Having taken over the Kennedy Center as chairman of the Board, President Donald Trump intends a major cultural retrograde. His Christmas improvement — “a big, huge celebration of the birth of Christ,” per new Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell — has many questioning whether this is not just a MAGA approach to the same event.
It is true that the Kennedy Center already has Christmas shows. They range from family specials, to Gospel-style music, to more traditional choruses, and you can guess all you want from the looks of them: Secular, “holiday” songs certainly dominate in some, while orthodox hymns set the tone for others. All in all, the existing shows seem mostly innocuous, maybe even uplifting. But we are always playing this guessing game — it is what needs uprooted.
How weird that the message of a Christmas concert can be difficult to trust. Such is the case, these days, when it is presented by some entity who is not an explicit ally of Christianity. The Left has by now proved itself an enemy of the faith, painting “Christian nationalism” as extremist. Its sponsor, the Democratic Party, works against the family in both policy and structure. The great result is that the Kennedy Center has long fit in as an operative of these bodies and a vessel for their ideology.
It is from this vantage in the culture war that Trump saw the Kennedy Center as fit for even more. Leaving no doubt as to its partisan alliance, it would seem that he might only worsen the present conditions. Trump, rather, is undoing some of the politicization.
A rebranding, absolutely — and we can hope that the move will not have the wrong long-run effects. But Trump is also bringing things back to the basics, to what they are. Under the progressive regime, everything stands for something else: Some story is a metaphor for a more salient social cause, some figures as representatives for the loudest and saddest social group. Allegory is fine, but it cannot be the primary function of every art.
WILL TRUMP’S JUSTICE DEPARTMENT RESTORE PUBLIC TRUST?
The method has so conspicuously pervaded society that even Christian holidays are vulnerable to its intentions. Christmas certainly maps onto a varied collection of life experiences, but it communicates a more important message by its plain facts. These facts — of the Virgin Birth of Christ and the Divine Plan — have been offered in years past at the Kennedy Center. They will be considerably more intentional and single-minded under Trump.
In his style, the President will demand allegiance from Kennedy Center associates — that constitutes the jaded “MAGA” rebrand. But it will show a slow reconstruction of the enthusiasm and transparency also characteristic of his administration.