President Donald Trump's efforts to eradicate federally funded arts and humanities programs may look like an attack on liberal ideals, but a new article argues that "deep red rural America" is being hurt the most — and pushing back the hardest.
That's because the arts and humanities programs Trump is cutting are "vital to the economic revitalization and wellbeing of many rural communities which leverage them in their local economic development initiatives, ranging from tourism to automotive investment," wrote sociology professors Michèle Lamont and Daniel B. Cornfield for Salon.
The professors argued that the arts and humanities organizations "do much more than organizing cultural events: they play a crucial role in fostering social bonds, as well as community and local identity and pride."
Trump's desire to dismantle humanities councils in underserved rural areas "will also have chilling effects on future generations of art-based change agents, who are being trained and educated as budding 'cultural entrepreneurs' in programs that are being shut down," they wrote.
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These are the programs, the authors argue, that "have played a vital role in fostering cultural vibrancy in underserved areas."
But rural America isn't taking the attack on arts and humanities programs lying down; the authors wrote that the threat to these vital programs has "galvanized a resistance movement in local communities throughout the nation."
This mass mobilization against the administration's cuts "signal disaffection toward the powers that be and contribute to eroding its legitimacy," they wrote. Academic organizations in red states are pushing back by filing lawsuits and petitioning Congress to protect these "vital independent" federal agencies. And citizens in local communities are writing letters to their local papers, confronting politicians, and staging demonstrations like the massive 'Hands Off Protests' of April 5th.
The authors concluded that the mobilization "is urgent as the National Endowment for the Arts may be next on the chopping block — its budget has been redirected away toward projects that celebrate 'America’s greatness.'”