All 17 members of a White House advisory panel on the arts and humanities resigned en masse Friday in response to President Trump's divisive comments on the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va.
The move follows the mass exodus of major business CEOs who quit two White House panels this week to protest the president's response to last weekend's clashes between far-right groups and counter-protesters.
— LA Times
Last week as multiple CEO's began quitting both the American Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum in protest of Trump's response to Charlottesville, Trump has decided to not move forward with the Council on Infrastructure. On Friday, the entire Arts Committee resigned over the same issue. To drive home the point, the members spelled out the word "resist" with the first letter of the six paragraphs that make up the memo.
“Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values,” the committee members wrote in a letter announcing their resignation. “Your values are not American values. We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too.”
The arts commission was established by President Ronald Reagan in 1982, and while mostly ceremonial, it works to advise the president on cultural policy and funding initiatives.
7 Comments
So Trump's previous behaviour, statements and policies were no reason to resign?
randomised, from what I can see lots of well-meaning people felt trying to work from the inside with the president would be a good strategy, but as he proves himself more and more to be exactly what many were afraid of during the campaign the optimism of that approach has faded. Charlottesville was the last straw for many.
Still find it hard to stomach that some of the smartest and most creative people around didn't have enough objections to serve that "grab 'em by the pussy" bad hombre to begin with. Well I'm glad they've come to their senses finally, better late than never I guess.
The challenge with this council, as I understand it, was that each of the members on the council were to adopt an at risk school, and become a mentor. That is hard thing to walk away from no matter what kind of asshole Der Fuhrer is, but at some point you can only stand so much. This moment was it.
Politicians are magicians.
Don't fall for the left/right divide & conquer.
It's all a distraction.
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