☕️AllenAnalysis Morning Brief - Dec 8, 2025.
Trump’s Culture War Weekend: Denials, Empty Seats and Public Hangings
Brew your coffee and sit for a second. Because if you only skimmed headlines this morning, you might think we just had a normal culture-news cycle. It is not normal for a White House to rage-deny a rumor so hard it makes the rumor look more believable. It is not normal for the nation’s flagship arts center to empty out right after the president takes it over. And it is definitely not normal for a billionaire tied to Palantir to start publicly fantasizing about bringing back public hangings in the name of “masculine leadership.”
Today’s snapshot is not about separate stories. It is about a single theme: power getting very comfortable with punishment and spectacle.
1. The White House That “Doth Protest Too Much”
Raw Story flagged a new round of reporting around Vice President Kristi Noem and growing speculation about whether Trump may cut her loose after the dog-killing scandal and months of political damage. Because the original piece is locked behind Raw Story’s site, what we can see clearly is the reaction.
A Threads post summarizing the article describes the administration’s response this way:
“The White House’s furious, over-the-top denial about Noem potentially getting fired makes the rumor seem totally credible.”
We do not have the full text of the denial, but the pattern fits this White House perfectly. When something is baseless, you issue a short dismissal and move on. When something is hitting a nerve, you release a long, angry, defensive statement that talks around the issue instead of under it.
The real story here is not whether Noem gets pushed out this week or three months from now. The story is the fragility of Trump’s inner circle. We are watching a White House that knows it is bleeding politically and is trying to project strength by screaming at rumors instead of calming them.
2. Trump’s Kennedy Center Takeover Is Already Bleeding Tickets
The second Raw Story piece focuses on the Kennedy Center, where Trump installed himself as board chair and brought in Ric Grenell to run the place as a culture-war outpost. Ticket sales for the traditional moneymaker, “The Nutcracker,” have cratered under the new regime.
Coverage sourced to CNN and AOL reports that ticket sales for “The Nutcracker” have “plummeted” since Trump’s takeover, with attendance reportedly down by nearly half compared to previous years.
One Kennedy Center official put the financial picture in brutally simple terms:
“Selling every ticket to ‘The Nutcracker’ is absolutely not paying your bills. We have 19 unions here. The production costs are huge.”
That is the quiet part everyone in arts management understands. A performing arts center is a complex organism. You do not keep it alive on a single Christmas blockbuster. You keep it alive with donors, touring companies, education programs and a brand that feels welcoming instead of hostile.
Trump’s version of the Kennedy Center is the opposite of welcoming. Under Grenell, rainbow ribbons have been sidelined, LGBTQ programming has been cut back, and the institution is being rebuilt as a stage for Trump himself.
Which brings us to last night.
3. “Many Of You Are Miserable, Horrible People”: Trump Uses Kennedy Honors To Work The Refs
Trump broke precedent and personally hosted the Kennedy Center Honors, turning what was once a bipartisan celebration of the arts into another televised Trump rally disguised as an awards show. Associated Press reporting describes him telling the room of cultural figures and media:
“I know so many of you are persistent. Many of you are miserable, horrible people. You are persistent. You never give up. Sometimes I wish you’d give up, but you don’t.”
The line got laughs from some of the audience. But look at what is actually happening. The president is standing in a taxpayer-funded arts palace, that he now controls, and using the microphone to insult the press and critics to their faces. That is not a roast. It is power reminding everyone who signs the checks.
The symbolism matters. Reagan used the Kennedy Center to project American cultural soft power. Trump is repurposing it as a cathedral for his grievance politics while the core business model quietly deteriorates.
4. Marjorie Taylor Greene Publicly Breaks With Trump
Another Raw Story front-page slot went to an “Outgoing MAGA Rep reveals the moment she dumped Trump” piece, which tracks with a CBS “60 Minutes” segment on Marjorie Taylor Greene’s sudden break from the man she used to worship.
In the interview, Greene, who once voted with Trump almost every single time in Congress, tells Lesley Stahl that she no longer believes his agenda is actually serving the movement she signed up for. She argues that Trump’s policies are “not America First” and that the relationship between the two “changed” when she concluded his focus was on personal power rather than the working-class voters who elevated him.
The details of her future plans are still fuzzy. She is leaving Congress, flirting with media gigs and hinting at some sort of “America First” project outside of Trump’s shadow. But the bigger signal is this: a high-profile MAGA figure is now on national television saying the quiet part out loud. Behind the scenes, Republicans mock Trump. In public, they are starting to peel off one by one.
You do not have to like Greene to recognize what this means. When professional loyalists begin making their exit on camera, they are telling other people inside the movement that it is safe to consider the same thing.
5. A Palantir Billionaire Wants Public Hangings Back
The most openly authoritarian headline in Raw Story’s stack does not come from the White House or Congress. It comes from Silicon Valley money.
Venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, a co-founder of Palantir and part of the original “PayPal mafia,” used his X account to call for the return of public hangings in the United States. Common Dreams reports that he wants to modify “three strikes” laws so that people convicted of three violent crimes are publicly executed instead of serving life in prison.
In his post, Lonsdale wrote:
“If I’m in charge later, we won’t just have a three strikes law. We will quickly try and hang men after three violent crimes. And yes, we will do it in public to deter others.”
He then added that “our society needs balance” and that “it’s time to bring back masculine leadership to protect our most vulnerable.”
That is not fringe internet chatter. This is a billionaire whose company’s technology is already woven into law enforcement and intelligence work. Public hangings as a branding exercise for “masculine leadership” is how authoritarian fantasies get normalized in polite circles.
Critics were blunt. One columnist described Lonsdale’s fixation as a dream of “draconian punishment and public executions” dressed up as leadership.
Set this next to Trump joking at the Kennedy Center about “miserable, horrible people” in the media. Add a White House that lashes out at even the rumor of dissent. You start to see the outline of a culture of punishment, not governance.
6. What It All Adds Up To
These stories are not random. They come from the same political climate.
A White House that cannot tolerate rumors about internal fractures.
A national arts institution hollowed out and repurposed as a personal stage.
A supposed MAGA true believer publicly walking away.
A surveillance-capitalist billionaire fantasizing about public executions.
If you zoom in, they look like separate oddities. If you zoom out, they show a movement that is tightening its grip on culture while bleeding legitimacy in real time.
As always, the question is not just what Trump and his circle are doing. The question is what the rest of the political class, the media, and the public are willing to normalize.
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References
Associated Press. (2025). Kennedy Center Honors: Trump lauds cultural icons, hints at center’s possible renaming.
AOL News. (2025). Inside Trump’s transformation of the Kennedy Center.
CBS News. (2025). Former MAGA loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene says Trump policies are not America First.
Common Dreams. (2025). Venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale calls for public hangings.