The Kennedy Center Honors in the Trump Era

This morning, an annual tradition in the District of Columbia took place-the announcing of the Kennedy Center Honorees.  This generally takes place in July, but it's not unheard of for the announcement to happen in August or even September.  The honorees, who will be feted at a gala at the White House and a performance at the Kennedy Center in December, included actor Sylvester Stallone, Phantom of the Opera star Michael Crawford, disco diva Gloria Gaynor, country musician George Strait, and rock band Kiss.  In a break from tradition, though, they were announced at the Kennedy Center by President Trump, rather than by the Kennedy Center via a press release or by longtime Kennedy Center Honor Chair David Rubinstein (whom Trump fired as Chair earlier this year).  The White House does weigh in on this (and it is tradition for the President to both speak at the gala and attend the corresponding performance), but this was an indication, that like so much of what has happened in the past year, Trump has changed an American tradition, likely forever.

Trump took on the role as the Chair of the Kennedy Center earlier this year, an organization that (at best) the President is involved for just for an evening or two every year at the White House.  While other presidents have talked about how much they've enjoyed it (Bill Clinton, in particular, made a point of saying "you'll never find a president that enjoys this more," and given Clinton's penchant for music (his playing a saxophone solo of "Heartbreak Hotel" on The Arsenio Hall Show was a huge moment in his first presidential campaign) this was probably accurate) and the First Lady is technically the honorary co-chair, the Kennedy Center Honors aren't, well, important enough for the president to be particularly involved.  Trump, though, has never really taken his role as president all that seriously, and has always loved hanging out with celebrities & entertainers (and is a noted musical theater fan), and clearly saw this ceremonial perk as being something he would actually enjoy far more than governing.

Additionally, Trump was not someone that got to really enjoy this in his first term.  The Kennedy Center Honors, it should be noted, despite claiming to be a night where politics is put aside, have always had a political bent.  Mel Brooks, for example, refused to receive the Honor from George W. Bush (he eventually accepted when Barack Obama was president), and there was a lot of clucking when Bush gave the award to noted liberal (and Bush critic) Barbra Streisand, though to Bush's credit he made a point of calling this out in his speech, and didn't let her criticisms get in the way of heaping praise on the singer's talents.  Jane Fonda has never won a Kennedy Center Honor despite a body-of-work that dwarfs a lot of victors, due in large part to her links to the anti-Vietnam protests; neither have activist artists like Susan Sarandon and Martin Sheen. 

But when Trump became president his first term, there was a breaking point.  At Trump's first ceremony dancer Carmen de Lavallade and TV writer Norman Lear were chosen, and both of them refused to accept from Trump, so a work-around was involved that would allow other figures to present them the awards (that year, the emcee was Dame Julie Andrews), but for the next four years, as noted progressives like Cher, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Linda Ronstadt, & Sally Field all won the awards, Trump was nowhere to be found.  

Given this clearly bugged him, Trump chose a slate of honorees personally this year that won't protest to sitting next to him.  Trump said in the press conference that the honorees "came through me" and he turned down "some wokesters" before talking about the lousy ratings of the Academy Awards (side note: I largely avoid listening to Trump speak, but his inability to finish a sentence has gotten really bad hasn't it, watching this press conference?).  Trump claimed he didn't care if they were Republicans, and to be fair, some of them (specifically Gaynor and select members of Kiss, including Gene Simmons) are on record as having criticized Trump in the past, but we don't see any noted, current Trump critics here.  Figures like, say, Patti LuPone, Angela Bassett, or Robert Downey, Jr., who might have been good choices but also stood vocally against him in the last election, weren't selected.

I bring up LuPone for a reason, because she kind of illustrates one of the problems with this lineup.  Each on their own feel like an "okay" choice.  Stallone, for example, if you look back on this blog list, is someone I've listed as a theoretical future winner of this award.  But collectively...it feels a bit low-rent.  Michael Crawford, for example, has a pretty scant Broadway career when compared to someone like LuPone, Bernadette Peters, or Audra McDonald, none of which have yet won the Kennedy Center Honor.  Stallone gets this award before other action movie stars like Denzel Washington, Tom Cruise, & Arnold Schwarzenegger got the prize (despite a decent argument to be made that they're all more famous, and the former two are certainly better actors).  Compared to last year's choices under the final ceremony held during the Biden presidency, where we had Francis Ford Coppola, Bonnie Raitt, Arturo Sandoval, the Grateful Dead, and a tribute to the historic Apollo Theater...it's hard not to think that you're getting the B-Team with these winners.

This is better than it could've been.  I had visions of Trump picking overtly political figures and C-List entertainers like Lee Greenwood, Roseanne Barr, & Pat Boone, or even worse, I did wonder if he might just pick himself, and none of these are outright embarrassing.  But the paltry lineup, coupled with how much Trump has linked the awards with himself (on Truth Social, he referred to it as the Trump/Kennedy Center) means that it'll be hard for future winners in 2029 and beyond to really view this as the prize it once was when someone else is president.  It's hard to imagine that Trump will be able to sustain four years of even this (lessened) quality of honorees without picking people like Greenwood, Barr, and Boone, and the fact that he explicitly stated that he picked these people based on their politics is going to turn off other figures who might be considered for it in the future for fear of being viewed as too political.  The days of a Streisand & Bush setting aside politics for a night are gone.  It's hard not to feel that the Honors, which at their inaugural ceremony honored figures as storied as Marian Anderson, Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Richard Rodgers, & Arthur Rubinstein, have been destroyed (like so many things) by Trump, potentially forever.