Trump's Wreckage of the Kennedy Center

A judge has ruled Donald Trump’s name must be removed from the Kennedy Center and an impending two-year closure for renovations canceled. So the question is, now what?

A furious Trump threatens to walk away from the whole thing and spits out his contempt. His Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, says over the weekend he’s not sure if or when the name will come off. Whatever happens, in a little more than a year, Trump has managed to run aground one of America’s cultural treasures, and relaunching it, whatever that looks like, will be a long and arduous process.

So a few observations: The place is now being run by the janitor. Actually, it’s unkind to call him that. Matt Floca came up through operations, the facility systems that keep a large building running, and he’s probably pretty good at it. When Ric Grenell, the Trump loyalist who wanted to be Secretary of State but was handed the Kennedy Center instead, departed in March, Floca was who the Trump-appointed board reached for. He’s a metaphor for what Trump and his board think the Center is—a real estate venue, a glamorous roadhouse, not a center of culture or an idea.

If Floca’s not exactly the janitor, he’s also not someone with an artistic vision or experience in translating the Center’s mission into something meaningful.

https://www.postalley.org/2026/06/04/is-trumps-wreckage-of-the-kennedy-center-an-opportunity-for-something-better/