If you can’t beat ’em, put ’em out of business. Donald Trump has some fixation on the Kennedy Center and now he’s announced that as of July 4, 2026 the center will be closed for two years for a “complete rebuilding.” During his first term he stayed away from the center and during his second term he renamed the center after himself — and watched droves of artists refuse to perform there. Now they don’t have a place to perform and it’s just as well. At least now there’s a stalemate until the end of Trump’s term in 2028. The Hill:
President Trump on Sunday announced that the Kennedy Center would be closed for a two-year restoration beginning in July.
“The Trump Kennedy Center will close on July 4th, 2026, in honor of the 250th Anniversary of our Country, whereupon we will simultaneously begin Construction of the new and spectacular Entertainment Complex,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Financing is completed, and fully in place!”
The president said that a one-time, two-year closure of the facility would be the “fastest way to bring The Trump Kennedy Center to the highest level of Success, Beauty, and Grandeur” as opposed to partial closures for construction that would have to work in and around the performances.
In the post, however, he said that this plan would be “totally subject to board approval.”
In December, the board voted to rename the center “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Also in December, Trump made history as the first president to emcee the institution’s marquee event, the Kennedy Center Honors. The move to host the Honors came months after Trump overhauled the arts hub named for the 35th president, accusing it of being too “woke” while booting several bipartisan members of its board and installing himself as its chairman.
“Woke” is Trump Speak for successful accomplished artists, with vision and with social conscience and people who fit that description regard Trump as a boorish and destructive pig. So never the twain shall meet, it would appear. Ergo, Trump has gotten the upper hand: he can’t be rejected by artists refusing to perform if the facility is closed, now can he? So he saves face.
It remains to be seen if marble armrests will now adorn the facility or if Trump plans to name the opera house after Melania. Stay tuned.
Are we looking forward to one of the great modernist buildings of the last fifty years, with a great acoustic, modernist interior, being demolished, so that something that looks like Uday and Qusay collaborated on a Holiday Inn dance hall be erected in it’s place?
Probably.
Unless he can be stopped?
One has to look at where those who attended the Kennedy Center came from. DC of course. Affluent Montgomery County just to the north and a smaller portion of Frederick County north of that. Parts of Anne Arundel County to the east of DC are also affluent. On the Virginia side you have the cities of Arlington and Alexandria (a mix of regular, poor and affluent sections) which looking at a map seem like part of large and affluent Fairfax Country. As with MD.s Frederick County a portion of folks from Prince William and Loudon County have people that make the trip. I’m guessing but these areas, with a radius of perhaps thirty miles have universities, lots of people with good incomes and an appreciation for the arts and made up probably 80% or so of attendees. Another ten percent or so, extending beyond what would be considered exurbs but within a two to three hour drive should be factored in. Kind of like how people back where I’m from which was about two hours from St. Louis would head there for ball games or professional theater. The remainder would be tourists.
The places I mentioned aren’t exactly MAGA territory. There’s more than a few of course but not nearly enough to fill seats for performances from Lee Greenwood, Kid Rock and other lame-assed GOP/Trump worship brand entertainment. For people a couple hours or so away these types of performers do shows at smaller venues and county fairs. MAGAs aren’t going to drive hours to DC to pay higher prices to see them!
Ticket sales have cratered and so have donations. The tech bros and Trump loving billionaires aren’t going to kick in major pledges for the type of entertainment willing to perform there now. So, it makes sense Trump would close it using the excuse of renovations. I hope he’s just saying that about renovations. I didn’t attend that many events at the Kennedy Center during my almost two decades of living in northern VA but I found it to be quite the place. Of course, it wasn’t decked out with fucking gold everywhere so to Trump that made the place ‘a dump.’ I shudder to think what his version of a renovated to HIS tastes Kennedy Center would like like!
Like the East Wing of the WH it would all have to be redone. I recall a time when the Kennedy Center did in fact go through a rough time and it was difficult to find rich people willing to kick in to fix the place up. Hopefully they can be persuaded to do so again. Once Trump is gone and proper management is restored that will again attract world class artists and performers.
Reminiscent of placing Trump on the side of a casino. That went well.
Yeah….. three times over…..
Can the Kennedy clan withdraw its name from the building, now that it’s officially in the hands of Trump and his Philistine bootlickers? Never mind the paperwork, just send in a crew to remove the letters from the facade. Save them for future use when the Trump regime has died. Any bets on whether Trump would then cancel the closing, glue on some faux gold schlock and consider it a win, bigly?
…..I’d like that…..
Trump, 79!, should add a sign on the building saying, TKC, temporarily closed for a permanent amount of time, will be remodeled and gilded to facilitate the demolishment of the building. The empty lot will symbolize the gist of his time as POTUS. Sure, the message is nonsense, but that will prove that Trump, 79!, wrote it.