Make Art Great Again: A Call to Canadian Artists to help our American Friends Destroy the Trump Train

An iconic Canadian image, Horse and Train, by Alex Coalville
modified with Photoshop for this article by Duncan Weller. 

If Trump isn’t soon ousted from office it will be time for a war effort, one in which artists and others work to prevent him and his cronies from infecting masses of people with fear, hate, bigotry, sexism, prejudice and an ideology that puts money and retarded ideas about success ahead of people, animals and the environment. 

[Update: Cartoonists Fight Trump]

     A number of calls for action have gone out to artists and within the calls are predictions that Trump’s presidency will foster new art movements the likes of which hasn’t been seen since before World War II. If a new art movement does occur it will be one with clear messages and imagery that connects with the public with the potential to protect individual and disadvantaged groups’ freedoms in a diverse cultural landscape where everyone should be treated equally. And it may produce great art.  

      Many American journalists, historians and politicians are proving to be correct in their assertions that Donald Trump is a potentially dangerous president like none before him. But he is only part of the equation as Vladimir Putin is salivating at the potential for more international influence, the lifting of sanctions for his incursions into Eastern Europe and the likelihood of wars in Europe and elsewhere in the process. 

     President Obama has yet to step down and Trump has already inspired hateful acts, worried foreign nations and upset their relationship with China. Internationally the extremist right around the world is reading Trump’s presidency as a vindication of all sorts of regressive acts against immigrants, minorities, women, the LGBTQ community, refugees, journalists and others. The possibility that Trump’s presidency might influence political upstarts, even here in Thunder Bay, using ugly Trump rhetoric and tactics to vie for political power is worrying and very real. 

    In our city worries about minority groups and immigrants affecting the larger group financially and culturally are unfounded and hardly worth laser focus. Our real problems involve high rent, lack of affordable housing, lack of jobs and the difficulties involved in starting a business. These are profoundly more important. But these issues and others can be ignored or played down during an election by someone cleverly Trumping other voices.  

   Artists voices needn't be silent, during an election or any other time. Artists are a strange and sensitive bunch with both great and bizarre traits. They are often at odds when it comes to their art, but what they most usually agree upon is that diversity is a plus. The freedom for an individual to express herself is fundamental to an artist. They have been known to speak out against anyone or anything that might deny a person’s ability to express themselves. Yet, as is all too human, artists fall into camps of thought, grouping themselves by their peculiarities of interest, stereotypes or ideologies that often remove them from the interests of a larger public. 

     It’s time for artists to step out of their comfort zone as this is one of those rare times when the democracy that supports and defends their divergent interests could be used against them. As faulty as democracy is, democracy really needs help from artists. Artists have to hold off on their aesthetic experiments and naval gazing that produces a subjective art for the wealthy one percent. Artists have to hold off on painting yet another barn, pretty flowers or Sleeping Giant. Cartoonists and comic book artists have to hold off or set to work their cartoon characters and superheroes on a cause greater than the comic book world. It’s time to get political. Time to get nasty and pointed in order to expose anyone spouting hatred and division. Artists have to get nasty to fight the nasty people. It’s time to stir things up with honesty and commit to positive change and action for a better world. We were on the right track with progress, as slow as it was. We can’t let everything slide backwards. 

Related Article: Trump VS Harper

   I can only imagine that as an artist you’ll enlarge your fanbase. As we artists are often known to the public for being condescendingly critical of their majority, their slow grasp or desire for change and inability to see the value in what we do. But we can win them over by doing what we’ve done best whenever and wherever democracies have allowed us to “enlarge and enhance man’s mental and moral nature.” For if we deserve to be looked up to for our ability to reflect on our inner selves and the world around us, then we should also be able to actively take part in the world that allows us our frivolities and idiosyncrasies. Rather than simply live in the world, comment on it and react to it, we can change it. We can be the artists who made things happen. How? Well, if you’re the artist. Use your imagination.
  Duncan Weller is a writer and illustrator of adult fiction and children's books. You can find them here.