Trump’s Cultural Power Grab: Why His Kennedy Center Takeover Matters
After a decade-long career in politics and government, President Joe Biden appointed me in 2022 to the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts, one of the boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts — America’s preeminent performing arts center and cultural institution.
So when President Donald Trump made his latest salvo into the cultural fabric of American life, and took over the Kennedy Center personally, I understood immediately how his embrace of a treasured cultural institution poses a strategic threat to American democracy.
Despite having not attended any of the Kennedy Center’s marquee events (or any events at all) in his first term or since, Trump installed himself as Chairman of the Board of the Kennedy Center on Wednesday, promising to usher in a “Golden Age in Arts and Culture.”
Amid Trump’s efforts to purge the federal workforce, moves to delete and pause the work of whole government agencies, and decision to ship detained migrants to Guantanamo Bay, this announcement might seem trivial. However, Trump’s attention to arts and culture should deeply concern us all.
The 2024 campaign demonstrated the Trump team’s masterful leverage of the president’s cultural cachet and performative abilities across entertainment platforms. From his widely discussed appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” to behind-the-scenes campaign documentaries, marathon livestreams, and courting UFC, Trump’s media investment has yielded unprecedented returns. Beyond winning the election, he has reversed his 2016 position as a cultural outcast. Sure, he doesn’t have Beyoncé or Taylor Swift, but he has positioned himself at the center of an entirely new celebrity ecosystem and secured the potent cooperation of CEOs of major content distribution platforms.
In the eight years between Trump’s first and second successful campaigns, the conservative movement has invested heavily in reshaping American culture. They have transformed our cultural landscape from the pluralistic progressivism of the Obama era into a sea of MAGA podcasters, traditionalist influencers, and hypermasculine content creators all intentionally reinforcing a specifically autocratic set of values.
However, internet fame differs fundamentally from the institutional prestige of the Kennedy Center Honors or the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Our most influential cultural institutions don’t just reflect culture — they shape it. They establish the boundaries of acceptable discourse, defining what American society considers valuable and reasonable. Trump’s Kennedy Center takeover represents the formal institutionalization of the cultural reformation he’s been architecting since his famous Trump Tower escalator descent.
This cultural capture becomes particularly crucial as his administration’s reduction of government services and infrastructure begins to impact daily life. By establishing cultural narratives that contextualize hardship as necessary sacrifice, Trump could potentially shield himself and his congressional allies from electoral consequences. In a Truth Social post previewing his planned actions on tariffs, the president laid out this very framework, that any increases in costs paid by consumers is the cost of a great nation and not reckless trade policy.
“WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!). BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID,” he wrote.
Recent studies highlight the critical role of entertainment in shaping public opinion. According to Nielsen’s “State of Streaming” report from 2023, the average American consumes nearly 6 hours of video content daily. Trump himself is said to watch at least 4 hours of TV a day, and to have directed close aides to plan as if each day is a TV show wherein he vanquishes his rivals . Meanwhile, Democratic strategists who dismiss Trump supporters as “low-information voters” misunderstand a fundamental truth: All content carries information. Rather than focusing solely on policy explainers and traditional journalism, progressive donors and media investors should consider investing in entertainment that reinforces democratic values in order to re-engage with the voters they’ve lost in previous cycles.
Polling from the Pew Research Center indicates that a majority of Americans still oppose authoritarianism (68 percent) and express concern about the implications of Project 2025, the ultra-conservative policy playbook for Trump’s second term, which he is so far following to a tee. However, maintaining and growing this opposition requires recognition that we’re engaged in a cultural civil war — one drawn across entertainment platforms and cultural institutions, from streaming services to the Kennedy Center itself.
If President Trump succeeds in capturing and reshaping the American imagination alongside our institutions, we’ll find ourselves without the tools needed to protect or, in a likely reality, restore democratic norms. The path forward requires meeting people where they are, not just with policy papers, but with compelling cultural narratives that champion pluralistic values. This means training candidates to be more engaging, internet savvy communicators and investing in entertainment that promotes democratic principles.
The battle for America’s future will be won or lost not just at the ballot box, but on TV and phone screens, stages, concert venues, and cultural institutions across the nation.
Carri Twigg is co-founder of Culture House Media, co-host of the politics and culture podcast Twigg and Jenkins, and a former member of the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts, a board of the Kennedy Center.
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