Irreverent Political Art Is a Sign of the U.S.’s Health

By the time I got to New York’s Union Square on Tuesday, the grotesque statue of Hillary Clinton, naked, her feet replaced by hooves, had already been removed, only hours after it went up. It wasn’t likely to stay long: Its first appearance in the city a week ago, near the Bowling Green subway station, provoked an altercation between the sculptor -- apparently one Anthony Scioli -- and an angry woman who thought the sculpture was an abomination. And of course Scioli, like the authors of naked Donald Trump statues that cropped up in several U.S. cities in August, didn’t have a permit.

Ever since it became clear that Clinton and Trump would be the major-party nominees and the election campaign turned into an all-out farce, I’ve been looking for hopeful signs. The U.S. is better than this race, many people I’ve met in my travels have told me, and I agree with them. One reason is Americans’ anarchic, irreverent creativity, which rises up to fight the indignities of a political process gone badly wrong.