This is probably not the way Trump will want to be remembered. His grift and arrogance in putting his name on the Kennedy Center was a travesty. Now it looks like, even though his name is down, it’s damaged the façade. He has, and is still trying, to take over the Kennedy Center for himself! It looks like the shutdown for the “renovations,” which we all know will permanently ruin the facility, and the campus won’t be able to be repaired either, may still happen. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Trump try to rip it down, just like he did the East Wing. That’s still bitter.
How much more can he ruin? It’s almost too wretched to contemplate. Right now, we see the Kennedy Center, the ridiculous ballroom, the triumphal arch in a really bad place, Trump’s Pond, the country’s 250th birthday, the economy, tariffs, inflation, the Fed, more tariffs, ICE has been let loose, the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Ontario, our farmers and our ranchers, as well as decency and the rule of law, which definitely includes SCOTUS.
Thank you for the step up, Raw Story:
Lawyers for President Donald Trump didn’t dispute that adding his name to the Kennedy Center may have “irrevocably damaged” its historic marble facade. The tacit concession surfaced in a Wednesday court filing from Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH), an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees. Beatty has been fighting the administration’s renewed push to emblazon Trump’s name on the building. Beatty’s attorneys argued in the filing that the administration’s silence was itself an admission.
Yes, now they want to carve it into the façade, and that will definitely ruin it. We’re already on a razor’s edge about Trump tearing the whole thing down for some unneeded outdoor amphitheater. In Washington. In the weather. After the sneak attack on the East Wing, anything is possible. Now, there would be some heavy construction equipment needed to do so, and that’s not easy to sneak by. And if he does so, how much more history will we lose? His ego does a disservice to Kennedy, the performers, and the people of America. Refresh, maybe, but he wants to gut it. Then it will be redone Trump-style and be tacky and hideous. All the fake gold. Ick.
The filing accuses the administration of defying a federal judge who ruled in May that the center’s public spaces can honor only President John F. Kennedy. The court was blunt about who controls the name, the filing noted. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” the judge wrote in the decision, which the filing quoted.
And therein lies the problem. Congress is currently ruled by Republicans who kowtow to Trump. And Republicans walked back the War Powers bit. And Republicans passed the BUB. Now, admittedly, being the minority party in Congress, there’s not much Democrats can do. The GOP has let Trump stomp all over it. Those Republicans who said they were going to push back? That didn’t happen either.
We hope this can be stopped.
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