Kennedy Center teaches MAGA a tough lesson

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Kennedy Center teaches MAGA a tough lesson
Donald Trump's coalition is finding that they can't bully their way into the nation's art and culture

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published February 4, 2026 6:45AM (EST)


(Salon) The myth that Donald Trump has a strategic vision took another hilarious blow on Sunday when het threw a tantrum familiar to anyone who has ever dealt with a diagnosable narcissist. Without apparently telling anyone who actually has to deal with it, the 79-year-old toddler president declared on Truth Social that he was shutting down the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for two years following its Fourth of July celebrations. This “decision” comes a mere six weeks after Trump pretended to be “surprised” and “honored” when the center’s board, which he leads, voted illegally to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center, a name that no one seems interested in using, at least when out of Trump’s earshot.

The president claims the closure, which will likely last the rest of his term, is about “Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding.” Few believe this. Most accept that it is an obvious reaction to the fact that a growing list of artists have cancelled shows at the Kennedy Center to avoid the taint of performing at a place where the word “Trump” was forced onto the building’s signage. The list of cancellations is so long that it has its own Wikipedia page, which features luminaries like Philip Glass, Béla Fleck, the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Washington National Opera and the entire cast of “Hamilton.”

The situation is a great example of how narcissists defeat themselves. As he’s done his whole life, Trump stole a trophy he didn’t earn in the hope that he would impress people. Instead, his grotesque behavior backfired and has drawn even more insults and rejections. But what’s even more fascinating is what this whole debacle tells us about the MAGA movement as a whole, and how Trump is the perfect symbol for their failed culture war aspirations.

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Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center symbolizes the end game of this endless, pointless grievance: A hope that MAGA can take by force the cultural popularity that will never be offered freely. After his election in 2024, there was a short period of elation on the right as initial reports suggested movie and TV studios would be shuttering projects with racially diverse casts and CBS announced that liberal comedian Stephen Colbert’s late-night show was being canceled. Promises of more conservative-friendly programming were made. We also saw this in the immediate aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s killing, when MAGA tried to browbeat the public into pretending to like Kirk, with threats of doxxing and firing for people who refused to play along. ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/02/04/kennedy-center-teaches-maga-a-tough-lesson/