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The illustrious personages who ran our country, led by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, decided in 1933 that America needed a National Cultural Center. Congress authorized its construction in 1958 but appropriated no funds. By 1961 only $13,245 had been raised for its construction, but President Kennedy was making a serious effort to bring arts and high culture to the capital.
After his assassination in 1963, it was decided to rename the National Cultural Center in his honor and to undertake a serious fundraising effort. Congress appropriated $58 million, and donations flowed in from around the world. The Kennedy Center opened to great acclaim in 1971, and it housed the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Opera, and many other groups and events.
Fast forward to 2025, and the Kennedy Center was in serious decline. Congress funded operations and maintenance while programming and educational activities were funded by ticket sales and donations. But there was a long backlog of maintenance and capital improvements. And the programming had increasingly shifted to LGBTQ(WTF) content. Neither congressional appropriations nor donations were covering the capital improvements or even routine maintenance. Decline is a choice.
In February 2025, Trump cleaned house at the Kennedy Center, appointing many new board members and executives and installing himself as chairman of the board of trustees. He announced a new schedule of non-DEI performances and a plan for the capital improvements. He decided to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center. Controversy naturally arose, followed by lawsuits. The DC District Court forced Trump to remove his name. Many of the planned artists canceled their appearances. In September 2026, a large piece of the ceiling of the Grand Foyer collapsed, and Trump ordered the Kennedy Center closed for repairs. After Trump was photographed reviewing a poster titled "Kennedy Center Demolition," the Obama-appointed judge who is practically running the Kennedy Center now forbids Trump from demolishing it.
The many conflicting lawsuits and appeals and the he-said, she-said nature of the dispute between Trump and the cultural glitterati make it difficult to understand the details. But it is clear that both the physical facility and the cultural programming of the Kennedy Center have deteriorated in recent years. It is sad that one of America's premier cultural landmarks has been allowed to decay to such a state. Decline is a choice.
An example of a needed change was Trump's order to remove the hideous aluminum abstract Blue sculpture ("Boxy and rigid but seemingly weightless, Blue looked like a clumsy person who’d been swept by a breeze into an accidental pirouette") that had defaced the Kennedy Center from 2019 to 2026. It was returned to the sculptor Joel Shapiro, and former Kennedy Center chairman David Rubenstein purchased it for $2 million and promptly donated it to the National Gallery of Art, where it will be displayed in the Sculpture Garden. It should have been melted down and used for something useful, like electrical wiring.
Why has Congress not acted to restore this cultural landmark? After all, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate and House and five senators and five representatives sit on the board. They should be responsible for ensuring that Congress makes the necessary appropriations. It's hard to believe that some small part of our $7 trillion budget could not be reallocated to this landmark. Could the USAID transgender opera program in Peru not have been canceled to provide funds to fix that ceiling before it collapsed? Decline is a choice.
Could the cultural glitterati who sit on the board not have approached the many foundations, who are now in full TDS outrage about the situation, to chip in a few million to do some repairs? For example, billionaire David Rubenstein was chairman of the Kennedy Center from 2010 to 2025 - he did donate $111 million, so maybe he did his bit. But couldn't he have asked some of his billionaire friends to scrounge up some spare change to fix up the Kennedy Center? Decline is a choice.
The biggest problem with the Kennedy Center is that it is unconstitutional. The Constitution does not give Congress the power to appropriate money for a cultural center. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 gives Congress the power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" specifically by securing patents and copyrights to their creators. It doesn't have the open-ended power to operate cultural institutions. Sadly, we are long past that point. If I were dictator for a day, I would auction it off to recover some of the funds that have been unconstitutionally appropriated for it. Let the winning bidder fund it and put on whatever cultural exhibitions he wishes.
Discussion (32)
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One of his recent "unforced errors," as they say in sports. Although maybe it was just a ploy to get more attention on it and produce results?
Hmmm
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He enjoys pissing off people. His supporters enjoy it, too. The problem is that he can’t seem to pick and choose when that makes sense and when it doesn’t.
Congress can call it a “national” cultural center but that doesn’t make it so. The National Symphony, for example, is in the 2nd tier of orchestras in the US. For a true world class performance you’re better off in Cleveland. (The venue is better, too.)
So, the Kennedy Center is, in many ways, a regional institution, not national. And if you’re going to operate it as a commercial enterprise don’t make the locals, i.e., the ticket buying public, angry.
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I don’t think there is a “fine arts” center or facility anywhere in the US that is in good physical condition, fully booked and performers paid well, and also self supporting. I’ve never known any fine arts venue that didn’t have an annual fundraiser and ongoing panhandling for cash. It’s just not in the cards - “fine arts” is not of interest to a large enough swath of those who will pay enough to see it. The well named glitterati want to glitter - they don’t want to pay for it themselves. Very few of the well moneyed now have well developed and deployed generosity genes. Those who do are standout because they are rare.
The wealthy generous are also roundly criticized for how they choose to be generous. Charity recipients seem to think they have a right to preach to their donors and also use cash however they choose, not necessarily to the purpose of the donor. (I think the 19thC industrialists now get a very bad rap for their wealth. They built stuff and made money along the way and then built long lasting institutions that educated and trained generation of those who would also build. Now those institutions are as riddled with rot as the Kennedy Center.)
Why ever would a National facility be any different? I don’t think taxpayer money should pay the freight for pet performers to please some small and moneyed subset of the population. (I also don’t think taxpayers should pay for the venues of professional sports.) Knock it down and sell the land for something useful, something that will help DC pay its own way.
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I'll bet this also applies to NPR and PBS . . .
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Do it anyway. Nobody pays attention to constitutional restrictions any more. Put yourself in charge.
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