Missouri’s airwaves are about to get a lot dumber. For that, we can all thank President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans — Missouri’s own Sen. Eric Schmitt in particular.

Schmitt was the Senate sponsor of legislation passed last week yanking more than $1 billion in federal funding for National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In Missouri, it will mean the loss of more than $7 million for markets around the state served by nine NPR stations and four PBS stations.

Schmitt is supposed to be in Washington fighting to make life better for Missourians. Instead, he is proudly leading a charge that could mean service cuts to Missouri stations that will particularly impact rural residents in areas with spotty internet or cable services — areas that constitute much of Schmitt’s (and Trump’s) base.

We would stipulate that the entire concept of tax-funded public journalism is at the very least a valid topic for serious debate. It’s not irrational to suggest that’s not government’s function and that making it so could in principle erode the independence of journalistic entities.

But that serious debate about the government’s proper role isn’t the one underlying these cuts. Nor is the common but unsupported trope that NPR is journalistically biased against conservatives on serious political issues.

Instead, as Schmitt made clear in recent statements, this is all about the MAGA movement’s jihad against anything it deems culturally blue. He referred to the stations as “left-wing propaganda outlets” that are “woke, biased, and ideologically captured.”

His examples of supposed offending content included an interesting (and funny) NPR Valentine’s Day feature last year about “queer animals” and a 2017 PBS panel that offered a serious discussion about the definitions of “woke” and “white privilege.”

In other words, the objections to the stations’ content aren’t just about political coverage but cultural issues — specifically, the culture-war obsessions of the MAGA right, most especially anything that might be tagged with the ever-versatile taunt “woke.” As some of Schmitt’s examples illustrate, even discussing certain issues is enough to spur cries of “left-wing propaganda” from these right-wing propagandists.

In a media universe full of cable TV news outlets that don’t even bother concealing their actual political biases (both left and right) — and with the newspaper industry struggling just to stay afloat — public media has an especially crucial role to play in keeping Americans informed, educated and, yes, entertained.

From the sober and serious reporting of NPR journalists to the elevated entertainment offerings on PBS stations to the “Sesame Street” characters who helped teach so many of us to count and spell, these entities are a valuable part of America’s media mosaic. They are also among the few elements of media that haven’t been sucked into one side or the other of today’s culture wars — and that’s what culture warriors like Schmitt can’t stand.

PBS and NPR stations are, reasonably enough, ramping up their efforts at fundraising from the general public in response to the federal cuts. Viewers and listeners who want to help keep these outlets alive can and should contribute funding to them individually by going to their websites or participating in their broadcast funding drives.

Until Missouri and America resume electing actual public servants instead of the cultural arsonists currently running the show, those donations from the public will be more urgent than ever.

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