It’s all about control: not about balancing the federal budget, not about bringing down
inflation, not about “waste, fraud and abuse.” President Trump is all about control. Let me
count the ways:
THE KENNEDY CENTER. The President purged the Board of Directors and named 18 new board
members who promptly elected him Board Chair (NPR News, February 12). Trump
commented, “we will make The Kennedy Center a very special and exciting place!”
THE SMITHSONIAN. Just last week, VP Vance was assigned the task of purging from the
Smithsonian Institution’s exhibits those accounts of American history found to be “divisive” or
“improper” according to the March 27th Associated Press News.
AGENCY LANGUAGE. As part of the President’s desire to purge evidence of “woke” language
from government agency websites, “agencies have flagged hundreds of words to limit or
avoid, according to a compilation of government documents” as reported in the March 7th
Washington Post. Examples include “bias,” “gender,” “political,” and “sex.”
The Arts, the Humanities, and our Language. These are the cultural practices and products
that set us apart from other primates. And the President wants to control them: decide what
you can see and hear and say.
The President wants to control those things that permit us as human beings to connect with
other persons, acknowledge our shared humanity, articulate our experience in words or music
or images and reflect on those products and practices.
Without The Arts, The Humanities and our Language (Freely Exercised), we would be mere
drones, robots living out our daily lives in shades of gray. We would have no Springsteen and
no Shostakovich, no Gershwin or Brubeck, or Willie Nelson; no Jelly Roll or Beyonce; Taylor
Swift or Jay-Z. We would have no Ansel Adams, no Georgia Okeefe, no Edward Hopper, no
Andrew Wyeth. We would have no Thomas Jefferson or Frederick Douglas or Abraham
Lincoln, or Martin Luther King; no Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes or Mary
Oliver.
Make your own list. Dig deep down. Remember. If some of those whose words shaped you
were not named artists and thinkers, they may have been parents or teachers or
pastors/priests/rabbis/imams—someone whose words helped you imagine a better world, a
world where we could connect with others around our shared humanity, a world in which we
would be seen and heard, a world where we would share the fruits of the bountiful earth
instead of hoarding them for ourselves.
But of course there is a dark side to all this. A risk. Language, freely exercised, can be wild. It
can be used to create dark narratives of death and destruction; cruel narratives of suspicion,
hate and violence. That’s why freedom is essential: freedom of the Arts, the Humanities and
Language. When those human inventions are allowed to run free, WE get to sort out the good
from the bad among ourselves. WE get to decide, without coercion, what kind of world we
want to live in.
But right now, the President wants to make those decisions. Do that sorting. He wants to put
the thumb of government on the scales--as if He Alone Knows Best! He alone, ignoring the
Constitution, the rule of law and our 250-year heritage of ever-expanding human rights.
He is trying to control the work of artists (The Kennedy Center) the work of scholars (The
Smithsonian Institution) and the language of government agencies (removing “woke”
language).
The President’s appetite for control has no bottom. Just check the latest news. Have you
noticed him backing off any of his initiatives? No. His M.O. is to double down. He won’t stop
with The Kennedy Center or the Smithsonian or his list of over 200 forbidden words. He will
come after your language, your creativity, your history.
Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller’s words are as true today as they were in 1946:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out
because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
