Just When I Thought …

Below is the NYTimes article on the Kennedy Center takeover. Folks, for me, this is it: a despicable act of politics in a non-political context that is rooted in narcissism. It violates every fiber of decency. It is antithetic to the ethos of the Kennedy Center and its namesake.

Just when I thought I couldn’t be shocked more, now this. I have written about meanness and narcissism and unkindness at length. I have written about the needed attributes of leaders (and friends and lovers and neighbors).

But, in my wildest dreams, I never imaged the arts and culture being overtaken by T. It adds fuel to the banning of books. Could this be my final straw and the final push I needed to ramp up my dissent, my disgust, my fear of tyrannical rule?

Read on.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/us/politics/trump-kennedy-center.html?unlocked_article_code=1.vU4.csgi.KkJeqerEQOOw&smid=url-share

Weep. But to be clear, weeping is not enough.

Postscript:

Someone who commented on this post elsewhere (the comment is now deleted but commentator had the initials KL and I blocked him) suggested that I was vastly too dramatic in my assessment of the Kennedy Center debacle. (Female hysteria?) I was like the girl crying wolf (Henny Penny or Chicken Little in his words).

Really? The commentator may know his Fairy Tales but he does not know his history. What happened in WWII when there were a myriad of signs that all was NOT well, including the banning of books and professors removed from their posts. As a myriad of folk stood silent, the movement to eradicate the other grew and grew.

Perhaps, as the commentator suggested, the sky is not falling just because Trump becomes the Chair of the Board of the Kennedy Center. Well, for me at least and I could be alone in this, the proposed changes to the Kennedy Center suggest a takeover that is narcissistic and selfish and violates norms of decency and artistic freedom and values and heritage and grace and legacy. The Halls of Nations and the States at the Kennedy Center will be disgraced when a leader who eschews other nations takes the helm of a sacred space. It would be like T deciding he wanted to be the Right Reverend at the National Cathedral, replacing Bishop Budde. Yup. For me, the sky is falling.