For many Americans, the election demonstrated what is best about the country, only to be followed by the sadly familiar process of knocking heroes off their pedestals.

I was afraid that they would kill us, and instead they understood, especially when I told them that I was trying to apply the same stratagem that Philip Johnson applied in 1934 when he wanted to make people understand the importance of design, and he took propeller blades and pieces of machinery and in the MoMA galleries he put them on white pedestals against white walls, as if they were Brancusi sculptures.