Today, In two 5 – 3 mostly party line votes, (One Republican joined the losing Dems) the New Hampshire Senate Finance Committee today basically agreed with the New Hampshire House of Representatives and eliminated the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts from state law.
In February, The National Endowment for the Arts retroactively changed its policy guidelines to conform with edicts from the White House on DEI , terminating long-standing programs targeting under-served communities and in May, the NEA abruptly, and without warning, retroactively terminated an untold number of grants that had been awarded in 2024.
I am a former long-time member of the New Hampshire State Arts Council and a current member of the National Council on the Arts which, in theory and by statute, advises the Chair of the NEA on policy and must vote on and approve grants offered by the NEA.
The Federal assault on the Arts and Culture goes further than the NEA. Trump’s first term budget eliminated funding for the NEA. So does his proposed 2026 budget. The Kennedy Center, The National Endowment for the Humanities, the Smithsonian, the Libraries, the Museums, the Voice of America, NPR, PBS are all targets of right-wing wrath. Trump and his pack of howling Dogies have done everything they can to take a savage bite out of this Nation’s cultural legacy in agency after agency. Frankly, I’m reminded of the Taliban blowing up ancient Bamiyan Buddha statues, sacking museums, and trying to destroy history and culture to impose its strict jihad.
Trump’s jihad has now reached his sycophants in New Hampshire where the NH Senate Finance Committee vote fully repeals the original Arts Council statute and replaces it with new language that turns the Council into a voluntary body.
I’ll save the exhaustive research and statistics that show the economic and social benefits of public investments in the Arts. Here’s just one… according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the nation’s arts and entertainment sector (nonprofit and commercial) is a $1.02 trillion industry that supports 4.9 million jobs and is 4.4 percent of the nation’s economy – larger than sectors such as construction, transportation, and agriculture.
So, what does the right wing have against the Arts? It’s not just MAGA. The Arts have been the poster child for right wing abuse for years. The Arts must represent some threatening ideological challenge to narrow, patriarchal thinking. The Arts in America represent everything MAGA and the right hate…free thinking, free-wheeling, diversity in gender, race, sexual orientation, a focus on social equity and justice, and inclusion. The Arts promote critical thinking, not rote adherence and blind faith. The Arts illuminate the beauty of the human soul. The Arts and creativity are our connection to source, to the fullest expression of what it means to be human. The Arts teach tolerance and love. Above all, the Arts are truth in action. Truth, that precious commodity which Trump and his trumpeters have systematically set out to destroy.
Hitler famously came after the artists. Every totalitarian regime suppresses the Arts. It’s in the Authoritarian playbook. It’s got its own chapter. Right there, a subheading under “crush and destroy”. How then have works of art come to us through the ages? How have the Arts survived holocaust and horribles? From Cave paintings, to Michelangelo, to the strains of great symphonies, the Arts and artists have proved resilient. Against all odds, against all attempts to crush the life and breath out of the body artistic, the Arts defiantly and powerfully continue to illuminate Truth and preach Joy. Against all odds, against all attempts at suppression, humans are relentlessly driven to creativity and truth. It’s here in the instant of my writing and in the act of your reading…the bond, the connection that exists between creator and audience is a defiant act of joyful rebellion against darkness and despair.
No wonder the small-minded cowardly morons who serve the will of a demented, cruel, narcissistic would-be dictator refuse to acknowledge the value of the Arts. To do so would cast a painful light on the moral decay, the intellectual rot, and the soul-less cruelty that passes for governance at this sad time in our history. This too shall pass, but the wreckage isn’t pretty.
Keep the faith. Create light and laughter in your life. Make something. Go see something. Spread joy. Take action.
Thank you, thank you. We need billboards in the sky. Storm watchers.
Amen