A Department of the Arts can preserve America’s cultural and economic powerhouse

America has a secretary of Agriculture. We have a secretary of Transportation. We have cabinet departments devoted to energy, commerce and labor. So why, in the country that gave the world Hollywood, hip-hop, jazz, Broadway and video games, don’t we have a secretary of the Arts?

Sam Reich — CEO of the stellar streaming service Dropout — has been making this point , and Democrats should steal it shamelessly. Because this isn’t just about appreciating art. It’s about recognizing an enormous American industry.

Arts and cultural production generated $1.17 trillion in economic value in 2023 — 4.2 percent of the U.S. economy — and supported 5.4 million jobs. The arts are comparable in economic size to agriculture and transportation . In February, the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced it would no longer regularly produce these statistics . Apparently, we’re not just neglecting this economic powerhouse. We’re retreating from measuring it.

Consider just two pieces of it. America’s film and television industry supports more than 2 million jobs and $202 billion in wages, spread across more than 162,000 businesses. Video games generate nearly $96 billion in economic impact and support more than 250,000 American jobs.

We aren’t talking about a boutique concern for coastal elites. We are talking about jobs. And those jobs face one of the most dramatic technological disruptions since the invention of recorded sound.

Artificial intelligence can already generate images, music, voices, scripts and video. As these tools improve, the distinction between what requires a studio and what a handful of people can produce could become increasingly blurry.

Our government isn’t ready. Technology has already outpaced our ability to regulate these industries. Artificial intelligence threatens to leave us even further behind.

America needs a Department of the Arts with a cabinet-level secretary of the Arts charged with thinking about the whole ecosystem: artists and audiences, studios and independent creators, unions and technology companies, copyright and AI, arts education and America’s cultural exports. Its mission should protect creators’ rights and livelihoods, not police their creative choices. And Democrats should run on creating it in 2026 and 2028.

Donald Trump has spent his second presidency demonstrating that institutions aren’t permanent. His takeover and attempted transformation of the Kennedy Center is only the most literal example.

The Democratic response cannot simply be we’ll put everything back the way it was . Some things need rebuilding. Others need reimagining. For decades, Democrats have largely played defense with the government: save this agency, protect that program, restore this budget cut. What if we started building again?

A Department of the Arts would say something bigger about what we believe the government is for. America doesn’t merely need roads for moving our products. We need institutions that protect and strengthen the people who make our culture.

The next great American institution doesn’t have to be one we inherit. It can be one we invent.

Svante Myrick is president of People For the American Way .