The Great American Selloff: How the Trump Administration Turned Public Art Into Private Loot

By Brian Allen

There is a quiet theft happening in Washington—no flashing lights. No sirens. No dramatic footage of agents sprinting across a lawn. This one is slower. Quieter. The kind of theft that happens when a government stops believing it owes anything to the people who built it.

Inside the Wilbur J. Cohen Building in Washington, D.C., painted figures stare into an empty hallway. A boy balances on crutches. A father and son walk a deserted railway. A family sits beneath a tree as if waiting for a tomorrow that may never come. These murals were created by some of the greatest American artists of the twentieth century: Ben Shahn. Philip Guston. Seymour Fogel. Ethel Magafan. Jenne Magafan. They formed what historians call the “Sistine Chapel of the New Deal,” a monument to American labor and dignity that emerged from the country’s darkest economic hour.

Now the building that houses these murals is on the chopping block. The Trump administration has moved to sell it off to private developers along with more than forty other federal properties. If the sale proceeds, the works may be destroyed or abandoned. The staff who once worked there have already been fired or relocated. Only the murals remain, like ghosts in a house preparing to be demolished.

This is not just a story about art. It is a story about power. About what a country chooses to cherish. About who the government believes deserves beauty, history, meaning, and memory.

It is a story about whether public culture still belongs to the public at all.

The New Deal Believed Art Was a Public Right

At the height of the Great Depression, when millions were unemployed, and the nation’s future felt uncertain, President Franklin Roosevelt took a position that feels radical in today’s political climate: art is not a luxury. Art is democracy. Art is a public good.

The New Deal paid painters, sculptors, and photographers to create work for schools, post offices, courthouses, and government buildings. These artworks were not meant for museums or wealthy collectors. They were meant for ordinary Americans standing in line to mail a letter, or sitting in a dusty city hall waiting for help.

Ben Shahn and Philip Guston were not abstract symbols of a romantic era. They were working men. They were immigrants or children of immigrants. They were sons of hardship. Guston’s father hanged himself in their backyard after failing to find stable work. Shahn’s family fled persecution and clawed their way into a country that often did not want them. When the federal government paid them to paint, it did not just support their work. It kept them alive.

Their murals in the Cohen Building depict the birth of Social Security and the promise of collective security in a world that had been anything but secure. They reflect the values of a nation still trying to decide what fairness looks like, who deserves protection, and what it means to work, struggle, and survive.

These murals are America’s autobiography.

The Trump Administration Sees Public Culture as a Revenue Stream

According to reporting from Raw Story and other outlets, the current administration is pressing ahead with the sale of dozens of historic federal buildings, including the Cohen Building, despite its placement on the National Register of Historic Places. The Register is supposed to guarantee consultation and review before any demolition or sale. That safeguard appears to have been ignored.

The reasoning is simple: a private developer will not spend the millions of dollars required to maintain murals that do not turn a profit. It is cheaper to tear the building down. Cheaper to sandblast the walls. Cheaper to erase.

The administration’s approach mirrors its broader governing philosophy. Move fast. Break things. Deregulate everything. Public goods are not goods. They are inventory. If it once belonged to the public, sell it. If it once told a story about the country, silence it. If it once held meaning, break it down into parts and sell those for scrap.

The murals face the same fate as many communities, institutions, and values caught in the crosshairs of an administration that prioritizes liquidation over legacy.

Destroying These Murals Is a Political Act

These murals do not just depict Social Security. They celebrate it. They claim it as one of the country’s defining achievements, a promise that government can be a shield and not just a gatekeeper. That message is profoundly inconvenient to an administration whose leading officials have repeatedly called for cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

Art is never neutral. Art carries memory. It carries ideology. It carries the weight of collective stories that the powerful may prefer to forget.

Destroy the murals, and you do not just erase paint. You erase a record of what this country once believed it owed its people.

The New Deal Dream Still Matters Because Inequality Still Exists

In an era where millions are once again insecure about healthcare, housing, and retirement, the New Deal vision is not a relic. It is a warning.

Roosevelt understood that democracy cannot survive on economic fear. If people do not believe they have enough to live by, they will stop believing in the political system that governs them. If people stop believing the government sees them, they will find someone else who claims to.

Public art was never simply decoration. It was a mirror held up to the nation, reflecting not its wealth, but its conscience.

This Is Not Just a Property Sale. It Is a Cultural Emergency

Once these murals are gone, they are gone forever. They cannot be reproduced. They cannot be relocated without massive damage. They cannot be restored if a wrecking crew swings a hammer or if a private developer decides renovation costs are an unnecessary expense.

This moment demands public pressure. Petitions to the General Services Administration and the National Register can slow the process, but the administration has already moved aggressively to bypass normal review.

The public saved other New Deal artworks in the 1970s and 1980s through activism. It can happen again. But unlike the past, the threat now comes directly from the federal government itself.

The Real Question Is This: Who Does America Belong To?

If public art is auctioned to the highest bidder, then the message is unambiguous. America’s history is a commodity. America’s memory is for sale. America’s soul belongs not to its citizens, but to whoever signs the biggest check.

These murals were created to show a nation what it should aspire to. A nation that protects the vulnerable. A nation that invests in dignity. A nation that sees art not as a commodity, but as a public inheritance.

If they fall, it will not be due to neglect. It will be because someone in power decided the past was worth more dead than alive.

And that is a choice the country will feel for generations.

References

Murphy, J. P. (2025, November 30). Trump admin selling off historic public art to the highest bidder. Raw Story.

Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library. (1939). Address at the dedication of the National Gallery of Art. National Archives.

Living New Deal. (2025). Campaign to save New Deal murals. https://livingnewdeal.org

National Register of Historic Places. (2025). Wilbur J. Cohen Building listing and guidelines. U.S. National Park Service.

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