If 1965 marked the cultural high point of American history, when the National Endowment for the Arts was founded, this year marks its nadir, as Trump is allowed to weaponize and degrade the Kennedy Center and the Kennedy Center Honors.
Let’s be clear: the KC Honors were already in decline, degenerating into a celebration of corporate entertainment product that more and more excluded the non-profit, classical arts. Nevertheless, Trump’s miserably unfunny and ungainly speechifying, and the sad, appalling imprint of a moronic philistine’s cultural despotism, sunk the KC and its Honors to depths that I’m sure no one could have predicted before Trump.
Now Trump is commencing his oldies tour tonight in Pennsylvania. He and his courtiers think that the Trump brand of blame, lies, abuse, and reality-denial actually provides sufficient entertainment value to make people forget the economic wreckage he is brokering for this country.