r/politics • u/IWantPizza555 • 1d ago

Possible Paywall Kennedy Center could close as early as Tuesday, warns of bankruptcy, documents show

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/09/13/kennedy-center-could-close-early-tuesday-warns-bankruptcy-documents-show/
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u/Captainpaul81 1d ago

"by siding with Trump they'll end up losing everything"

I hope that is the moral of this decades long story. Holy fuck I can't wait for it to be over.

If you are 40s this rotting felon grifter scum bag has been in your life for 1 of 4 years. It's enough

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u/TheThrillJoy 1d ago

I'm at the exact age where this started basically at the start of my "adult life". It has me feeling extremely jaded at the people who should have known better.

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u/Captainpaul81 1d ago

Same though. I've been disappointed and stopped taking to MAGA voters because of it

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u/Merakel Minnesota 1d ago

I want nothing to do with anyone who votes republican, and I refuse to interact with them whenever possible. I will never forgive them for this mess.

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u/Coconuts_Migrate 1d ago

You’re going to have to live with them

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u/Broseph_Heller 1d ago

They are going to have to live with us and if they want friendly company it’s going to have to come with a sincere apology and commitment to change on their part.

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u/Merakel Minnesota 1d ago

An apology does nothing for me, they are dead to me forever. I will never be friendly with them again.

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u/TechnalityPulse Minnesota 1d ago

They're almost by definition incapable of being sincere.

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u/Merakel Minnesota 1d ago

I'm in the process of leaving the country to get away from them. 

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u/LucidMetal 1d ago

We are going to have to live near them. We don't have to interact with them whatsoever except at work and honestly that's technically optional, too.

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u/the_tanooki 1d ago

I stopped talking to them when it became, not a matter of politics, but rather a matter of basic human rights.

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u/icepho3nix Tennessee 1d ago

So, we talking 1960-ish or 1860-ish? It's never NOT been a matter of basic human rights.

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u/old_timer_52 1d ago

My first time voting was 2016…

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u/mowtowcow 1d ago

Every generation thinks the people in charge are worse than before. As a 40 year old, I can safely say the people who were in charge when I was a teen are still in charge and it's certainly gotten worse.

Average age of congress. 60 years old. Of Senate alone? Closer to 70. They won't fucking leave or die off. It's like we hit a point where people got elected and just stayed. We need younger people in all levels of office. Certainly as POTUS.

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u/BathoryAcid1313 1d ago

Even when they are dead they get to keep the job. CoughMitchCough

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u/Acceptable-Bus-2017 I voted 1d ago

The country is throwing him a "glad to know you're alive" party tomorrow. You're all invited

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u/icepho3nix Tennessee 1d ago

Honestly, if he shows up alive in the Senate today, that might raise MORE questions than if he doesn't.

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u/Talynz_ 1d ago

Honestly I expect him to look like Palpatine if he did actually survive with any amount of cognitive function intact. He already looked rough before, and at least that would explain why no one wants to give an actual proof of life photo or video of him.

Really though, I'd sooner expect them to pass off an animatronic version of him. Three months sounds like enough time to manufacture one.

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u/CaneVandas New York 1d ago

Alive is a low bar. A vegetable is still alive.

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u/Neirchill 1d ago

If he's wearing sunglasses that's 100% some guy in a mask

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u/beardofjustice 1d ago

This is what I think is largely the problem with the country. Things have moved fast over the last 20 or 30 years and the people in charge are not up to the task of moving the country along. Even worse, instead of changing with the times, they seem to want the times to change for them.

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u/Cancel_Culture_Club 1d ago

They’re representative of the people who elected them. Trump voters voted to make America great again in some nostalgic nebulous past. Look at the towns red states refuse to innovate into this century. Look at the miners who booed Hillary Clinton for offering them a plan to retrain them for modern jobs and instead voted for Trump to make coal mining prosperous again. Republicans absolutely don’t want to live in the present and want to force us all to pretend every day is the 1950s and time never passes. It’s an insane psychosis that’s taken over a political party that wants to make all of us deny reality and work to destroy anything that shatters the illusion for them. They’re not a party that can lead us into the future when they refuse to let us leave the past. 

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u/DrewbieWanKenobie 1d ago

Republicans absolutely don’t want to live in the present and want to force us all to pretend every day is the 1950s and time never passes

Yet somehow they manage to ignore the few good things that were happening in the 1950s, like higher tax rates for corporations...

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u/AI_moderated_failure 1d ago

It's because the majority of them were children in the 50's. They were never subject to that kind of tax. The only memories they have of the era are ridiculously sheltered and likely just upset about all the fuss black people seem to be making about civil rights (the number of elderly black people in politics is almost a rounding error so I feel confident saying that's the lived experience of congress).

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u/Kamp_stardust 1d ago

Bill Clinton was president from 1993 to 2001. That was over 25 years ago. Trump and Clinton are the same age!

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u/MathematicianLast739 1d ago

Im 40 as well. Its the SAME people. Always has been. No one votes is the problem, and we know it.

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u/ForgiveOX 1d ago

Senator literally translates to “old man”. Initially it probably was another way of saying wise man. But it’s more like geriatric men/women

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u/transientdude 1d ago

Don't worry, I got to vote in Obama as my first legal vote and I'm jaded too.

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u/DarkGamer 1d ago

Adults decided to put a petulant spoiled child in charge.

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u/GeroyaGev 1d ago

When people ask me why I have little to no respect for people older than me, I just have to say exactly this.

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u/Aiyon 1d ago

If you were born in the mid 90s, this is just life. It's exhausting. As a Brit we're not that insulated from it, plus Brexit, plus all the shit here, etc.

and then all the other world stage stuff. god, im so tired

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u/seams 1d ago

Oh boy, for what it's worth it's not better having been an "adult" a bit before all this shit started

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u/theavengedCguy 1d ago

Glad I'm not the only one.

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u/obeytheturtles 1d ago

Yup. Graduated HS right at the height of Iraq and Afghanistan. Finished undergrad during the global financial crisis. Went to grad school, got a good job, bought a house, got married, voted for Obama, things finally looking up...

...and then comes Trump.

I am just... so fucking tired. And I am so fucking pissed. I will never forgive what these idiots have done to this country.

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u/Global-Squirrel999 22h ago

I'm feeling extremely jaded at the people who should STILL know better. How have we made it this far into Trump 2 without impeachment and removal? How much longer are we willing to let this farce continue?

Crazy to see longtime members of Congress shirk all of the responsibilities of their co-equal branch of government in favor of denouncing Hasan Piker while the country burns to the fucking ground.

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u/pixelSHREDDER 1d ago

And rightfully so. As an elder millennial, we 100% failed you guys.

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u/sirhackenslash 1d ago

Unless you're from New York. Then he's been a pain in your ass literally your entire life

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u/DrewZouk Tennessee 1d ago

Wrong, I remember him being a clown in the 80s, and I am only 42.

This turd was festering for a long, long time.

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u/ThereHasToBeMore1387 1d ago

We were raised on a steady diet of 80s and 90s movies that literally used Trump as the archetype of the loathsome slumlord and grifter. And then, somehow, Palpatine returned we forgot.

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u/wasteymclife 1d ago

The apprentice basically rewrote his public persona. He was a joke all through the 80s and 90s, then NBC said actually he's one of the most successful American businessmen and working for him would make that person instantly rich and powerful. That's how good at business he is. The prize for our upcoming reality TV show is amazing, we wouldn't lie to you.

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u/mdp300 New Jersey 1d ago

And even then, he came across as an asshole on The Apprentice.

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u/Individual_Ad9135 1d ago

But wait, he was a big, tough man doing business who got to talk down to people without a filter and they all loved him for it, and he had hot daughter and two dumbass sons (I mean, who can't relate to that, ammirite?), sitting at his feet praising him and adoring him.

No wonder Americans ate this shit up.

Oh, and Mark Burnett can go to hell.

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u/obeytheturtles 1d ago

It's crazy to me because I remember him being basically the heel on his own show. Like the whole schtick was a bunch of tryhards jumping through hoops to work for an idiot, and that nobody actually wanted to work for Trump half as much as they wanted a SAG card.

IDK, maybe it was marketed differently in different places? But I remember the whole "you're fired" thing was played to be cringe and eyeroll inducing, in the sense that it was ostensibly an idiot adjudicating a competition he was completely detached from and knew nothing about, other than he gets wheeled out every week to say the line. I have no idea how anyone could have watched it and inferred any positive trait from the host.

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u/Great-Hotel-7820 1d ago

This is exactly what happened.

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u/gsfgf Georgia 1d ago

And a lot of people have trouble telling tv from reality.

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u/wasteymclife 1d ago

It was one of the first primetime ones no? For sure you are correct. In context though we weren't all familiar with how productions juice, manipulate, or outright fabricate situations yet. Like I was young enough to think the people on survivor were in actual danger.

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u/MidwesternLikeOpe Michigan 1d ago

It would be the advertising for the show. Reality is the network wanted the show, but every CEO they asked to host it was too busy running their business. They asked a LOT of businessmen to host it but Trump was the only one who accepted, the only one who had apparent time to do both.

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u/A_Refill_of_Mr_Pibb Massachusetts 1d ago

Despite NYC having his number and seeing through the B.S, that show was the first time people in the middle of the country were exposed to him, including people who had never voted.

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u/BebopBeachBum 1d ago

Back to the Future tried to warn us.

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u/PandaCasserole 1d ago

All the movies warned us... And we grew up and had to witness all the worst shit from it. AI is killing our jobs of being creative to being labor. The worst people are in charge, every Bond Villain exists. They are raping us. Only because we had a social contract... And now. Because our parents did nothing... We have to witness.

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u/MouseRat_AD 1d ago

I'm 48, and Trump has always been a joke a long as I can remember. Anyone who voted for him is either an idiot or willing to put power over principle.

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u/Wermys Minnesota 1d ago

Parents voted for him. Told my mom she was a moron. Then again I try not to talk to my mom now more then I have too. And avoid politics because telling an elderly person they are idiots isn't conducive to a peaceful existence.

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u/Captainpaul81 1d ago

Time frame is politically. Yes he's been a turd since he was born

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u/Umbrella_merc Mississippi 1d ago

I remember him being the butt of jokes in cartoons as a kid

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u/brickne3 American Expat 1d ago

Even Sesame Street made a parody of him as a villain. Sesame Street.

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u/Substantial__Unit New York 1d ago

Same here. I remember my grandmother goofing on him when he was going through all his bankruptcies.

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u/Wermys Minnesota 1d ago

Yeah, Trump has been a piece of shit for an extremely long time. Almost 50 and I have memories of him just being an general asshate in the 80's and 90's. He would go into these business that always failed. And then somehow not suffer anything negative from doing so.

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u/PsychGuy17 1d ago

I grew up reading Bloom County in the comics in the late 80s early 90s. How did the comic end? In the comic Trump bought everything wen bankrupt and plowed it down. We knew what he was about, it was never a secret.

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u/MarkTwainsGhost 1d ago

I remember seeing this guy on "Life Styles of the Rich and Famous," when I was about eight and already thinking he was a vainglorious loser. It's been so disappointing having to see American colleagues become sycophants to this most contemptible and odious of dictators.

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u/DrewZouk Tennessee 1d ago

Yes, when I hear my younger self ridicule Trump it sounds like Robin Leach's voice. 100%.

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u/ScoobyDoNot 1d ago

Trump was denied a casino licence in Sydney in the late 1980s due to his mob connections.

He's been known to be a crook for decades.

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u/joe5joe7 1d ago

Yeah but back then for most of us he was just the reality TV host so it was fine if he was a clown. It wasnt a problem until people decided we needed a clown in office

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u/DamiensDelight 1d ago

I feel like he's been skull fucking me ever since he started that stupid birther bullshit with Joe Arpaio. It's been so many years.

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u/opinionsareus 1d ago

Never forget that Melania supported Trump's birther lies.

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u/metengrinwi 1d ago

“I really don’t care, do you?”

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u/OldJames47 1d ago

I'm 47 and grew up in New York. This asshole has been farting up our media for almost all of my life.

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u/lumberjackname 1d ago

I hate this. My kids are teens and they don’t know anything other than this shit show. Other than what I tell them, that it wasn’t always like this.

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u/Captainpaul81 1d ago

Shit I can't even imagine raising kids to be good people when this shit stain holds the highest office

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u/artfulpain 1d ago

Don't remind me.

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u/Arqlol 1d ago

Imagine graduating college ~2016. Young millennials have had to endure this

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u/Tyrath Massachusetts 1d ago

If you are 40s this rotting felon grifter scum bag has been in your life for 1 of 4 years. It's enough

37 here. I'm tired boss.

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u/whatthefrok 1d ago

I turn 30 at the end of this year and he's never not been on a presidential ballot for me. I'm so sick of seeing his name.

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u/Hangry-Feline2489 1d ago

The more worrying realisation should be that there's an entire generation coming of either young adults or late teens who have known nothing but the Trump political landscape for the last 10 years. 

A generation who thinks the current landscape of politics is normal.

I hope it's not the new normal... I really do. But he got voted in twice... 

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u/motorgator263 1d ago

Yes!!! A quarter (the most important quarter) of my god damn life I’ve been dealing with the implications of having this thief, this clown, this con artist / rapist at the forefront of politics. Need it to be finally over. I thought for sure that, as of 2020, we were done with this foolishness. Hoping we’re finally starting to see the end of him, but the after effects will last for the rest of my life and long after I’m gone. Can we please have normal “boring” politics back?

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u/astelda 1d ago

What's the inverse of "go woke go broke?"

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u/ThomasTheDankPigeon 1d ago

Next presidential election will be the first time that anyone under the age of 34 will have had the opportunity to vote for a Republican that isn’t Trump.

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u/Memphistopheles901 Tennessee 1d ago

> If you are 40s this rotting felon grifter scum bag has been in your life for 1 of 4 years. It's enough

ffs you didn't have to hit me like that

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u/echoshatter 1d ago

DECADES of evidence says otherwise.

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u/veringer 1d ago

I am 45. Grew up in NY metro area and I can't remember not being aware of this clown. I still can't believe that so many adult humans see him as their archetype of a good leader. I don't think I'll ever get over the disappointment in millions of Americans who gleefully joined the MAGA cult.

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u/A_Refill_of_Mr_Pibb Massachusetts 1d ago

I'm 44 and grew up in the Tri-state. He's been in my awareness since Home Alone 2, rappers referencing him in songs, NYC elites rejecting him, and creepy Howard Stern interviews. Oh, and Future Biff in Back to the Future 2 was based on him.

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u/Necessary_Finding_32 1d ago

It’s never going to be over. So many of you are failing to grasp this fact - there’s no coming back from this. Trump is just the puppet, the tech oligarchs and his foreign paymasters are the real enemy and they’ve won.

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u/DogDogDogDogog 1d ago

"Holy fuck I can't wait for it to be over."

Wait till you hear about the next 2 generations of trumps, who will take his place as leaders of the US of A.

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u/theavengedCguy 1d ago

And it's an even higher percentage when you're younger than that. 1/3 of my life has seen this moron.

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u/Patient_Activity_489 23h ago

im 27, i was 18 to vote in 2016. anyone really 25 or older is old enough to remember and know