “Merry Christmas to all, including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our country, but are failing badly.”
On Christmas Day itself, starting in the wee hours of the morning, he posted more than 100 times on Truth Social, Mother Jones reported. This included multiple posts proclaiming that the 2020 election was stolen; attacks on individuals ranging from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Joe Biden; and a final post that read, “enjoy what may be your last Merry Christmas.”
In keeping with the spirit of the season, Trump followed up on New Year’s Eve day, according to politicalwire.com, by calling Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Jared Polis a “scumbag” and saying he should “rot in hell.”
So as 2026 begins, fasten your seatbelt. Never take your eyes off the road ahead. Every New Year’s Eve, you have to be prepared for some crazy careening around a turn in the road and heading straight toward you. In 2026, that intense defensive driving may well need to extend for days, weeks and months ahead.
Republished by permission from Lanson’s Substack, From the Grassroots