White House Insults Local Business, Destroys Decades-Long Tradition
This weekend, the White House rejoiced as the Kennedy Center Honors medals — historically designed by a local Washington, D.C., company — were redesigned by a multinational luxury brand.
Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump has sought to use the power of the presidency to shape American culture as he sees fit, including at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where he was elected president in February after serving the board.
On Sunday evening, Trump will host the center’s annual honors gala, becoming the first president to do so. He says he was “very involved” in selecting the winners, who were recognized at a medal ceremony on Saturday.
Since 1978, these medallions have been made by local artisan James Baturin, who, along with his wife and children, created more than 250 awards — large, multi-colored ribbons with gold name plates — as a family business over the years, according to WUSA9.
That is, until this year.
On Tuesday, the Kennedy Center unveiled new medallions, created by Tiffany & Co. A little less distinctive than the previous design, the new one features a gold disc suspended from a navy blue ribbon.
Before Saturday’s ceremony, the White House posted a tweet disparaging the abandoned family operation in favor of a luxury giant. The post celebrated the “much sleeker new design” as a “MASSIVE upgrade over the tacky rainbow belt design of medallions of the past.”
When a reporter pointed out the storied history of awards so derisively described by the Trump White House, one social media user joked, “Taking work from a small family business and outsourcing it to a big corporation? It adds up, yes.”
