When the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opened its doors, in 1971, the Times’ architecture critic, Ada Louise Huxtable, was not impressed. She described the building’s style as “aggrandized posh” and sniffed that its overlong corridors “would be great for drag racing.” The 2,360-seat Opera House, she wrote, looks like “one of those passe, redpadded drugstore candy‐valentines,” and, on Sunday night, at the forty-eighth Kennedy Center Honors, that’s exactly what it was—a tacky, supersized love letter to the center’s self-installed chairman, President Donald Trump .

The Lede

Reporting and commentary on what you need to know today.

Every detail of the ceremony appeared to have been plucked from Trump’s mood board, an indelible blend of revanchist impulses and eighties

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