Donald Trump’s White House–rats are being forced from the ship, and the good people are leaving, too.
Steve Bannon, loathed leader of Breitbart news, the White House’s leading proponent of hate, has been ousted by General Kelly. Also, I dare say, Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report ran a successful campaign to get rid of Bannon. The once and probably future Breitbart editor was the Rasputin of Trump’s administration. He was hated on the left, the right, in the center, and on the fringes. His leaving won’t solve Trump’s problems, but it’s like lancing a boil. There will be some relief.
Meanwhile, all the remaining members of Trump’s Arts Council have resigned. This means that CEO’s don’t want to work with Trump and no one else does.
Here is the text of their letter. Among the signers: famed artist Chuck Close, actors Kal Penn and John Lloyd Young, Vicki Kennedy (widow of Ted Kennedy), and writer Jhumpa Lahiri.
Reproach and censure in the strongest possible terms are necessary following your support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville.  The false equivalencies you push cannot stand. The Administration’s refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish  America ill. We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions. We are members of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH).
The Committee was created in 1982 under President Reagan to advise the White House on cultural issues. We were hopeful that continuing to serve in the PCAH would allow us to focus on the important work the committee does with your federal partners and the private sector to address, initiate, and support key policies and programs in the arts and humanities for all Americans. Effective immediately, please accept our resignation from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Elevating any group that threatens and discriminates on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, disability, orientation, background, or identity is un-American.
We have fought slavery, segregation, and internment. We must learn from our rich and often painful history. The unified fabric of America is made by patriotic individuals from backgrounds as vast as the nation is strong. In our service to the American people, we have experienced this first-hand as we traveled and built the Turnaround Arts education program, now in many urban and rural schools across the country from Florida to Wisconsin. Speaking truth to power is never easy, Mr. President. But it is our role as commissioners on the PCAH to do so. Art is about inclusion. The Humanities include a vibrant free press. You have attacked both. You released a budget which eliminates arts and culture agencies. You have threatened nuclear war while gutting diplomacy funding.
The Administration pulled out of the Paris agreement, filed an amicus brief undermining the Civil Rights Act, and attacked our brave trans service members. You have subverted equal protections, and are committed to banning Muslims and refugee women & children from our great country. This does not unify the nation we all love. We know the importance of open and free dialogue through our  work in the cultural diplomacy realm, most recently with the first-ever US Government arts and culture delegation to Cuba, a country without the same First Amendment protections  we enjoy here.
Your words and actions push us all further away from the freedoms we are guaranteed. Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions. We took a patriotic oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values. Your values are not  American values. We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too.
