The Arts

It is truly unfortunate, that as a whole, Americans don't see a value in The Arts.  Yes, I capitalized it, and I meant everything from Fine Arts (painting, sculpture, etc) to Performing Arts (Dance, Opera, and Theatre) to Musical Arts to Literary Arts (poetry, short stories, etc), and no doubt there is something I am missing, but my intentions likely include it as well.  Our new administration, both legislative and executive branches, have every intention of cutting off all federal funding for these organizations.

In the case of the executive branch, it is most likely because a good business case could not be made for them.  I am sure Mr. Trump liked "Hamilton" before Mr. Pence attended and the audience booed him, but Trump liked it because he was supposed to like it, it was talked about, it was sold out, and the tickets were hard to get, so how better to show how important you are than to go to the hottest ticket show in town, and I don't doubt that Mr. Trump provided Mr. Pence the tickets just to show his influence.  The fact that a fair number of artists don't like Mr. Trump and as showed during the "Hamilton" episode, neither do the audiences, but Mr. Trump has no desire to support anyone who won't flatter him.  If Narcissus wasn't already the origin figure for the word narcissist, then you would find Mr. Trump's photo in the dictionary, illustrating the definition.  Mr. Trump doesn't really see the value of the arts, how they expose people to new ideas, how they have the potential to expand horizons.  I will be the first to say that sometimes they get a bit too esoteric, but that doesn't make them bad (in truth, it tends to make me avoid certain poets or artists that I don't get), because what doesn't speak to me is very likely to speak to someone else, with a different background and with a different set experiences prior to experiencing the artwork in question.

For the Legislative Branch, I don't have quite so much sympathy.  The legislative branch wants to cut funding because they are a bunch of bitter folks who still want to fund nothing that President Obama found useful.  They don't like that NPR doesn't cover them with fawning praises, and they don't like art that challenges them; therefore, neither the NEA or NEH deserve any funding.  Stupid idiots.  I didn't like Ayn Rand when I tried reading "The Fountainhead" years ago, and I have even less desire to read any of her books knowing that Paul Ryan is a big fan.  Ugh... he will happily strip health care from his parents and then laugh while they drown in debt from big medical.