Dictators have long used the arts to seize power. Trump’s Kennedy Center takeover should terrify us.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and USA President Donald Trump
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Imagine this: the famous Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts stands along the mighty Potomac River in Washington D.C. Upon the stage of the main concert hall is Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, feet firmly placed on the conductor’s podium, his arms held high holding a white baton in his right hand to alert the full orchestra. He gives the downbeat, and out comes the sound of Trump’s arrangement of the Village People’s “YMCA.”

Looks of sheer amazement and surprise come from the stunned members of the audience. One person can be heard screeching, “But the program says we are supposed to see Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.”

This, of course, is not an actual scenario, but it comes very close to the realm of possibilities.

Related: Kennedy Center cancels Gay Men’s Chorus of D.C. WorldPride show about acceptance, group confirms

With his firehose of executive orders and policy initiatives flooding the headlines after Trump captured the Oval Office for the second time, the media can only report on what they consider the most important for the public to know. Those they consider “lesser” often go unchronicled.

But while one of these may seem rather trivial on its surface, when taken in context, it conforms to Trump’s authoritarian takeover of the federal government in his imperial project.

Trump announced on his so-called Truth Social platform on February 7, 2025, that he will be taking over the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, gutting its current board of trustees, firing its chair – billionaire philanthropist David Rubenstein – and installing himself as chair.

“At my direction, we are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN,” Trump said in a post to Truth Social. “I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture. We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!”

Not only does this takeover connect with Trump’s expansionist project of incorporating Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal as U.S. states and privately owning the Gaza Strip, but it also amounts to another example of his meanspirited retribution aimed at political enemies. Rubenstein, the current board chair, is a supporter and ally of former President Joe Biden.

In addition to imposing his political agenda on major federal agencies, Trump will…

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