ArtNet News, which keeps track of doings in the art world, that is, among people who duct-tape a banana to a wall and call it fine art, reported the sad news recently. “DOGE Has Decimated the Institute of Museum and Library Services: All employees have been placed on administrative leave and the future of millions in grants seems dim.”
It’s easy to imagine what the left will make of this: the Philistines and yahoos, racists and rednecks who make up Trump’s fascist dictatorship are now waging war against art, just as Hitler, the real one, not Cheeto Hitler, did when he characterized modern art as self-important, subversive garbage, labeled it an example of the Jews’ baneful effects on German culture, and removed it from exhibits everywhere, only to stage a lurid exhibition of his own, heaping ridicule on the confiscated pieces as “degenerate art.”
Trump, of course, has done none of those things. All he did was cut the funding of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, but the left’s propagandistic and reductionist hysteria will almost certainly equate Trump with Hitler again for trying simply to remove the government from a role it should never have assumed in the first place, that of the nation’s art patron.
ArtNet News showcases the defiance of the employees of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a classic example of federal overreach and bloat, as if it were some shining example of courage under fire: “When president Donald Trump’s Secretary of Labor, Keith E. Sonderling, descended upon the offices of the Institute for Library and Museum Services (IMLS) at 955 L’Enfant Plaza in Washington, D.C. on March 20, along with his security detail and representatives of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), they got a surprise.” Instead of going quietly into the night, you see, the IMLS employees had shown up for work in what ArtNet News saw as a magnificent act of righteous rebellion.
“All 55 or so employees of the agency,” ArtNet stated, “which awarded some $266.7 million to recipients all over the country in 2024, showed up to work that day” — was that unusual? — “staging an act of defiance against the people who were known to padlock other agencies on arrival. Trump had signed an Executive Order, Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, directing severe cuts to IMLS, which provides resources to museums and libraries in all 50 states and territories, calling for it to be ‘eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law’ within seven days, so an abrupt closure would have been no surprise.”
The evil Trumpians even gave the appearance of backing down. One IMLS employee recounted: “They pivoted quickly. Instead of laying everybody off immediately, they left the building, because they didn’t want to create a scene with us there.” Then, however, ArtNet News adds sadly: “But if that act won them a reprieve, it was a short one.” The unnamed employee continued on Monday: “Today the entire IMLS staff is being placed on administrative leave. They also plan on canceling all 900 open awards to museums across the country. As of the end of March there were 891 open awards to museums with $180 million in federal funds (appropriated in prior fiscal years to support multiyear projects) matched with $185 million of non-federal cost share.”
The American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403 confirmed the good news: “Earlier today, the Institute of Museum and Library Services notified the entire staff that they are being placed on administrative leave immediately. The notification followed a brief meeting between DOGE staff and IMLS leadership. Employees were required to turn in all government property prior to exiting the building, and email accounts are being disabled today. Museums and libraries will no longer be able to contact IMLS staff for updates about the funding they rely upon. The 2025 grant application program had already been paused. The status of previously awarded grants is unclear. Without staff to administer the programs, it is likely that most grants will be terminated.”
Surveying the damage, the American Alliance of Museums lamented: “Placing the entire staff on administrative leave raises questions as to whether the agency will be able to fulfill its legal obligations to disperse congressionally appropriated funding, leaving museums, libraries, and communities across the country at risk of losing vital resources.”
This is not a triumph of Philistinism. It is a triumph of federal responsibility. Those who oppose these federal agencies don’t oppose museums or libraries; they simply don’t believe that the federal government has any mandate to be involved in such entities, or any need to be involved in them. There were museums and libraries in the United States for far longer than there was a federal agency overseeing them, and there will be long after this agency is but a dim memory. If these museums and libraries have any value to the public, they will survive without federal help. The entire cultural landscape will be healthier with the demise of subsidized entities that nobody really wants. And so once again DOGE deserves the gratitude of all Americans.
