Trump’s hand-picked board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the nation’s Capitol has voted to rename it. It is now the Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Early in his term, Trump fired Biden’s appointees to the Kennedy Center board and replaced them with his close allies, including his chief of staff Susie Wiles and Usha Vance, the vice-president’s wife. He named himself chairman of the board. He installed Ric Grennell, former Trump-named Ambassador to Germany, as the new president and executive director, although Grennell had no relevant experience. Trump made decisions about programming, and some groups canceled their appearances to protest his takeover.
Ticket sales and attendance have declined sharply since Trump took over. Many employees have been fired or quit, and were replaced by unqualified friends of Trump. He intends to remodel the center, and patrons of the arts are apprehensive about what he will do. In the decades that he lived in New York City, he never associated himself with venues for the arts, like Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall.
Republicans have mused about renaming the Kennedy Center and changing it to the Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts. Some speculated about renaming the Opera House of the Kennedy Center for Melania.
Yesterday, the board changed the name to the Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Trump’s press secretary said the vote was unanimous, but the only Democrat on the board, Rep. Joyce Pratt of Ohio, was muted during the vote and not allowed to speak.
This was no surprise. The board was prepared. The new logo was immediately rolled out:
In reality, the board does not have the power to rename the Kennedy Center. Its name was authorized by law and can be changed only by Congress, just as the Department of Defense cannot be renamed the Department of War without Congress.
What else can he rename for himself? Should the Washington Monument be declared the Trump Monument? Can he replace Lincoln in the Lincoln Monument? Instead of a brooding Lincoln, the new statue would be Trump swinging a golf club. Maybe that’s the purpose of the Arc d’Trump that he intends to build.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How about we celebrate Trumpmas?
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Trumpmas has a good two-syllable sound. Trump probably thinks he is better than Jesus because Trump got away with everything. Jesus was innocent and upright.
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If I were the Kennedys, I would have my name removed. Then, down around the corner build or obtain a new center and watch how the Felon 47 center goes bankrupt. I hear it is already heading in that direction. I just remember standing in Faneuil Hall in Boston in reverence to history. I imagined all the debates. The history. Well, I hope this demented person is history soon.
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Trump will join the history books as the most corrupt president, the one who made huge business deals that multiplied his wealth, also violated the emoluments clause with impunity. No one held him accountable because SCOTUS said he has absolute immunity. The president is the only person in the nation who is “above the law.”
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Diane, I just hope we both live long enough to see him convicted & imprisoned for any of the multiple crimes he has committed, and also have his name expunged from everything he has desecrated with it.
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My hope as well. He will be a billionaire many times over. His wealth has multiplied just in the past 10 months as oligarchs rush to invest in his businesses. Just today, Trump Media announced a merger with a nuclear fusion conpany, enriching the Trumps by $6 billion.
The presidency is the ultimate “art of the steal” for the Trumps.
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It’s the Nixon claim, “When the president does it, that means it’s not illegal” come back to haunt us, with impunity, because that power was granted to today’s POTUS by his hand-picked SCOTUS. Talk about double dealing… Who knew our Constitution had so many loop-holes for a sly convicted felon and his posse to wiggle through and get around? Actually, some saw much of it coming very shortly after he was first elected in 2016. See: https://www.yahoo.com/news/president-does-means-not-illegal-132530754.html
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Actually, a lot of people saw all this coming back in 2016 –including Rachel Maddows and others, like me. I always felt like I was babysitting him during his first term, since it was so obvious he had no moral compass and was a dictator-wannabe.
We got lucky that he was surrounded by people then who could serve as guardrails against his worst impulses. However, my guess is that, in anticipation of people like that on his team being eliminated, Project 2025 was developed –actually for 2020, but because he lost then, implementing it had to be postponed until 2025. Now we’ve got to plan for shoring up all the loop holes in the Constitution, including either expanding the size of SCOTUS or setting term limits for them (or both)…
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“What else can he rename for himself?”
We should have seen this coming when he decided to rename the Gulf of Mexico and no one stopped him. Now he probably sees everything as fair game (and maybe he wishes he had renamed it the Gulf of Trump).
My fear is that he plans to claim total ownership over our country and show off to the world, especially to King Charles and England, Putin et al, etc., how as King Donald he can rename it all Trumpland.
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The Supreme Court said he can do everything.
He must lie awake at night thinking of new ways to make his name immortal
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I think he lies awake at night (maybe that’s why he’s falling asleep at meetings/important daytime events) thinking of new ways to be immoral.
(Or maybe amoral is the better word here.)
In its (47’s) case, I guess either works.
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Make the board vote on the full name: The John F. Kennedy Memorial and Trump Fine Arts Center.
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I think “Trump Fine Arts Center” would be an oxymoron and does not deserve to be included with a memorial to John F Kennedy. From what I know, the closest Trump comes to appreciating Fine Arts is his love for the song Memory from the Broadway play Cats. Anything else and he’d probably fall asleep.
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I just saw the derogatory bronze placards Trump made about Obama and Biden. It’s truly insane that he wasted time and taxpayer money on this. Please wake me from this nightmare.
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David: I agree. As if the excessive gold in the Oval Office wasn’t tasteless enough…this. Totally disgraceful.
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Well, if 48 lacks a moral code too and follows the current trend, he/she could add to 45’s plaque: “Only Twice Impeached POTUS,” and to 47’s plaque: “First Ever Convicted Felon and Self-Appointed King Who Demolished the People’s White House in Order to Build Himself a Palace.”
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The hand-picked board and Trump lend the word stupidity new majesty…
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