The point is more that by sponsoring all the Andy Warhols of the art world it ensured the entire high art scene would remain vapid and harmless while being a "cultural prestige" thing globally. A given artist being vapid and reactionary is meaningless, but ensuring that all or even most successful artists are has a much bigger effect, and that's what their funding contributed to.
Because reactionaries have hegemonic power, they don't need to do anything but poison the well with any potential threats: they don't need to build a movement when they have armies behind them, they don't need to find new avenues to spread their ideology when they have the media and schools behind them.
![[CW: Bestiality, SV] Liberalism](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/376d8b8a-85c2-4447-8a2d-4b2223703259.jpeg){kind=link}
The point is more that by sponsoring all the Andy Warhols of the art world it ensured the entire high art scene would remain vapid and harmless while being a "cultural prestige" thing globally. A given artist being vapid and reactionary is meaningless, but ensuring that all or even most successful artists are has a much bigger effect, and that's what their funding contributed to.
Because reactionaries have hegemonic power, they don't need to do anything but poison the well with any potential threats: they don't need to build a movement when they have armies behind them, they don't need to find new avenues to spread their ideology when they have the media and schools behind them.