No. He's describing tyranny of the mob. Which is worse than an autocracy. At least in an autocracy you know you are being fed a pile of bullshit.
> Public funding of it is essential to a healthy society.
No it's not. It's called government propaganda.
> The idea of funding it is to free the artists from those constraints.
No. It's to constrain artists to agenda.
What you are really saying is I agree with the government propaganda and hence support it. That's all you are saying.
In a democracy, government should be apolitical. People like you prove that democracy is actually a bad idea. It's funny how the foundation of modern democracy ( US ) was created on distrust of government and elites, but the 'democracies' that worship british royalties was founded on slavish worship of authority.