Art? Culture? History? Who Needs 'Em?

Interesting article from TPM on the threat to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. It's another budget cut that will impact smaller towns and rural communities the most, of course -- another kick in the teeth to The Hairpiece's base.

I found this telling:

Advocates feel they have a good chance of lobbying Congress to save funding for the endowments, which they say fund programs that offer crucial support to the public education system, help veterans readjust to civilian life and bring arts and culture to small communities.

“What we have here is an attack upon global citizenship and national civic culture," Jim Grossman, the executive director of the American Historical Association, told TPM of the potential elimination of the NEH.

(Emphasis added.)

That's the point. Digby pointed out that Trump's proposed budget is authoritarian. I'll go a step further: it's a dictator's budget. The devil's in the details, as they say, and that comment about global citizenship and civic culture underscores it: that's the point.

Dictators start off by controlling the media, or trying to, and Trump's got the media chasing its tail 24/7.

And next they rewrite history. And the best way to accomplish that is to be sure that there are no other sources available, no other viewpoints to be had.

I wonder how successful he's going to be. He makes a big deal about how social media enables him to go directly to his supporters, but, as we've seen, that cuts both ways. And the cuts can be really sharp.