The
term “culture wars” is most often associated with issues of sexuality,
race, religion, and gender. But, as recent months have made plain, when Donald Trump refers to the culture wars, he also means the arts.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
with David Remnick
Profiles, storytelling and insightful conversations, hosted by David Remnick.
Donald Trump’s War on Culture Is Not a Sideshow
- He fired the board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which Republicans want to rename for him.
- His Administration fired the national archivist and the Librarian of Congress, and pressured the director of the National Portrait Gallery to resign;
- It is reviewing the entire Smithsonian Institution, looking for what the President calls “improper ideology.”
But Adam Gopnik
believes that interpretation is a misreading.
The loyalty purge at
institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery is a key part of his
agenda.
“Pluralism is the key principle of a democratic culture,”
----Gopnik
tells David Remnick.
Could we be following the path of Stalinist
Russia, where a head of state dictated reviews of concerts, Remnick
asks?
“I pray and believe that we are not. But that is certainly the
direction in which one inevitably heads when the political boss takes
over key cultural institutions, and dictates who’s acceptable and who is
not.” Gopnik recalls saying after the election that “Jimmy Kimmel and
Stephen Colbert would be next.” “You would see them disappear,” he
added. “Each time, we find a rationale for it or a rationale is offered.
And it’s much easier for us to swallow the rationale than to face the
reality.”
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