I do not think Smith knows or cares about the broader nuances of the history of the United States' engagement with Indigenous peoples, given the clear editorial bent of the 'Free Press', but articles like this only serve to empower anti-Indigenous ideas and give them faux-intellectual currency.

This is problematic because it places inter-communal conflicts and warfare on the same level as a continent-wide genocide and wholesale elimination/theft of Indigenous land. Smith is not the first to do this, and will not be the last, but it is a very simplistic framing of what historically occured.

Even with the insidious nature of the doctrine of plenary power, which has placed strong constraints on the expression and exercise of tribal sovereignty, the concept of sovereignty itself has not been extinguished. Therefore, Indigenous nations represent the 'institutions' that Smith refers to.

I assume that Smith feels that the United States has legitimate claims to land as it is a sovereign nation.
Indigenous nations are also sovereign--the very fact that we have signed treaties with the U.S. Government means that we are recognized as sovereigns under international law.

The assertion that a piece of territory belongs to "institutions" versus "racial groups" is a mischaracterization of Indigenous nationhood and sovereignty. It is, to me, the right-wing version of the settler left's argument that Land Back is tantamount to ethnonationalism.

Thanks so much!

Ammar Campa-Najjar for Congress! #CA48

Let's all chip in $5 or $10 for the win! secure.actblue.com/donate/a-b-sky

bsky.app/profile/paul...

Oh my the degrees of separation between the CIA and Epstein just reduced by one, again, exactly as I predicted last spring they do per day

Keep digging. They can't stop you now

#WheresBarr

www.opensecrets.org/news/2025/04...