A model of this text first appeared in the Reliable Sources publication. You can sign up for free right here.
During President Donald Trump’s first time period in workplace, he didn’t even present as much as the Kennedy Center Honors. He felt slighted by the performers, so he shunned the occasion on the famed John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
In his second time period, Trump has tried to remake the cultural middle in his MAGA picture. Trump “was drawn to the institution for its cultural prestige,” Katy Waldman wrote for The New Yorker in December, however “he and his allies made it radioactive.”
That’s why I’d categorize Trump’s Sunday night time announcement about closing the constructing for a two-year renovation as surprising however not shocking.
It did come as a shock: workers discovered “via the president’s social media post,” NCS’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn reported. But “there had been talk within the organization of a temporary closure at the end of the fiscal year — nominally for ‘renovations’ but also to stem the financial bleed affecting the institution amid the backlash from artists.”
Indeed, the numbers inform the story. “In the past year, sales of subscription packages and tickets have fallen dramatically,” The Washington Post reported Monday. “Empty seats became a common sight at the center.”
Equally telling: The sheer size of an NPR article titled “Here’s who’s canceled their Kennedy Center performances since Trump took over.”
Trump’s involvement has been a turnoff to many arts patrons, whilst he and his allies have portrayed the president because the venue’s long-needed savior.
The flood of performer cancellations accelerated after Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board members voted so as to add his title to the establishment final December.dann
Trump was on the middle simply final week for the premiere of his spouse’s documentary movie “Melania.”
So now we’re left questioning, as this Vulture headline asks, “Is Trump going to tear down the Kennedy Center?” Will members of the Kennedy household attempt to cease him?
On “NCS This Morning,” Audie Cornish stated the rebuilding plan reprises a query associated to Trump’s East Wing demolition: “Is this a person who’s renovating because he’s not leaving, or is this a person renovating because everywhere he sees a potential real estate project?”
Despite the latest surge in cancellations, a big variety of occasions are nonetheless slated on the performing arts middle. The constructing is residence to the National Symphony Orchestra, which performs a number of instances per week throughout its lively season. Regular performances of “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “The Outsider” musicals are nonetheless on the calendar.
“If any forethought was given to the livelihood of the musicians who perform regularly in the Kennedy Center, no mention of it was made in the president’s statement,” Charles T. Downey of the Washington Classical Review wrote on Sunday night time.
The Washington Post famous, “It was not immediately clear what the closure would mean for annual events held at the center such as the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor or the Kennedy Center Honors.” Trump’s new East Wing ballroom just isn’t anticipated to be prepared in time.
While brief on solutions concerning the impacts, Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell, a vocal Trump loyalist, tweeted Sunday night time that “this will be a brief closure in retrospect — and I am confident this sets the stage for a stronger, revitalized National Cultural and Entertainment Complex.”
While Trump insists that is about fixing a “dilapidated” constructing, “it’s not the decor that has driven performers away. It’s the decorator,” David Axelrod remarked on X.
“Just like his casinos and other businesses, the Kennedy Center went out of business after he put his name on it,” Brett Meiselas, co-founder of the progressive outlet MeidasTouch, wrote.
“Instead of allowing the Center to return to its arts mission, he’d rather close it than admit his vanity project was rejected by the American people,” former GOP lawmaker Barbara Comstock wrote.