The Kennedy Center Belongs to All of Us
And James Baldwin's words will help us face this time together.
Last Thursday, over a late, lingering dinner following a rich discussion about banned books at Georgetown University, I shared a metaphor I’d been thinking about for several weeks.
During the American Revolution, when the British troops faced the newly-minted Patriot army, the Brits didn’t know how to fight effectively. They still used the old rules of engagement—one row standing, one row kneeling, firing on command, reloading, and then repeating when they were told.
In contrast, the Americans were guerrillas—hiding behind trees, shooting at will, ambushing their enemies. Their strategy was uncivilized, unexpected, and deeply, deeply effective.
The Brits were caught flat-footed, still expecting the other side to follow the long-established rules. Instead, everything had already changed.
In the last few weeks, it feels like the world order has been upended completely. Chuck Schumer standing on the steps of the treasury department chanting ‘We will win!’—while Elon Musk and the DOGE kids are already inside—feels like a 1995 response in 2025: the Brits losing while guerrilla rebels have already won.
Over dinner, like so many discussions I’ve had recently with academics and journalists and teachers and public servants, we asked the same question: what is happening and why?
That night, we brought up several of the articles that have been making the rounds lately (I particularly liked “The Path to American Authoritarianism” in Foreign Affairs). And we talked about “flooding the zone” with so much chaos, and the need to focus and pay attention to what is happening. I think those things are critical, and exactly why we’ve relaunched this newsletter, why we did an event about banned books, and why my podcast with Christine Renee Miller, “The Beautiful & Banned,” returns next Tuesday, February 25.
But that night, I became even more convinced that, if we want to have any hope of fighting new kinds of ideologies that are transforming our modern culture, we have to more fully understand the mindsets of the people leading those charges—to become more nimble in response to acts of guerrilla warfare.
On our short trip to Washington DC, Christine and I gained insight into what’s behind one of the most bonkers news stories in recent weeks to me. We visited The Kennedy Center—the day after Trump announced that he would be taking over as chairman of the board, a wildly unusual move for a sitting US president. But, as we told our friends later that night, walking into the building gave us critical insight.
This is about erasure. And an unquenchable need for the kind of respect and love that cannot be bought—that must be earned.
In her excellent recent post, “Extreme Makeover: National Endowment of the Arts Edition,” my colleague, Alejandra Oliva, talked about the new changes to the NEA grants, and how important art is in the world:
“Art, ideally, challenges us. It makes us ask questions, helps us imagine different futures, celebrates complexity. It gives us a new lens to look out on the world, to question things we had taken as a given.”
Alejandra published her post the day we visited The Kennedy Center, and it shaped the way I viewed the space.
Christine and I walked in because we wanted to see for ourselves—in addition to a desire for revenge, as the New York Times is reporting, why in the world would the president of our country also want to be the chairman of a performing arts center?
In changing The Kennedy Center, Trump aims to erase the legacy of the Kennedy administration, which framed art—even art that was viewed at the time as being outside the mainstream—as a powerful cultural ambassador for democracy in the world.
JFK famously took time to get on board with the Civil Rights movement, and there has been lasting and legitimate criticism of his policies. But his presidency came to be seen as a hinge towards a more inclusive United States. When Lyndon B. Johnson (a Texas president, if you can believe it) signed many of the Civil Rights Acts into law, it was in part out of a sense of finishing what JFK began.
Writers and artists and activists speaking the truth shaped the Civil Rights movement, and helped presidents change their minds.
How often have I walked through small museums like the one at The Kennedy Center? Too many to name. Never have I been moved to tears like I was that day. We watched a video of JFK’s inauguration, and heard him say words that rang differently in our ears:
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility--I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it--and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And we gained hope from one of the great writers of our time, James Baldwin:
As well as performances from the past that will live on for centuries because of the power of the artists who were not afraid to use their voices.
The goal of Trump taking over The Kennedy Center, it seems clear, is to erase the “Arts and Ideals” of the president whose term lasted only from 1961 to 1963, but whose ideas live long in the public memory. An administration demanding that particular words be excised from public schools and federally funded projects—words like ‘gender’ and ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’—wants to weaken the real power of those ideas in history.
But also, walking through the space itself, there was a reverence and respect that I think Trump wants too. The Kennedy Center is an iconic place and it represents not just the often-idealized president whose short term was frequently called “Camelot,” but the audiences who have seen so many ground-breaking shows over the years. There is a desire to bring that audience to heel.
Walking through the Hall of Nations and the red-carpet-lined, gilded foyers, I thought about Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher whose rule was viewed as the Golden Age in the West.
(My Roman Empire is…the Roman Empire, apparently.)
The succession from Marcus Aurelius to his son, Commodus, was famously tumultuous. Commodus, who was played by Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, ended that Golden Age, and the tension from the movie played in my mind while we walked.
Commodus never really understood what made Marcus Aurelius such a good leader. Instead, he tried to buy respect. He tried to demand love.
He tried to bully his way into the kind of legacy that makes leaders live on for generations.
But finally, when those strategies did not work, he found a way to get a different kind of dark respect. As the characters of Gracchus and Falco say in the film:
Gracchus: Fear and wonder, a powerful combination.
Falco: You really think people are going to be seduced by that?
Gracchus: I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they'll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it's the sand of the coliseum. He'll bring them death - and they will love him for it.
Taking over The Kennedy Center seems like a Commodus move—to cater to the mob. To take away freedom to the cheers of a roaring crowd. To throw the sand of the coliseum onto the hallowed marble floors where legendary artists and politicians once tread.
I’m not trying to write a piece glorifying Kennedy’s legacy, which is more complicated than it was presented in the small museum. Or even The Kennedy Center (though I really do love that space).
But the starkness of this change feels violent, and so the metaphors that come to mind are violent: that the Trump administration are the guerrilla soldiers fighting in the American Revolution. And that the Trump administration is like the rule of Commodus, bringing to an end what had been a golden age.
Maybe these metaphors will end up being overblown. Or maybe they’ll feel darkly apt. Frankly, being in DC felt bleaker than I ever remember. I wanted to look away.
But, as James Baldwin told us, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can changed until it is faced.”
That is the hope I have in this season: taking over The Kennedy Center cannot stop courageous artists who will continue to speak truth to power. And it cannot stop readers and writers and journalists from doing our jobs—naming what is happening, and trying to understand why. Because if we understand why, then we can fight it more effectively.
I’m so grateful for the friends facing these things with me.
Subscribe to “The Beautiful and Banned” wherever you get your podcasts, follow us on Instagram (@BeautifulandBannedPod), and get ready for the premier of Season 3 next Tuesday, February 25! Christine and I wish we had LESS to talk about!
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Thank you for this! So beautifully written and educational.