Billy Porter Warns That Under Trump Adminstration ‘Work Is Slowly Drying Up’

“Authoritarian governments go after the arts first. Because the arts have the power to reach inside of people and change the molecular structure from the inside out.”

While appearing on PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton, actor Billy Porter discussed how the Trump administration’s recent actions, including the attack on civil liberties, are affecting opportunities for Black people, as well as queer folks.

According to the Advocate, Porter attended a demonstration in Washington, D.C., in front of the Kennedy Center with the likes of Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, and Jim Acosta the Friday before the last round of “No Kings” protests, “as artists warn that President Donald Trump’s cultural agenda is threatening creative independence at one of the nation’s flagship institutions.”

During his Saturday visit with Sharpton, Porter, best known for his work in Broadway’s Kinky Boots, laid out his fears.

“Authoritarian governments go after the arts first,” Porter said. “Because the arts have the power to reach inside of people and change the molecular structure from the inside out.”

Porter has already felt the effects of the current administration directly. “As a Black gay out artist, I caught the wave of what we now know as performative wokeness,” he said. “And I crashed through glass ceilings that were concrete. And I have noticed the opportunities slowly drying up for the work that I do.”

He’s noted that with programming that’s on now. “The Midwest CBS shows and the cop shows… all of that stuff still exists,” Porter said, according to the Advocate. “But when it’s time to talk about heart, when it’s time to talk about connection, when it’s time to talk about people that don’t look like everybody else…there’s not a lot of that work going on right now.”

Porter does knows that people have to meet the challenges the Trump administration keeps erecting.

“This is not the normal resistance,” Porter said. “We have to redefine what going high looks like in this new world order. We have a government who does not follow the rules.”

You can view the clip below.