Ric Grenell Fires Dance Program Staff From Kennedy Center, Replaces Them With Box Of MAGA Hats [View all]

Get ready for Ashli Babbitt: The Ballet.

What’s new in the ongoing decline of the Kennedy Center, which as recently as January 19 was America's premier arts venue before it was taken over by Donald Trump and one of his most obsequious lickspittles, Ric Grenell?

This past week has been all about dance programming. As in, Grenell fired the entire staff of the dance department, including the competent and experienced administrator running it. She was replaced by a guy who describes himself as a “MAGA former dancer” and got the job because he sent Grenell a letter decrying all the wokism and “radical leftist ideologies” in ballet. Presumably the next Kennedy Center production of The Nutcracker will feature Fritz angrily throwing the nutcracker doll into the fireplace and demanding his parents buy him a gun for Christmas.

The new head, Stephen Nakagawa, has a pretty thin resume by the standards of what you might want in the head of a programming group at the Kennedy Center. As NPR noted, he has no experience as a curator or arts administrator, and his qualifications seem to consist of being a member of the Washington Ballet company for a few years. NPR, in its characteristically understated way, called it “unusual for someone without that kind of experience to ascend to a management position at such a high-profile organization.” By which they meant lack of experience.

Meanwhile, the woman Nakagawa replaced, Jane Raleigh, was a veteran arts administrator who had worked at the Center for over a decade. But she had been supportive of the Kennedy Center staff’s unionization drive, so obviously she had to go.

But that’s the story of the Trump administration: replace experienced people with anyone who can hoot MAGA! and woke! and radical Marxism! over and over again like a bonobo with a TBI.

https://www.wonkette.com/p/ric-grenell-fires-dance-program-staff