President Trump had a lot of irons in the fire at the end of his term. He tried to root critical race theory and antiracism (under the guise of diversity, equity, and inclusion) out of government institutions. He wanted to create a 1776 Project to counter the 1619 Project and reintroduce civic pride into education. And in December of 2020, he issued an executive order that federal buildings should adhere to neoclassical architecture; he wanted government spaces to be “beautiful” again and not blocks of poured concrete.
Now we’re learning that President Biden is purging the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts of the people who helped craft that “controversial” executive order. Do journalists like those for NPR have a keyboard macro for “controversial” so they can just whip it in anywhere?
The chair of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, who was appointed by Trump in 2018, told NPR he and three other commissioners have been asked to resign by the Biden administration or be fired. https://t.co/qeg1EIeZ6c
— Axios (@axios) May 25, 2021
The chair Justin Shubow said no commissioner has been removed from the agency in its 110-year history. https://t.co/qeg1EIeZ6c
— Axios (@axios) May 25, 2021
President Biden has asked Justin Shubow, the chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, and 3 other members to resign.
Shubow helped craft former President Trump's controversial executive order pushing neo-classical architecture for federal buildings. https://t.co/Pf657kqHVM
— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) May 25, 2021
The chair of the US Commission of Fine Arts, Justin Shubow, and three colleagues—portraitist Chas Fagan, landscape architect Perry Guillot, and architect Steven Spandle—have been ousted by the Biden administration, with more diverse appointments made https://t.co/fif6zrZsV8
— The Art Newspaper (@TheArtNewspaper) May 25, 2021
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Ah, the Art Newspaper gets right to the fact that they’re all white males. Oh, and the order was controversial.
Does anyone believe that Biden is giving his attention to such minutiae? The next question must be: who are the cultural warriors in the administration attending to these matters, and what other decisions have they had a hand in?
— Peter White (@WhiteAnima) May 25, 2021
We’d add more comments, but the people who follow NPR and the like are convinced “neoclassical” was just code for “Nazi,” and Biden is purging the commission of racists. Most Brutalist, Soviet-style buildings, everyone!
Related:
President Trump calls for federal buildings to be ‘beautiful’ and that classical architecture be the default https://t.co/c9tgLUcckI
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) December 22, 2020
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