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In his first turn as the chief of the Kennedy Center, President Donald Trump decided to honor the Queen of Disco, the King of Country Music, the original Phantom of the Opera, Rocky, and Kiss. The choices of Gloria Gaynor, George Strait, Michael Crawford, Sylvester Stallone, and a glam-metal original signal yet the latest example of Trump putting his thumb on the scale of American culture.
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Trump on Wednesday headed to the arts complex to announce his picks that typically are seen as above politics but these days cannot escape Trump’s reach. The President declared the legacy organization would honor this cohort come December and that he would host the star-studded evening that is the biggest single night for the center.
“I shouldn’t make this political. Because they made the Academy Awards political and they went down the tubes. So they’ll say, ‘Trump made it political.’ But I think if we make it our kind of political we’ll go up, OK? Let’s see if I’m right about that,” said Trump, who once hosted his own reality show and remains obsessed with ratings, polling, and celebrity.
It’s a brutally honest disclosure about just how much Trump wants to put his stamp on the next stretch of the nation’s history, which will coincide with the United States’ 250th anniversary and the host role for the Olympics and the World Cup next year. .
Read more: Why Trump’s Kennedy Center Takeover Will Reverberate in Hollywood and Beyond
Earlier this year, Trump fired the Kennedy Center’s board and its chairman and forced out its day-to-day leader. In their place, Trump appointed loyalists, who in turn declared him the chair of the nation’s temple to the performing arts. And since then, performers and tours have canceled stops there in protest, and some marquee artistic partners have resigned their roles advising the center on programming choices. And other events, including those around World Pride, saw the curtain coming down before opening night.
The result has been what typically was seen as a tribute to the slain 35th President worthy of bipartisan support becoming the latest flashpoint in Trump’s never-ending stream of culture-war spats, going so far as to suggest the complex on the Potomac might be better called the “Kennedy/ Trump Center.” After all, the President and Vice President J.D. Vance have giant portraits hanging at the entrance of the building, along with those of their wives. House Republicans, meanwhile, have proposed renaming the giant Opera House for First Lady Melania Trump.
The previous recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2024 included director Francis Ford Coppola, jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and singer-songwriter Bonnie Raitt. The historic Harlem theater The Apollo was also recognized.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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