The White House has become a cultural wasteland

By E.W. | WASHINGTON

IT IS hard to imagine a presidential duty as easy, uncontroversial and plainly enjoyable as hosting the nation’s greatest artists, writers, actors and musicians at the White House. Such events offer a reprieve from politics and partisanship. They bestow glamour on an administration. They are a routine part of the job—a means of recognising and supporting the indispensable role of the arts in a great civilisation.

Yet for Donald Trump even this duty is proving difficult. Artists have snubbed him since the inauguration, when musicians like Elton John, Céline Dion and Garth Brooks refused invitations to perform. “Anything that gives aid and comfort to the adversary is a poor idea,” tweeted Joyce Carol Oates, a novelist, in support. By contrast, Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009 drew together the very best in American culture—Aretha Franklin, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, John Williams, Elizabeth Alexander and (for the Obamas’ first dance that night) Beyoncé.

The country’s cultural elite have hardly warmed to Mr Trump in the months since. After his comments on Charlottesville, all 16 members of the Presidential Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, established by Ronald Reagan in 1982 to advise on cultural policy, resigned. “We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions,” they wrote in a letter. Unlike two other councils, one on manufacturing jobs and one on economic strategy, which Mr Trump disbanded in the wake of a wave of resignations, the arts committee is an official agency, making it the first White House department to quit.

Around the same time, the White House announced that the president and first lady would not be attending the Kennedy Center Honors, which recognise lifetime contributions to American culture. The cancellation came in response to artists’ calls to boycott the White House reception, held before the ceremony. It is the first such cancellation in the history of the Honors, which will recognise Lionel Richie, a singer (and Trump supporter), LL Cool J, a rapper, Gloria Estefan, another singer, and Norman Lear, a television producer. Two previous presidents have missed the Honors—Jimmy Carter during the Iran hostage crisis and Bill Clinton during a conference in Europe—but their wives attended in their stead.

Of course it is not really artists who have abandoned Mr Trump but Mr Trump who, they feel, has abandoned them and their values—free expression, dissent, the inclusion of marginalised voices. Chastising the cast of “Hamilton” last November, the president tweeted, “The theater must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!” He seemed not to understand that an artistic “safe space” means safe for the artists—a place for them to push boundaries and challenge power, not submit to politicians.

The president’s attitude toward the arts may have been best expressed by his budget proposal: it cut 87% of the $971m that supports the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The remaining funds were intended to serve as operating costs to close out the agencies. Though past presidents have slashed funding for the NEA, they have resisted conservatives’ calls to eliminate it entirely.

In the face of concerns like North Korea and neo-Nazis, Mr Trump’s rift with the art world seems insignificant. But it is another indicator of the tenor of his presidency and how drastically it breaks with previous administrations of both parties. Indeed, artists have usually attended White House receptions even when they disagreed with the sitting president. Bill Clinton honoured Charlton Heston, a staunch conservative. George W. Bush hosted Barbra Streisand, an ardent Democrat.

Mr Trump’s stance toward the artists who criticise him suggests he would rather take after, say, the Kremlin if he could: last week, Russian authorities placed Kirill Serebrennikov, one of the country’s leading theatre directors, under house arrest. In America artists still roam free. Will their resistance matter?