The 2024 presidential election delivered an American mandate to truly become a great nation once again. After years of nauseating reactionary politics from the right, Trump’s second administration promises more.
Once again a vision for America is uniting us, reaching across demographics and parties. It’s about much more than snooze-fest tax cuts with the New Right. It’s about striving for greatness. With brilliant minds such as Elon Musk at Trump’s side, the vision of greatness becomes tangible. We remember what heights of human achievement and flourishing are possible.
But the vision to make America great again can only be partially realized by Trump’s impending presidency. Each of us has work to do in our own lives.
We must seize the potential this moment offers — start the business, marry the one, struggle toward virtue, lift heavy weights, eat healthy food, and invest in our crumbling culture. No, not by returning to a less-awful cultural decade, but by building back better than any decade of American culture yet.
We have our work cut out for us. If art is a reflection of culture, we live in the ugliest time in human history. Our books, buildings, plays, films, paintings, and music revel in ugliness of the highest order. And it’s been this way for decades. We’ve come to accept it as just “the way it is,” as though the left’s monopoly on art is natural.
Look at any Gothic cathedral or listen to a symphony by Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky and you’ll remember art has never been so dominated by leftist ideology as it has been recently. You’ll also be reminded that great art is rarely produced by those consumed with degradation. Ugliness begets ugliness.
Of course, art is not only a reflection of culture, art is culture’s greatest propeller. To realize the full potential of the next four years, we must invest in great art.
Now is the time for an artistic revival—not waiting for leftist institutions to flip, but building our own, and building them better. If Joe Rogan has taught us anything, it’s that mainstream institutions can be made entirely irrelevant in a short amount of time, given the right inputs.
And what are the right inputs? Creators and benefactors, and the effective meeting of the two.
Creators, it’s time to get to work. If you’re a writer, write. If you’re a painter, paint. Dancers, dance; composers, compose; performers, perform. As Steven Pressfield says, do your work.
Overcome the resistance within. Master yourself, master your craft. With or without patronage, bring your work into society to the greatest extent possible. Do your work. And keep working — because our culture needs you, and thanks to the MAGA movement, it’s ready for you.
My call to action for benefactors: find artists worth investing in. Great art is made possible by great patrons. Our institutions have turned their back on beauty. The artistic revolution called for requires funding from within the right.
At present, we lack many avenues to connect creators with benefactors. One potential route is via the New Founding Network, which connects investors to startups. Perhaps additional means of networking in this capacity will develop soon.
In the meantime, pay attention to the art scene in your locality. Depending on your locale there may be one, maybe a handful, of artists worth your investment. Make a move. Approach them, commission them, invest in their work. Become a patron according to your means. There can be no great art without great patronage, and there can be no great nation without great art.
Our country has been afforded a second chance at greatness. Let us seize the opportunity to the fullest, not only celebrating the coming political victories as spectators, but claiming victories in our own lives and communities.
Twenty years from now, we could remember the coming four years as a mere reprieve from the leftist destruction that followed. Or we could remember the 2024 mandate as just the beginning of a new Golden Age for our country. If we hope for the latter, we as individuals must realize, through the art we elevate and the culture we create, our newfound vision of greatness.
Elizabeth Jerrell is a classical composer and former political marketing strategist. She now lives in the Appalachian foothills of Alabama with her husband and newborn son, where she operates the family-owned coffee roastery and composes music for local ensembles. Follow her on X: @MusingMusicianX.
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