In case you missed the headlines this week, the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts has voted to rename the institution, ignoring objections from the Kennedy family. It is now—at least according to the new lettering on the facade—The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
The last eleven months have proven, beyond any doubt, how much Washington, D.C. relies on gentlemen’s agreements rather than clearly defined rules. The sudden rebranding of the Kennedy Center is the latest reminder of this fragility—and one more item a future administration will likely find on its Day One “undo” checklist.
Trump Stacked The Board
Under normal circumstances, five members of the Kennedy Center’s 30-person Board rotate off each year, replaced by the sitting president. In a standard second term, Donald Trump would have appointed only ten trustees by now. The remaining twenty would still be holdovers from the previous administration.
But we have learned that allowing trustees to serve their full six-year terms was merely a tradition, not a hard law. Earlier this year, the Trump dismissed the prior board, stacked the seats with loyalists, and appointed the himself as Chairman. Without safeguards or consequences, the board became an instrument of the executive will.
In that context, the center is almost lucky it was merely rebranded as the “Trump-Kennedy Center.” With no legal mechanism currently stopping the board, it could just as easily have been renamed to the Donald J. Trump Center for Peace, Arts & Adultery, and there would have been no legal mechanism to stop it.
A Board Of Loyalists
Much of the media reports vaguely on “Kennedy Center trustees” without explaining who is now steering the ship. This omission does a disservice to the public. These are not art historians or cultural stewards; they are political insiders drawn from the President’s inner circle:
- Susie Wiles, current White House Chief of Staff
- Usha Vance, Vice President JD Vance’s wife
- Pam Bondi, Trump’s Attorney General
- Maria Bartiromo and Laura Ingraham, Fox News hosts
- Lee Greenwood, singer of the MAGA theme song “Proud To Be An American”
- Elaine Chao, Senator Mitch McConnell’s wife and Trump’s former Transportation Secretary.
A Temporary Legacy
One has to wonder what Trump and his allies believe they are accomplishing. They have now demonstrated that a president can erase an entire governing board by fiat and replace it with unquestioning loyalists.
What should be equally clear—even to them—is that their roles as trustees, and the name change they approved, will last only until the first day a Democrat returns to the White House. For whatever reason, they’re all too scared to remind him of that fact.
It is now in vogue for the Trump Administration to feed into Donald’s ego by renaming institutions after him. While it may inflate his ego temporarily, what Trump doesn’t understand is that legacy needs to be earned, not demanded.
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