A handpicked board of trustees moved swiftly this week to add President Donald J. Trump’s name to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, voting unanimously to rename the institution the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts — a decision that has set off an unsurprising panic on the left. Conservatives see this as overdue recognition for a man who, according to the board, revived a struggling national institution from neglect and bureaucratic decay.
Crews were photographed and seen adding new signage to the building mere hours after the vote, and the change was reflected on the Center’s website and branding almost overnight — a decisive, can-do action that stands in direct contrast to the usual leftist worship of stagnation and process over results. Liberals screaming about vandalism and sacrilege miss the point: a governing board voted, and a patriotic leader delivered tangible results.
Predictably, members of the Kennedy family and many Democrats erupted, claiming the move is illegal because Congress originally designated the building as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy and arguing only lawmakers can alter that designation. Those objections deserve a hearing in the proper forum, but they don’t erase the facts on the ground: the center was in sore need of rescue, and the trustees say Mr. Trump provided it.
Democratic outrage has been theatrical and full of convenient procedural complaints, including allegations that ex-officio Democratic board members were muted during a virtual vote — a charge that, if true, would be embarrassing for them but doesn’t change that the board carried out its duties. The spectacle of left-wing lawmakers collapsing in faux horror while the country benefits from renovations and renewed attendance is yet another reminder that the left prefers virtue signaling to stewardship.
Board defenders have been blunt: Trump’s leadership and support made possible not only repairs and reputation recovery but also major funding commitments that stabilized the Center’s future, and the trustees say the renaming acknowledges that rescue. The American people should ask why honoring someone who saved a beloved cultural institution is treated by Democrats as a crime when their own default is to centralize, litigate, and obstruct.
Let’s not be fooled by the performative outrage from the same crowd that weaponizes institutions and clings to prestige when it suits them. Patriots know that institutions are meant to serve the nation, not to enshrine a selective version of history protected by partisan gatekeepers. If protecting a memorial means ignoring who actually saved it, then the memorial is a shabby shrine to hypocrisy.
Americans who love this country should cheer leaders who fix problems instead of pretending the problems don’t exist. The Democrats’ meltdown over a board’s decision exposes their priorities: anger at a successful Republican rather than gratitude for a restored national treasure. If Washington wants to litigate the legality, let Congress weigh in — but until then, hardworking Americans should be proud that a man willing to get things done left his mark on an institution he helped save.
