Last month at the Ronald Reagan presidential library and museum in Simi Valley, Calif., the New West Symphony performed "The Ronald Reagan Overture," a new orchestral and video work built with a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The piece wrapped Reagan's voice, his film soundtrack from "King's Row," his 1987 call for Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down" the Berlin Wall, and images of the former Hollywood actor waving and smiling into a single state-approved pageant of national feeling.
Who Gets the Grant Money
The money came from the federal arts agency, not from the people in the room. The NEA awarded 50 such grants around the country to cultural groups creating artworks celebrating figureheads slated for the "National Garden of American Heroes," a sculpture park President Donald Trump first proposed in 2020. The plan calls for 250 life-size statues of notable American figures. Reagan is on the list, along with Muhammad Ali, Susan B. Anthony and Elvis Presley. The construction of the project is still at the proposal phase.
At the performance, the hierarchy was impossible to miss. The concert took place in a lofty atrium under an enormous American flag, with Reagan's Air Force One hanging above the audience. Quite a few of the 600 people in the room wore red, white and blue. Michael Christie, the New West Symphony's music director, called the message "Stirring patriotism on America's birthday" and said, "I'm proud of it." Audience member Theresa Brunasso said, "It reaches out to your heart. It touches you inside and out. And it makes you so proud to be an American."
What the Agency Took Away
The same federal apparatus that handed out patriotic money also pulled it back from other groups. In 2025, the Trump Administration rescinded $21 million in NEA grants, according to the arts advocacy nonprofit Americans for the Arts. The money was pulled from projects that did not meet the administration's funding objectives, for example if they were too focused on diversity, equity and inclusion.
NPR reported that the NEA eliminated the "Challenge America" grant program, which supported organizations focusing on "historically underserved communities that have limited access to the arts relative to geography, ethnicity, economics, and/or disability." That program served people pushed to the margins by the same system now handing out flags and hero worship. The administration then prioritized grant applications that focused on more patriotic works, like military band performances.
Some arts groups lost funding they had counted on. NPR reported last year that hundreds of arts groups received emails suddenly informing them their grants had been terminated. The message was blunt. The money was gone.
Who Adapts, Who Gets Cut
Sones de México Ensemble found a way to survive inside the rules. Last year, the NEA abruptly rescinded a $20,000 grant awarded to the Chicago-based Mexican folk music group for concerts and education programs around a popular type of Mexican ballad known as a corrido. Juan Díes, the group's cofounder, said, "The argument was that it didn't fit the new guidelines under the new administration."
He looked at the list of proposed statue subjects and said, "I picked eight people in U.S. history that I felt I could write a corrido about." He re-pitched the project to the NEA using Trump Administration-approved subjects like aviator Amelia Earhart and baseball star Roberto Clemente, and the grant came through. Díes said, "Nunca agachó la cabeza y condenaba el racismo," and translated it as, "Though he faced plenty of racism he never bowed down his head." He also said, "I don't feel like we're compromising our goals or mission," and added, "By playing with the rules, we are able to give our perspective on the lives of these American heroes."
That’s the bargain on offer. Bend the project toward the state’s preferred symbols, or watch the funding disappear.
David Lubin, a retired Wake Forest University professor who has written books about American art, politics and cultural propaganda, said there are two forms of patriotism. "One is, 'My country, right or wrong,' that America is the greatest place on the face of the earth," he said. "And the other is the patriotic emotion of, 'We can do better. And it's our mission in life to keep hewing to the ideals of the origins of the country.'" Lubin said patriotic art can be a useful tool for governments because it can unite people around policies and ideologies, but when a country is as politically divided as the U.S. is today, patriotic art often only ends up reinforcing rifts. He said, "It feeds into thought patterns that are already prevalent among half the population. Like preaching to the converted."
The Civility Machine
Back at the Reagan Museum and Library, Reagan Foundation spokesperson Melissa Giller said the 40th president believed patriotism could coexist with a wide range of perspectives. She said, "He really believed in bipartisanship, always believed in reaching across the aisle." Giller said the foundation is now working to spread the late president's worldview. She said, "We've created a new center called the Center on Civility and Democracy." She added, "In fact, we were giving away free Civility Handbooks when people were checking in."
The handbook aims to help Americans engage in respectful dialogue in everyday situations. During intermission, people thumbed through the small paperback with its stars-and-stripes cover and then slipped it into their purses and pockets. The whole scene had the polish of public relations and the discipline of a funded message. The state pays for the pageant, cuts off the dissenting arts, and calls the result civic culture.