There is no better example of the maxim "Everything Trump touches dies" (or just "ETTD") than the ongoing saga of the once-proud John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts. Today, the board -- chaired by none other than Donald Trump himself -- voted to close the Kennedy Center indefinitely, because those meanie judges won't let Trump slap his name on the outside of the building. Trump's planetary-sized ego won't rest until everything he sees in Washington D.C. has been renamed to honor him, plain and simple. So the likely outcome (barring other judicial interventions) is that the Kennedy Center will remain dark until the next president is sworn into office. Because ETTD.

Donald Trump tried to pull a fast one, last year. He had letters spelling out his name created and readied and then hustled a vote through the Kennedy Center's board, and before anyone even knew what was happening, his name was added to the outside of the building (as well as to the website, all official documents, and everything in the gift shop). It was now "The Donald J. Trump And The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts" (the awkward wording was to avoid having to change the letters that already existed on the building -- the Trump letters were added in a line above them).

The ETTD effect immediately kicked in. Performing artists started cancelling their scheduled appearances at the Kennedy Center in droves. Trump announced he would not only attend the Kennedy Center Honors presentation, but actually host the event (because nobody else could host it better, obviously). Donations dried up, as donors turned away in disgust. Trump announced he was going to completely refurbish the whole place, with designs and details personally selected by him, which sent a shudder through every American who has any sense of taste whatsoever. Trump was going to do to the Kennedy Center what he has done to the Oval Office and the rest of the White House -- turn something that was once dignified and stately into an explosion of tacky gold crap everywhere you look. When the exodus of artists became a flood, Trump petulantly announced that the renovations would require the complete shutdown of the Kennedy Center for two years (which would basically mean "for the rest of his term in office").

Things came to a head earlier this year, when a judge ruled that Trump's name had to be taken down from the building's exterior and removed from all official documents (and all the stuff in the gift store as well). The judge ruled that Congress created the Center to honor the death of President John F. Kennedy, and that an act of Congress would be required to change the name in any way whatsoever. Trump sulked at the ruling, and when the deadline to remove the lettering from the building's exterior arrived, he reluctantly had workers do so -- but only after they hung an enormous tarp on the scaffolding that blocked the public's view of the name on the wall.

Months later, that tarp is still up. This is one measure of the limits of Trump's petulance. A scaffolding still stands, complete with tarp, for absolutely no reason whatsoever. It has to be guarded around the clock -- which must cost a good deal of money. Trump doesn't care, he just doesn't want the humiliation of seeing crowds cheering the restoration of J.F.K.'s sole name to the wall.

Trump being Trump, he then came up with what he must have thought was a brilliant end-run around the judge's ruling. The board would vote on additional text to be added to the exterior wall, which read something along the lines of:

Renovation and endowment overseen by
President Donald J. Trump
and the
Trump Kennedy Center Fund

This was just one of ten suggestions, most of them very similar, although one took a slightly different tack:

A Legacy protected through the Generosity of President Donald J. Trump

Trump appealed the initial ruling by the judge, but lost his appeal (he has not appealed it all the way to the Supreme Court, but he probably will). But the judge who made the original ruling ruled again today -- right before the board was scheduled to vote on which additional text would be added to the exterior -- that such an attempt was nothing more than a blatant attempt to avoid his previous ruling. He called the idea of Trump's end-run around his ruling "linguistic gymnastics" and slapped the idea down:

U.S. Judge Christopher Cooper reiterated much of the ruling he made more than three months ago when he said that the center's Board of Trustees had illegally voted to add [Donald] Trump's name to the building's facade and ordered them to remove it.

On Aug. 13, the trustees voted to put Trump's name on the building once more, but Cooper said that, too, would violate the law and his previous order, "which reflects Congress's decision to memorialize President [John F.] Kennedy, and no one else, at the Center bearing his name."

"Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress's blessing," Cooper said in his ruling. "The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted."

So, in a fit of pique, the board voted to close the Kennedy Center down today, effective immediately. Their argument is circular in nature, if not straight-up Orwellian doublethink. Adding Trump's name to the building is necessary (they argue) because doing so brought in such a flood of donations that removing the name has forced them to the brink of bankruptcy. Trump will only hand over the restoration money and actively fundraise for the Center if he sees his name on the building.

The only problem with this fantasy is that the exact opposite actually happened.

In the materials dropped from Tuesday's agenda, center leaders say they have exhausted their financial resources and could be unable to make payroll or pay routine maintenance bills "within a matter of weeks."

They had claimed that without "appropriate recognition" on the building, Trump is unlikely to oversee the renovation or "lead the fiscal rescue of the Center."

The warnings sharpen a financial crisis The Washington Post documented last month. Internal budgets and forecasts showed that by May the center expected to collect only about $124 million of the $220 million in revenue it budgeted for the fiscal year that ends this month, leaving a projected $23 million deficit even after substantial spending cuts.

Center leaders have blamed previous management for the institution's financial problems and said Trump's name has attracted new donors. But the confidential financial records show that ticket sales and fundraising plunged after trustees added Trump's name to the building in December.

The original Post article exposing all these financial lies went into more detail about how the money dried up. The Center's earned revenue for this fiscal year was projected to miss its target by a whopping 70 percent. In a new court filing, Trump had even darkly warned that he might just have to destroy the whole building (as he had already done to the East Wing of the White House):

Ticket sales and fundraising collapsed after President Donald Trump's name was added to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, even as the center's leaders publicly touted a financial turnaround, according to confidential documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Ticket sales had already dropped in the 10 months following Trump's takeover, but both ticket sales and donations plunged after the Trump-led board of trustees voted in December to rename the center after him and put his name on the front of the building, according to the records.

The documents show that leaders knew both were cratering even as they publicly portrayed Trump's takeover as a financial rescue. In a failed June request to keep Trump's name on the building, for instance, a Justice Department lawyer wrote that renaming the center after Trump "represented a saving of The Kennedy Center which, if this doesn't happen, would go into financial and structural collapse" -- even suggesting in a new filing Monday that without Trump's name and renovation plan, the building "will be required to be taken down."

Thankfully, that hasn't happened yet. But with Trump, you never know. And for now, it looks like the Kennedy Center will just go dark until Trump leaves office, which is bad enough.

Because everything Trump touches dies, one way or another.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant