A grim but not unexpected report from The Hill this morning details a Trump team plan to decimate federal arts funding: “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.”
The budget, it seems, comes right from the most conservative think tank around — The Hill reports that the proposed cuts look very similar to a “blueprint” published by the Heritage Foundation, which “has helped staff the Trump transition.”
Considering the blueprint would save the federal government $10.5 trillion over the next ten years, the decision to cut the NEA and NEH entirely — which received just under $150 million each in 2015 — is largely symbolic, entirely unsurprising, and extremely depressing.
There’s nothing good to say here; this is an arts and culture website. Obviously we believe that public funding for the arts is important for a civilized and free society, and we’re certainly fans of many of the offerings of public broadcasting, too, far beyond Downton Abbey.
Pairing this news with yesterday’s bit that the new president is looking forward to parading the military through the streets has us once again going to the history books to remind ourselves that this is what fascism looks like.
Our society may never recover from this administration.