An article in last Sunday’s Washington Post describes the horrors that would be inflicted upon the art world were Donald Trump to become president. Yup, this was a news story. Theoretical imaginations of life under an authoritarian dictator. Good Lord. Trump? He sounds like a thug so he probably hates art. This is news.

Oh that I could actually find a politician who would cut public funding for the arts. Seriously. And I’m an artist. I think the greatest thing that could happen to the arts in general would be to have the government play no role in their creation or development. (The problem is, even with a no-nonsense president you could never get Congress to go along with it… too many people benefit from the current arrangement. And the thought that any president in 2017 could unilaterally censor private artistic display is patently absurd.)

Simply stated, “the arts” tend to flourish where freedom is embraced, not where so-called artists work for government grants and public sponsors. I’d favor a true free market of art, where buyers and sellers contracted for one another’s wares without the heavy hand of government.

Whether that government is blatantly thuggish or the thugs in sheep’s clothes we have now.