Or will nonprofit arts organizations choose to fight back for their communities?
Whippersnappers do not know about “Duck and Cover.” Which is why it serves as an option for your company’s future. Not a good one, mind you, but I’m sure you’re considering it.
“Duck and Cover” was a thing. In fact, the Defense Department made a whole movie about it in 1951. This nine-minute flick was shown to millions of American elementary school student all the way into the early 1970s. It is in the public domain, so enjoy (?):
Schools showed this film during the Korean conflict (war), the Cuban Missile Crisis, the bulk of the Cold War, the Vietnam Police Action (war), and every other IST (Incredibly Scary Thing) that happened during those 20+ years. The idea was that when (not if) that nuclear bomb strikes, there would be a big flash in the sky and enough time to crawl under your desk, pull your collar over your neck, and somehow, that would protect you from fallout. As someone who was in elementary school in on the tail end of that time period, we had nuclear “flash” drills every year. The teacher would shout “FLASH!” at an arbitrary moment, after which we would all duck down under those desks, giggle (perhaps at the absurdity of it all), and cover our collective necks with our shirts.
In addition, we had an air raid siren go off at 10:00am on the last Friday of every month, heard all over the city. Mostly, people ignored it. At the time, I figured that would be the best time for “the enemy” to bomb us (10:00am on the last Friday of the month).
On top of all of that, we had a “go home” drill. It was every kid’s favorite drill and every parent’s nightmare. Once a year, the teacher would shout “FLASH! GO HOME!” Every student walked straight home, after which the parent called the office upon arrival. To the kids, it was an extra vacation day. To the adults, it meant that someone would have to be home.
The scenario of the task was devastatingly fatalistic. It assumed the certainty that it was too late to survive the offending nuclear explosion at school. Who knows? The kids might make it home in time to say goodbye to their families. The message? “Die at home, not at school.”
And so, as the United States turns increasingly into a pseudo-populist 1930s Germany — where the trains ran on time and politically undesirable leeches were eliminated from society — it presents everyone with related questions:
- Do we fight this, risking everything?
- Do we run away?
- Did we already lose, so we should hunker down?
- Do we join the marauding hordes?
In other words, if you run a nonprofit arts organization, serve on its board, or help produce its artistic programming, which of these pictures applies to your current situation?
Careful, arts leaders: your answer may trigger a mettle detector.
Futurists have already determined that, given the cycle of history, the US will be at war within the next five years. It’s not a happy choice; it’s more of a whirlpool effect. The reason most nonprofit arts organizations stagger during times of imminent trouble is that they are unaccustomed to the idea that the best way to help people during a crisis is to help people.
Yes, that is the key to any successful charitable organization: helping people with charitable activities ensures indispensability. And I still can’t believe that I have to type those ridiculously obvious words, knowing that there are some arts leaders who believe either that they don’t run charities (“They’re ‘non-commercial,’ not charities!” they fallaciously argue.), or that obsequious flapdoodle (for a charity) as inconsequential as “artistic vision” holds sway.
If the first couple of months of this plutocratic oligarchy masquerading as a democracy continue for the next forty-six remaining months, there will be something awful to report on the news every single day. Every. Single. Day. And Every. Single. Day., someone near you is going to say, either in awe or in horror, “Did you hear what he did today?”
We know this because it is what happened during the first Trump administration. This brand of unapologetic despotism is not new, nor is it ineffective at gaining influence. It is just another worldwide attempt to gain power by crushing the spirit of those without any.
But what can be done? You are only running an arts organization, right? One of 133,000 in the United States, perhaps? And you are in just one community in just one city in just one state, you say? If that is the problem, then the solution is right there in front of you.
Loved or hated, former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill was famous for his quote, “All politics is local.” In fact, it became the title of his treatise on leadership, campaign politics, and guidebook. Loved or hated, former presidential advisor James Carville wrote this as an essay in The New York Times about what prevented a Kamala Harris presidency in 2024:
“I keep coming back to the same thing. We lost for one very simple reason: It was, it is, and it always will be the economy, stupid. We have to begin 2025 with that truth as our political north star and not get distracted by anything else.”
When Carville wrote about “the economy,” he did not mean the national discussion. Nobody cares about the national discussion. What people care about is their own economy, their perceived slights of a new generation of leaders, and they fear everything there is to know about change. Carville implores those who believe as he does to go hyper-local and let social media take the next steps. Largely, this is how Trump won the White vote, including (despite a strong woman running in the other party) White women, of whom 53% voted for the right-wing candidate, about the same as the previous five presidential elections (including the 2016 election, where 52% of White women voted for Trump).
Take a lesson from this. Serving your community does not mean putting on great plays, symphonic concerts, operas, ballets, or exhibits. It does not mean gaining acclaim from reviewers (because there are few reviewers that still review, among other things). And it certainly does not mean achieving a balanced budget every year. All of those things are nice, but nonessential to the real task at hand for you over the next 46 months and beyond.
So, are you going to “duck and cover” and pretend that “artistic excellence” is your job? Putting your collar over your neck is not going to help your community. Let the charitable entrepreneurs in your midst take over, not the artistic vision-questers. Charitable entrepreneurship activities have ramped up all over America, and those companies are achieving greatness (and funding, by the way, from non-arts-oriented sources).
Forget all the national news about how the artistic sky has fallen, or that schemes to increase government funding for the arts are the answer to your community’s problems. Use local experts on the arts and on the community to lead your team (searches for national candidates show little evidence of success, even if they are highly qualified).
More bombshells are coming — your community’s battle is local; therefore, so is the solution.
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