Split Screen

by Bill Lasarow

July 2, 2026

Robert Motherwell, “Elegy to the Spanish Republic XXXIV,” 1953-54, oil on canvas 80 x 100”. Courtesy of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum.

Split Screen 1

This time, a three-parter … Former President Barack Obama presided over the public opening of the Obama Center on Chicago’s South Side. He and his closest partner, Michelle, opined with their usual eloquence about our democracy and our diversity. I chose the adjective “usual” to stress the quasi-boring fact that we have come to expect this from the most normal and capable president we have ever had the good fortune to elect. Be sure to read Margaret Hawkins’ account of the Center’s first impression in this current edition.

The same day we got to see the current president, on multiple occasions, all quite awful. Immediately following the G7 Summit in France (June 15-17), Caligula dined at the Versailles Palace. His excellency proclaimed that Italian PM Giorgia Meloni had “begged for a photo with me.” Meloni responded that “Neither I nor Italy ever beg.” And that was the big news coming out of our participation at the Summit. He then made his near-daily pitch about how close we are to extracting major concessions from a defeated Iran, whose unconditional surrender he was just about to obtain. This while comfortably dissembling about consumer prices tumbling while the stock market numbers go “through the roof.” In the background there was the usual drumbeat of Emoluments Clause violations; the continuing unlawful and botched renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool; incessant babble about his billion-dollar White House ballroom and who would really bear that cost (spoiler alert: taxpayers); and racist slurs about deporting Haitian and Syrian refugees currently in America under Temporary Protected Status, as the Supreme Court ruled that it is permissible for a president to strip away those protections (a Democratic president will undoubtably restore them). Racial prejudice, corruption, blatant dishonesty and incompetence for this man are all just another day at the office. And, yes, he retains quite a number of cultists who are right there with him.

Norman Lewis, “The Gremlins,” 1961, oil on canvas, 47 1/4 x 63 3/4”.

How any thinking person could fail to see the contrast for what it is, it’s just beyond me.

Leonora Carrington, “And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur,” 1953, oil on canvas, 23 5/8 x 27 9/16”. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Split Screen 2

Caligula’s latest Big Lie for the midterm election is equating the Social Democrats with the Soviet Communist Party. To quote, “These are hard core, godless Communists … They will close your churches in this country … They will kill your people, and that what they’re about.” For the Fascist Party of America, which truly is dedicated to morphing America into a White Christian Nationalist state, anyone whose political views are to the left of Attila the Hun qualifies as a Communist. They invariably lump moderate Democrats into these deliberate mischaracterizations, never learning to resist the slander. I would love to see Democrats call the red-baiters on it, have them explain what “Communism” and “Socialism” and “Social Democracy” each mean.

Zohran Mamdani is the most talented among the young leaders of all wings of the Democratic Party, and it happens that he is openly a Democratic Socialist who is helping other Democratic Socialists win elections. The “churn” appears metaphorically in the form of a large wave. Over the course of the next four months that wave may somewhat dissipate or it may build into a national tidal wave. The trend line has been towards the latter, and that will be much to the national interest. The latter could result in this mafia family tightening its grip on the country as a whole.

William Kentridge, still from “History of the Main Complaint,” 1996, 35mm film transferred to video, 5:50 minutes. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

In my Boomer lifetime I have seen a wide range of outcomes in this ongoing political melodrama. Caligula marks an aggressive and violent return of a Tammany Hall culture that today is nearing the end of a two-year monopoly on federal power. Tammany Hall controlled New York, but not the country. Keeping that monopoly in place, in mafia terms, is not about winning over the electorate. It’s all about creating the conditions for a significant minority of voters, somewhere between 40 and 45%, to hold sway.

In the Democratic coalition there is virtually no Communist component. What little true Socialism there is wields little influence and enjoys no power. But the Fascist crap keeps on coming, and is a major feature of that mafia family as manifested in Caligula redux. This guy is a profoundly poor excuse for a human being. He is a sexual predator, a racist, misogynistic xenophobe. His and his minions lies and corruption can be so brazen and yet so routine that when his Vice-President argues that Watergate would today have amounted today to no more than a 12-hour news story, I have to nod in agreement. Vance got that one right, but for all the wrong reasons.

This is not a president of all the people, only of those who swear fealty to his cult. The foundational Big Lie is Jan6. If you buy into that lie because you are heartless and greedy, let’s see if you can be a player on the team. A whole lot of money is at stake, and most Supreme Court rulings modify or ignore the meaning of the plain language of the Constitution starting with Citizens United, Shelton County, and now Louisiana v. Callais. Even the 14th Amendment’s stipulation of birthright citizenship just narrowly survived their naked partisanship. For now.

Piero Manzoni, “Le Socle du Monde (Base of the World),” 1961, inscribed iron plinth, 100 x 100 x 82”. Courtesy of Harning  and the Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning, Denmark.

Mail-in ballots did a bit better in SCOTUSland, but the inherent logic of the argument to do away with it stands logic on its head. The extra time that California, in particular, takes to certify election results reflects the care taken to ensure that voter fraud cannot take place. Ballot counts are reviewed by hand, with care taken to match signatures and verify voter information. Then, there is the sheer scale of California elections when compared to other states. In the June primaries California recorded over 9 million ballots. In the Los Angeles Mayoral election, about 850,000 ballots were recorded. The entire population of the state of Wyoming is about 650,000. In the Presidential election of 2024 that state counted just over 270,000 ballots. Tell me that you would argue California should count 9.2 million ballots as quickly at Wyoming counts 270,000?

No wonder California takes longer to tally results. We have a whole lot more voters than anywhere else, and we take precautions to make voter fraud nearly impossible. Getting those results more slowly is exactly the reason that we have virtually no voter fraud. And allowing for the time of postal delivery (it’s the postmark that determines whether or not a ballot counts) provides voters with the assurance that if they drop it in the mailbox their ballot will be counted.

Saype, “Beyond Walls, Step 22,” 2026, ground mural, eco-responsible paint on grass, Boom Island Park, Minneapolis, 310 x 75’. Print edition available. Courtesy of the artist.

Split Screen 3

We are publishing this, edition #56 of our monthly Democracy Chain: Culture and politics from an art critical perspective, today, July 2nd, rather than the normal Saturday, which this month falls on July 4th. We are all aware that America is turning 250. I was 26 fifty years ago at the time of our Bicentennial in 1976. These round-figure dates alone are cause for celebration, but also for assessment and planning. For this one I will have seen two anniversaries. If I live to see a third, I would be 126; not so likely. It is still hard to imagine any human being living past 100, but a lot of folks do that now. No human being makes it to 126, let alone 176. You can only see so much history in a lifetime. Who knows? If we play our cards right there will begin to be people surviving to 126. But, no matter the hands dealt us, we’re blowing through our chips — and nature is kibitzing.

One of my personal and aesthetic inspirations is an old Marvel Comics character, Uatu, The Watcher. One of Kirby and Lee’s stellar inventions, Uatu first appeared in April 1963 (“Fantastic Four,” #13). “Star Trek” premiered in September 1966. Uatu was fashioned to be majestic and benign, yet all powerful and all knowing. The alien presence of an observer who practices not just restraint but firm non-involvement in the affairs of the species being observed becomes the Prime Directive in “Star Trek”: No interference with the social development of [any given] planet.

Vija Celmins, “Night Sky #19,” 1998, charcoal on paper, 22 1/2 x 26 1/2”. © Vija Celmins, courtesy of the Tate Modern, London.

The principle of the Prime Directive came out of the radical break America made after World War III with all prior post-conflict resolutions. To the victor did not belong the spoils, but the means to construct an international order designed to prevent a recurrence of the Nazi and Imperial Japanese debacles. The Marshall Plan, the G.I. Bill, and the policy theories distilled by FDR that were meant to aid the developing middle class here and abroad proved wildly successful. The top income tax bracket stood at 70% until Ronald Reagan began his term in office. Let’s get back to that tax structure. And why does the cutoff point for paying the payroll tax today stand at $180,000? There should be no ceiling at all. The Social Security fund would never be spent. My belief is that the 6% interest rate on the payroll tax could be reduced to 5%, perhaps 4%. That would save businesses a lot of money in a way that serves the general public, and certainly that portion of the middle class that is has been struggling to stay there. For Americans who enjoy that much wealth, a 70% tax bracket at the top (say over $10 million of reportable income) means that they have plenty of means to do whatever they want.

In nearly all of the 50 years since our Bicentennial I have been so privileged to practice the blend of art and philosophy that I was first taught at UCLA. The visual art world has changed every bit as much as society in general over those five decades, but mostly in ways that reflect the best of us. My first priority upon joining the art world was to reflect that world and funnel observation of what enabled so much creative achievement, yet failed to fully support talent or engage a significant public interest. That generalization comes with an understanding that the work of our museums and art fairs engaging and growing that audience has been significant. Next to the worlds of sports, film, TV and music, the visual art world is much smaller, its audience much less affluent or well informed. On the other hand, there are also many other important cultural forms that the visual art world dwarfs.

While my personal circumstance for some years has greatly limited any travel, I have been able to do a lot for colleagues who are dedicated to visual art like I am. They are the ones who view exhibitions regularly and help break them down for you. By facilitating them I am doing what has been my priority this last half-century: caring for my family. After that, I love enabling my fellow editors and writers (and through them our artists), and I support an important interest, that of the exhibiting galleries and museums.

Mark Bradford, “Pickett’s Charge (The Copse of Trees),” 2016–17, mixed media painting, one in a series of eight, 12 x 45’. Photo courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joshua White.

At the same time, this is a moment in which Americans who truly are patriotic are stepping forward, but against a determined and unscrupulous foe, one now endowed with all of the unique wealth and power his office provides. He is the great traitor to American history and values, and he has loads of facilitators and allies slavering for their own payday. The broad public now sees that. But so does the dictator, who will say and do anything to avoid losing what he now grasps. His sense of ownership may be both false and odious but he feels it baby, he really feels it. His current Congressional leadership stands ready to negate votes and undermine certification. His militia stands ready to repeat Jan6 but with much more deadly results.

And we stand ready. The power lies with our non-violent millions demonstrating, with our representatives pushing back, our observers reporting on what they observe, and of the fairness of our policy priorities. Not just their fairness, but their dedication to the better angels of our character — our rejection of repression, of brazen untruth, of enormous grift, of predatory capitalism run amok. We stand ready.

Bill Lasarow, Publisher and Editor, is a longtime practicing artist, independent publisher, and community activist. He founded or co-founded ArtScene Digest to Visual Art in Southern California (1982); the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles (1987); and Visual Art Source (2009). He is also the founder (2021) of The Democracy Chain. In 2025 he relaunched SquareCylinder with co-publishers Mark Van Proyen and DeWitt Cheng.