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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
David Smith in Washington

And here is your host … Trump casts himself for Kennedy Center honours

a man in a suit stands next to plaques that are covered in red fabric
Donald Trump arrives to speak during the unveiling of the Kennedy Center Honors nominees in Washington DC on Wednesday. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

“There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts,” are among the words inscribed in marble at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. The age of Elizabeth was the age of Shakespeare, it says.

The age of Donald Trump is the age of Trump’s ego. Trump the president, commander-in-chief and master builder. Trump the supremo of the upcoming Olympics, football World Cup and America’s 250th birthday. Trump whose self-aggrandisement is the size of a planet: on Wednesday not even the Kennedy Center’s cavernous Hall of Nations could contain it.

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