Art “Fake News” and Hitler
Our current President loves the term “Fake news.” It seems that when anything turns away from his direction or puts him in an unfavorable light that is what he calls the expressions of the day. It has been troubling me. Our current political culture is being called like fascism. Then I thought about the most famous fascist of all time. Adolf Hitler. I know he was a failed artist, so I have this preconception that he must have hated art and hated creatives. He did, but only if they disagreed with his message. Then I thought about recent developments with our current President.
Potus45, as I call him, though I like the nickname an actress I follow on twitter gives him, the Predator, is a reality celebrity. He is not an actor artist. Yet one of the things he seems to love, is his celebrity fans. Yet only the ones who favor him.
This is a quote from a Hitler supporter:
“Divine destiny has given the German people everything in the person of one man. Not only does he possess strong and ingenious statesmanship, not only is he ingenious as a soldier, not only is he the first worker and the first economist among his people but, and this is perhaps his greatest strength, he is an artist. He came from art, he devoted himself to art, especially the art of architecture, this powerful creator of great buildings. And now he has also become the Reich’s builder.”
Just like Hitler, Potus45 loves his art, but it must be art that puts him in a good light. The painting of the GOP presidents which he recently acquired, for example. He also yearns for approval from the artists who share his twisted message. The recent visit by Kayne West praising POTUS45 is text book example of the kind of art Hitler enjoyed. An artist defending the leader of the country.
As written in the Teacher’s Guide to the Holocaust, Hitler’s art was to show Germany as peaceful and beautiful or show the Struggle for survival of the nation, and the opposite were his enemies. The flip side of the coin, and the opposite of standing up for Potus45, well in Hitler’s Germany to speak in opposition was to warrant a death sentence. Apparently now today in the United States, to speak out against the President, gets you a bomb in the mail.
Hitler was an artist, and it turns out he liked his art realistic. His art was scoffed at for not being modern. He hated abstract modern art, because he himself did not make that kind of art. It makes me wonder if he would not despise modern street art and works with symbolic significance like Bansky. Potus45 is a New York Wall Street type. Hitler’s Germany defined modern abstract art as “Degenerate Art.” I would argue that is what our current Potus is saying every time he uses the phrase “Fake News.” If he can not grasp its meaning, it is beneath him, not due to his ignorance.
What every one must understand is that Fascism is extreme nationalism. The same cultural drive to xenophobia and closing our borders, is what is driving the Potus45 label of fake. Instead of having open discourse of TRUTH, which has by the way always been one of my favorite definitions of ART, and my drive as a digital artist and actor, the conversation on culture is twisted to one of pro America, anti everything against the nationalistic agenda. Forget the song “It’s a Small World,” let us just sing America is great and we are terrified of anything that questions that. This stigmatizes art and growth. It degenerates the mind and the planet we all share. Ideas get shut out if not from approved sources that carry the same message.
It is not my place to dictate what art is to other people. I can say I think though it is about your truth. What #potus45 is doing is distorting truth every time he says “fake News.” The “fake” is not about falsehood, but all about not being the kind of messages he wants to hear, and he wants the world to believe. He wants his art to only be about him and for him. Potus45 wants America to cater to his messages and see everyone criticizing him as lying, even though many times they are not. 
Art made by Laura Ann Tull also known as Women Love Peace.
