In a new book, Isaac Butler goes back to the 1980s to trace how battles started against the arts, from Piss Christ to Mapplethorpe, and looks at what we can learn for today

“The thing that the religious right did over and over and over again – they do it today; JD Vance is actually exceptionally good at this – is this idea that, ‘ You expressing your point of view oppresses me, you enjoying your civil rights oppresses me. Even though I’m the second most powerful man in the country, other people having their point of view is actually oppression against me.’ They were exceptionally good at that…”