The devastating effect of Donald Trump’s MAGA takeover of the Kennedy Center has been revealed by a disillusioned tour guide.
Sandy Weiswasser, who has been volunteering as a tour guide at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for 18 years, told The New York Times how desperate things have become at the venue amid plummeting ticket sales and an artists’ boycott that threatens its very existence.
Weiswasser described how there are some days when no one turns up for a free tour of the Kennedy Center at all. On the days when a few people do show up, many are simply curious to see how bad things have become since the president’s controversial takeover of the venue.
“This place used to be really thriving and busy and crowded,” Weiswasser told the Times. “Now it’s a black hole.”
During its heyday, Weiswasser was among 140 volunteer guides who would show 400,000 people around the Kennedy Center each year. During her shift last Monday, only five of more than a dozen tour guides showed up because of how deserted it has become, with just three actually leading tours.
People have been staying away from the Kennedy Center in droves since Trump installed himself as its chair last February after branding the arts venue too “woke.” Trump brought in loyalist Richard Grenell to lead the institution, while also disbanding the board and replacing its members with MAGA figures such as White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and former Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The board then voted to add Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center before a judge ordered its removal in May. The name change only exacerbated the decline in audience numbers for the remaining shows, with several productions pulling out of scheduled performances.
Weiswasser said that even her friends tell her, “I won’t step foot in there” following Trump’s takeover.
Ticket sales have fallen so sharply that the venue has been giving away an increasing number of complimentary tickets in a desperate bid to fill seats.
Weiswasser told the Times that she managed to get two tickets to the event honoring Bill Maher with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. However, she did not end up going because she could not find anyone who wanted to accompany her to the Kennedy Center.
Trump announced in February that the struggling Kennedy Center would close this summer for two years as part of a multimillion-dollar renovation project. The Kennedy Center’s board is expected to make a final decision on whether to close the venue in August.
