Throwaway Trump comment triggers fear that he plans to bulldoze Kennedy Center
In a knee-jerk reaction compared to that of a "jealous wife-beater," an unguarded utterance by President Donald Trump has onlookers alarmed he plans to tear the Kennedy Center to the ground.
The alarm was raised by Salon writer Amanda Marcotte on Wednesday, as she wrote about Trump's announcement that the Washington, D.C. hub of culture would be shuttered for two years for "renovations."
The true reason for the closure, Marcotte argued, was that Trump's attempt to put himself at the head of national culture has backfired dramatically. Ticket sales have plummeted as multiple artists refused to perform after the center was so closely associated with the president.
Instead of stepping away from the institution, he reacted by shutting it down, Marcotte wrote. And she warned Trump signaled there'll be worse to come.
"He has shifted into the same logic as a jealous wife-beater, threatening to destroy the object of his obsession rather than allow her to leave," she wrote.
"On Monday, the president said he’s not 'ripping it down.' No one asked him a question that prompted such a response, so the only reasonable conclusion is that he, in fact, has every intention of bulldozing the Kennedy Center just to spite everyone who actually cares about the place.
"This was basically confirmed by the president’s other comments, about how the building will be 'fully exposed' to its steel beams and worse, that he’ll be tearing out the marble and steel for his 'renovations.'
"It’s worth remembering a similar promise he made recently — that the construction of his White House ballroom would do no damage to the existing building — that came right before he demolished the entire East Wing without warning."
The last comment pointed to the construction of a massive new ballroom at the White House that Trump said wouldn't damage the existing building, before he shocked by demolishing the historic East Wing.
Trump's Kennedy Center takeover exemplifies broader MAGA cultural resentment, Marcotte wrote. She described an inability to create coupled with a determination to destroy what others value. When artists declined participation, rather than accept this rejection, Trump chose destruction.
And she added this pattern extends across his administration — from censoring comedians to banning books to targeting drag performances. The common thread, she wrote, was an ideological movement incapable of generating authentic cultural production attempting coercively to eliminate alternatives.