The Kennedy Center in Washington on Monday. U.S. President Donald Trump announced February 1 he is closing the venue for two years for a thorough renovation, as the storied Washington arts complex struggles with declining ticket sales and a backlash from performers.BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

Everyone has a talent, even Donald Trump. In his case, he’s supremely adept at taking something that is noble, successful, great – to use a favourite term of his – and wrecking it. Case in point: the United States of America.

So perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise to see him do the very same to one of its great cultural institutions. The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Mr. Trump announced Sunday, will close for renovations for two years. This follows as despotic a move as they come: the effectively unilateral renaming of the celebrated Washington venue in Mr. Trump’s own honour, putting his name before and above that of Mr. Kennedy, who had led a fundraising campaign to establish the performing arts centre and for whom it was named as a living memorial after his assassination.

The destruction did not begin with Mr. Trump’s shameless, shameful renaming, but with the removal of the team previously running the storied Center. The new board chair? Why, Mr. Trump himself, whose greatest credential, after unchecked power, is a complete inability to understand how much he doesn’t........

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