The mainstream media is framing the sudden collapse of the Grand Foyer's plaster as an infrastructure tragedy. But if we are being completely honest, it is the most meaningful artistic statement to happen in Washington in decades.
The mainstream media would have you believe that Friday evening was a dark day for American culture. Heavy rain swept through the Washington, D.C. area, and in response, a large portion of the ceiling inside the Kennedy Center’s Grand Foyer collapsed. Officials panicked. The building was temporarily closed. Photos were released to the press showing chunks of drywall and plaster scattered across the pristine red carpets. To the untrained eye of the coastal elite, this was an infrastructure failure. To those of us willing to see clearly, it was a long-overdue reckoning.
Let’s be honest: that ceiling had it coming. For over fifty years, it has smugly hovered above the tuxedoed donor class, artificially shielding them from the harsh realities of the American climate. While the working men and women of this country have borne the brunt of torrential downpours and economic stagnation, the patrons of the national arts have enjoyed a subsidized, climate-controlled bubble in which to sip eighteen-dollar prosecco. On Friday night, the rain simply leveled the playing field.
I have spent the weekend analyzing the photographs of the wreckage released by the Kennedy Center, and I must say, I am profoundly moved by the bravery of the plaster. Unburdened by the elitist demands of keeping the weather outside, the drywall finally let go, plummeting fifty feet to join the working class on the floor. It was a beautiful, unpretentious display of gravity. It is no wonder that an observer on the scene was quoted as saying, "President Trump has been right."
Right about what, exactly? Everything, obviously, but specifically about the fact that our institutional overhead is entirely out of touch with the forgotten man. Just last week, I was having an off-the-record lunch at a K Street steakhouse with a senior aide to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Over a second round of martinis, he leaned over the table and whispered, "The structural integrity of this town is a mirage." He was speaking metaphorically about the debt ceiling, but the Grand Foyer took his mandate literally.
The fact that no one was injured in the collapse is being spun as a stroke of luck, but I see it as a testament to the moral restraint of the falling debris. This was a targeted, surgical strike by the drywall. It did not wish to harm the patrons; it merely wanted to remind them that they are soft, vulnerable, and entirely dependent on the physical labor of the building materials they take for granted.
The drywall didn't fail so much as it voluntarily recused itself from shielding another production of Swan Lake.
It is time we admitted that a roof is a luxury, not a constitutional right. If you are going to host a three-hour production of a Scandinavian opera, you should be prepared to experience it in the elements. The base understands this. The base is out there every day, working in the rain, fixing the roads, and getting wet without demanding a soaring marble foyer to protect them. Why should the patrons of the National Symphony Orchestra be granted a special exemption from precipitation?
The Kennedy Center has announced it is temporarily closing the main building to assess the damage, which is exactly the kind of bureaucratic overreaction we have come to expect from the deep state. Instead of sweeping up the chunks of ceiling and apologizing, they should be leaving the rubble exactly where it is. They should install a plaque next to the shattered plaster to honor the moment the building finally stopped pretending it was better than the rest of us.
Say what you will about the optics of an iconic national monument crumbling under the weight of a standard thunderstorm, but it takes courage to fall apart. The rain did not destroy the Grand Foyer. It liberated it. And until the rest of Washington learns to embrace the deluge, I will proudly stand with the rubble.