The Kennedy Center? Really?

Why does our President care about the makeup of the Kennedy Center Board?

The VSG (Very Stable Genius) has indicated that he is planning on (and may perhaps have already begun?) firing the members of the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees (including chairman David Rubinstein), replacing them with his own appointees, and naming himself as Chairman of the Board. [See the KC Board Statement here]

As originally reported in The Atlantic:

His posting on Truth Social indicated that he planned to make the Kennedy Center "GREAT AGAIN" by terminating "multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture," and that he would announce a "new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!" adding, "For the Kennedy Center, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!").

One might have thought, what with war in Ukraine and Congo, the freeze in federal DEI spending, bird flu outbreaks, growing global trade tensions over tariffs, the immigration crisis, the plans to eliminate US AID and the Department of Education, the alarming rise in fentanyl-related deaths, Elon Musk's 20-somethings poking around inside the Treasury Department's payment systems, …  that the composition of the Kennedy Center Board would be rather low down on the VSG's priority list, and not something one would have expected him to act upon during his third week in office.

Here are two things on which I think we can all agree: that the US faces many pressing problems, and that changing the management of the Kennedy Center will not address any of them.

But there it is. Unlike so much of what Trump has done during the last three weeks, with respect to this one Trump's authority to to take action is clear; the statute creating the Kennedy Center (28 USC §76) gives the president the sole power to appoint (and by implication, to remove) all 36 "general trustees," who are then empowered to appoint a Chair.

So while there's little to say about the legality of his action, it remains odd and troubling. This is a guy who, as far as we know, has never, with all his millions and billions of dollars tucked away in some hedge fund somewhere, given $25.00 to any cultural or artistic institution of any kind. Not a nickel, as far as I can tell (and I've looked).

He's not, of course, much given to philanthropy in support of anything; it's as though he's taken the "Reverse Giving Pledge" in which he promises to keep most of his money rather than giving it away to try to make the world a better place.

It is, I candidly admit, one of the things I dislike most about him.

But putting that aside, you'd have a hard time persuading me that this guy has any "Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture" whatsoever, or that he will be an "Amazing" Chairman of the K.C. Board. [Though commenters who want to try to shoulder that burden are of course welcome to do so]

It's not the most ridiculous thing he has done or said - that honor has to go to the plan to relocate 2 million Gazans and turn the Gaza Strip into an American resort - but it is laughable nonetheless. As I've said before, the Trump presidency would have made a terrific, and quite funny, television series ("Celebrity President"), were it not for the fact that it is actually happening, in the real world, to real people.

But surely we can drop the pretense that this move has even the slightest connection to "Arts and Culture," and recognize that it is, instead, all about … what? You tell me.

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And if I may add one irrelevant personal note: I've lived in DC for over 40 years, and spent a fair bit of time at the Kennedy Center. I am, as I've revealed here on the VC, a big opera fan, and the K.C. is the main (though not the only) venue for opera performances in the DC area. My wife and I have also become big fans of the National Symphony Orchestra, which has been transformed in the last decade or so into a truly world-class ensemble, the equal of any orchestra in the country. And my son is a professional musician whose chamber music group has performed at the K.C. on several occasions. So I admit that I feel a personal connection to the place which almost certainly colors my reaction to Trump's impending makeover. I'll try to keep an open mind as it proceeds, but I am, obviously, nervous about what he's got in mind.