The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is in trouble because years of neglect have left the national landmark unsafe, underfunded and waiting for someone else to pay the bills.

President Donald Trump became chairman of the board after returning to office and made its renovation and financial condition a personal priority, while also raising the money now sitting in its account. Currently, $17 million raised by the president has been placed in the Kennedy Center account so the institution does not sink while lawyers argue over lettering on the outside of the building.

The arts matter and should be preserved, celebrated, and worthy of our investment. We should also recognize when buildings no longer meet basic safety standards. A performing arts center that cannot safely host the public is hardly a monument to culture but rather a reminder that sentiment is cheaper than stewardship.

As the future of one of Washington’s most important cultural institutions hangs in the balance, much of the attention has focused on whether the president who stepped forward to help save it should be allowed to put his name on it, instead of how to save the building. Priorities are out of order.

The Kennedy Center is a national institution, a home for artists and performers, and a place where generations of Americans have gathered to experience the arts. It deserves to be preserved. It deserves to be safe. And it deserves the investment necessary to ensure that it remains an important part of American cultural life for decades. Those things, however, require more than good intentions, and indeed, like almost everything in Washington, require a lot of money.

Trump is doing something else that is often in short supply in Washington. He is taking responsibility for the problem. He also went looking for the money to solve it. If Trump’s money and the money he helped raise are welcome, why is his contribution not?

If those who oppose Trump’s name believe so strongly that he should have nothing to do with the Kennedy Center, they could make a remarkably simple statement. Give the money back.

They are unlikely to do that, of course, because the money is useful. The objection is not really to the money. It is to a populist president. That may be understandable as partisan politics, but it is a poor way to preserve a national institution. The arts should be bigger than that.

Washington should be able to appreciate a great performance without asking whether the person who paid for the renovation agrees with their wishful policies. Artists should be able to perform in a safe building without wondering which political faction gets credit for fixing it. And Americans should be able to recognize an important contribution even when the contributor is someone they strongly dislike.

There is, after all, something interesting about the man whose name is already attached to the institution. John F. Kennedy was a Democrat, but in his inaugural address he spoke unapologetically about American strength, sacrifice, national purpose and the responsibility of a free people to accomplish difficult things. His administration confronted the Soviet Union and made reaching the moon a defining national objective. He sounded a lot more like Trump than the Democratic Socialists of today!

Trump Derangement Syndrome is on full display in this debate. It is sad to see people protest every good thing simply because the wrong politico proposed, funded or accomplished it. If the building needs to be saved, the money is available, and the people responsible are willing to do the work, then let them work. Politics should not turn every beneficial act into another battlefield. At some point, Americans ought to be able to look at a good result and say it is a good result, even when they dislike the person who made it happen.

A name on a building is hardly an endorsement of every decision a person has ever made. Rather, it says that at a particular moment, someone did something significant enough that future generations should remember it. If Trump ultimately helps save the Kennedy Center, there is nothing unreasonable about believing that his contribution deserves to be remembered. The history of an institution can accommodate both.

The arts deserve better than political tribalism. So does the Kennedy Center. And if Donald Trump helps save the building, his name belongs on it.

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Shaun McCutcheon is a free speech advocate and was the successful plaintiff in the 2014 Supreme Court case McCutcheon v. FEC. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.

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