Editorial: The Assault on Our Cultural Assets
By • April 9, 2025 0 197
Whatever downsides there may be to living in and around Washington, D.C., even in our historic, amenity-rich neighborhood of Georgetown — the high cost of living, the tourist crush, the soundscape of sirens, jets and helicopters — residents are exceedingly fortunate to have the city’s unsurpassed cultural resources so close at hand.
Collectively, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Gallery of Art and D.C.’s private visual arts venues, such as the Kreeger and the Phillips, are a museumgoer’s dream come true. The D.C. theater scene gives New York a run for its money. And the hub of our galaxy of performing arts centers is the Kennedy Center, which completed a $250-million expansion in 2019.
As Washingtonians, therefore, we can’t help but take the Trump administration’s assault on the national cultural assets based here in the capital as a personal affront.
But as much as we like to think so, not everything is about us.
Some two million people attend the hundreds of performances presented annually at the Kennedy Center, from the free Millennium Stage offerings to the National Symphony Orchestra and Washington National Opera seasons. Between three and four million are wowed year after year by the National Gallery of Art’s splendid buildings, rich holdings and blockbuster exhibitions.
The Smithsonian complex is in a class of its own. The exhibits in the Smithsonian museums (and the animal-filled habitats at the National Zoo) captivate more than 15 million visitors every year, not only Americans but citizens of every nation on earth.
We may take them for granted at times, but Washington’s array of cultural treasures make millions of D.C. visitors feel that they’ve arrived in heaven. It is hard to think of a greater source of pride for Americans or of admiration from our international guests.
As dismaying as are the DOGE raids on federal agencies, some semi-independent, the Trump administration’s hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center and intimidation of the National Gallery and the Smithsonian are beyond the pale. We frankly find them baffling, except as cynical moves to fuel a culture war that has provided political benefits to the party now in power.
These are beloved facilities, examples of successful public-private partnerships that require professional, nonpartisan management. Their diminishment can only reflect poorly on those responsible.
Our hope is that the public — local, national and international — will express its rejection of this bullying, and worse, of Washington’s artistic and cultural institutions, and that the administration pauses its disruption of our irreplaceable venues before more artists, professional staffers, audience members and donors vote with their feet.
