When I was about 8 years old, I was playing a game of Monopoly with my cousins when one of them misplayed his hand. Furious that he was set to come in last, he threatened to ruin the game unless everyone let him break the rules so he could get ahead. When we refused, he flipped over the board.
That’s likely a familiar scene from many childhoods. What’s less familiar, however, is watching that kind of petty destructiveness unfold with the brat being played by the president, and the stakes being our nation’s premier civic institutions.
Donald Trump appears to be threatening to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after his attempts to affix his name to the building have been thwarted. And while it might be tempting to roll one’s eyes at it as childish immaturity, the president is displaying a troubling nihilism that could intensify in his final years in office.
Trump has spent much of his second term fixated on vanity projects, including turning the Kennedy Center into a bastion of MAGA propaganda. Last winter his handpicked board voted to add his name to that of the Kennedy Center. He also changed the programming to suit his personal political and cultural interests. But things quickly went south. Artists cut ties with the performing arts center en masse, and ticket sales and donations plunged. In May a federal judge determined that the renaming violated the law — and that it could only be changed by Congress. Trump’s name was taken off the facade.
Trump has lost the game, and he’s threatening to flip over the board.
Another attempt by the center’s board to add his name to the building was blocked by a judge on Tuesday. Just minutes later, the board abruptly voted to close the building to the public, claiming that deteriorating conditions inside the building made the closure necessary for safety. Shortly thereafter, Trump said that unless the courts ruled in favor of a name change, he would not renovate the building. The next day, he took his threat even further, telling reporters that if he didn’t get the “recognition” he believed he deserved, “it’s going to close, it’ll end up being ripped down.” On Wednesday night, photojournalists captured Trump inside Air Force One looking at a placard that was partially obscured but appeared to read “Kennedy Center Demolish—” atop what looked like an image of a construction site.
Trump has lost the game, and he’s threatening to flip over the board.
The president would likely face legal challenges, and the judge who previously blocked the renaming said Thursday that Trump could not demolish the building without 30 days’ notice. But the fact that he’s even hinting at it is in and of itself offensive and childish. The message he’s sending to the public is that if the courts deny him the ability to turn the Kennedy Center into the beacon of narcissism he’s so desperate for, then he’d rather nobody get to enjoy its performing arts at all.
The Kennedy Center is a wonderful institution and supposed to be the national cultural center of the U.S. That it might be leveled because our legal system says it’s illegal to deface it with Trump’s name without congressional backing would be a shameful outcome.
Trump might not have any intention of making good on this stunt. But it’s certainly not beyond him. As The New York Times noted:
Trump also surprised everyone by demolishing the East Wing after he promised that the construction of the White House ballroom would not “interfere” with the building. This is a pattern of behavior that dates back to 1980, when he blew up the old Bonwit Teller building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan so that he could raise Trump Tower. He promised to preserve the treasured limestone friezes atop the old building but destroyed them, infuriating New Yorkers.
More worrying still is how Trump could channel this attitude toward far more consequential ends as he enters his final years in office. He has made it clear that he yearns for a third term and has been frustrated by constitutional term limits. It is not hard to imagine him throwing a nationally disastrous tantrum in the 2028 election — whether in a bid to remain in the White House illegally, or perhaps do so on behalf of his chosen successor — by attempting to meddle with the outcome in precedented ways. His view is clear: If he can’t win, then he’s happy to burn the whole thing down.
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