By David Shuster
For all of us who ever lived in Washington, D.C. or visited, one of the safer assumptions in our nation’s capitol was that the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts would always honor a dead President who, whatever his sins, possessed at least a rudimentary respect for civilization. That assumption has now been annihilated.
The Kennedy Center is being rechristened with the name of Donald J. Trump, a man whose chief contribution to art and aesthetics has been the gilding of the Presidency and the mass production of horrifying vulgarity.
This is not commemoration; it is appropriation and personal aggrandizement. Trump has slapped his name on everything from skyscrapers to steaks. Now, he is vandalizing the cathedral of American performing arts. The Kennedy Center was created to honor President Kennedy’s belief that the arts are essential to a vibrant democracy – not to serve as Trump billboard.
Yet here we are.
The Kennedy Center board members who voted to rename the facility the Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts are a collection of MAGA sycophants, Trump cultists, and right wing nutjobs. The list includes: Sergio Gor (A Trump aide that even Elon Musk labelled a “snake”), Maria Bartiromo (Fox Business News), Laura Ingraham (Fox News Channel) Paolo Zampoli (Melania Trump’s modeling agent) Susie Wiles (Trump Chief of Staff) Lee Greenwood (MAGA favored musician/Trump bible co-seller) and other.
This is a lunatic Trump group that has long mistaken obedience for patriotism and vanity for legacy. Their logic is clear: if something exists, is admired, and does not already bear Trump’s name, then clearly an injustice has occurred. Correct it at once.
The Kennedy family, understandably, has reacted with something between astonishment and nausea. Maria Shriver, JFK’s niece, describes the renaming as “beyond comprehension” and “downright weird.” She points out the absurdity of adding Trump’s name alongside and in front of her Uncle’s, noting that JFK built the legacy of American support for the arts. The Center was conceived as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy’s belief that the arts mattered, that a nation which could not sing, dance, or think beautifully was a nation already halfway embalmed. Trump’s philosophy of culture, by contrast, seems to be that anything that does not flatter him personally is either rigged, woke, or insufficiently large.
One large issue the MAGATs are ignoring with this change is federal law. The Kennedy Center was designated by Congress as a living memorial to JFK and named as such via Congressional legislation. The law was passed by the House and Senate in 1964 and signed by President Lyndon Johnson.
Changing it requires Congressional approval. But not according to team Trump.
The tragedy is not just that Trump is having his name chiseled into yet another edifice. The tragedy is that the edifice in question is supposed to house excellence. The Kennedy Center has long been the home of the National Symphony Orchestra. The NSO is a serious, world class ensemble playing serious music for people who possess ears.
In the newly Trumpified Center, one imagines the concert hall stage will soon host The Gold-Plated MAGA Polka Kingsm thumping out martial oompah tunes while a fog machine pumps out artificial patriotism and a giant LED screen flashes the words TREMENDOUS VIBRATO.
Perhaps there will also be monthly performances of The MAGA Marching Band & Patriotic Yodelers, belting out renditions of “Yankee Doodle” with cowbells, or The Trumpets of Triumph playing only national anthems 24/7. Indeed, thanks to Trump and his cultists, the Center will become more of a Disney parade than a symphonic stage. A carnival of crude nationalism will undoubtedly replace the harmonies of Mahler and Copland. Such absurdities might be funny if the real stakes were not so high.
Because this isn’t just about a name on a building. It’s about cultural memory, national values, and what we choose to honor.
In announcing the news on X, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote, “Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be a truly great team long into the future.”
Really? Kennedy is dead. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Did Karoline Leavitt not know this?
Even if Leavitt is just trolling Kennedy fans and historians, all of this underscores that this renaming represents not reverence for art and history, but contempt. Trump does not elevate institutions. He drags them into the swamp of his own disgusting corruption. Wherever the Trump name lands, seriousness flees, dignity evaporates, and failure arrives.
We should all ask ourselves: Do we want our national cultural institutions governed as boutique branding exercises — or as spaces that honor history, artistic integrity, and the public good? This renaming is more than distasteful — it is an insult to artists, audiences, and the very idea of a cultural commons.
Also, renaming the facility will not enlarge Trump’s stature by a single inch. Instead, it will shrink the Center, cheapen its purpose, and confirm what most sentient observers already know: Trump’s hunger for self-glorification is so vast he must now feed on the dead, the historic, and the cultured alike.
And what’s next? The Trump-Washington monument? The Trump-Lincoln memorial?
Congress and the courts should reverse this non-sense. (Lawsuits, please.) The only place Trump’s name belongs is in the dustbin of history, or better yet, attached to a sewage collection plant.
Trump and his crew are vile.
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