On Wednesday morning, August 13, National Guard soldiers patrolled the area around the National Mall in Washington, DC, home to the country's main political institutions, signaling Donald Trump's renewed control over the capital's police forces. However, just a few hundred meters away, a different kind of takeover, much less spectacular yet equally significant, was underway. It involved commandeering the American historical narrative by seizing the city's two leading cultural entities: the Smithsonian Institution and the Kennedy Center.

On Wednesday, Trump declared during a ceremony in the Kennedy Center's main hall that he had turned things around as president of the institution. "We ended the woke political programming, and we're restoring the Kennedy Center as the premiere venue for performing arts," he said, unveiling the names of the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, prestigious awards for artists in the United States. The list bore his imprint and notably featured Sylvester Stallone, an actor and director who is one of his close associates.

The imposing building, with its marble, colonnades and chandeliers, rivals the city's other presidential monuments in scale. It serves as Washington's main performance venue, featuring three large concert halls and a symphony orchestra. Built on the banks of the Potomac during the Eisenhower administration, the building was dedicated to John F. Kennedy by a bipartisan act of Congress following his assassination in 1963. Gifts from over 60 countries, given in memory of the Democratic president, are on display.

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