What will Joe Biden's presidency mean for the arts?
Monday, November 9, 2020
After the destruction wrought on the arts sector and the neglect of artists during the Trump administration, Joe Biden’s presidency promises to be one in which the cultural sector in US can thrive.
Joe Biden is not a consumer of classical music: you’re not likely to bump into him at the opera and his trips to concerts at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC are only occasional. However, his track record in supporting and promoting cultural activity has been consistent throughout his long political career. In a nation where public funding of the arts is virtually non-existent, he has backed America’s National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an independent agency which directs millions of dollars of federal government funding into cultural projects. As a senator for Delaware, during the 1990s, he opposed moves to shut down the NEA and voted against an amendment that proposed privatisation of the agency.
As Vice President under Barack Obama (2009-2017), Biden was part of an administration that provided financial stimulus to the NEA during the economic crisis of 2009, and in 2016 established a National Arts and Humanities Month celebrating American achievements in culture.
By contrast, Donald Trump’s presidency has consistently undermined the value of the NEA. Indeed the outgoing Republican government’s current budget proposals for 2021, entitled Stopping Wasteful and Unnecessary Spending, include an end to public funding of the arts because ‘they are not considered core Federal responsibilities’.
Responding to Trump’s attempts at the outset of his presidency to abolish the NEA, Kamala Harris, the new Vice President Elect, tweeted ‘the arts give people an outlet to view the world differently’. And Joe Biden, in a recent interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda, creator and star of the musical Hamilton, stated: ‘The future of who we are lies in the arts’.
According to the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) the creative industry in the US employs more than 5 million Americans and brings in around $877 billion to the economy annually. In spite of the global respect that America’s opera companies, orchestras, conservatoires and leading musicians continue to command, classical music’s place on the political stage in America has dwindled in the 21st century. At least there are signs that, under a Biden presidency, advocacy for the arts and their role in society will once again return to the White House.