When Donald Trump announced his abrupt seizure of the Kennedy Center this week, installing himself as chairman and replacing the board of trustees with his followers, many viewed it as a tangent to his usual chaotic news pump cycles.

Until a week ago, it was unthinkable that the president of the United States would take direct control of the nonpartisan Kennedy Center for the Arts, fire board members not deemed personally loyal to him, replace them with members of his inner circle and install a widely disliked political operative with little experience in the arts as interim director. But now the thought has been thought,

However, for those who study how cultural institutions weather political storms, the warning signs of totalitarianism are unmistakable.

Cultural venues are like the canaries in coal mines – their health tells us about the air we’re all about to breathe. The Kennedy Center’s transformation follows a disturbingly familiar playbook: administrative changes first, cultural shifts later.

The immediate cancellation of “Finn,” a children’s musical about a shark exploring identity, wasn’t by accident. Youth programming often takes the first hit when institutions begin to change – reshape the future by controlling what children see.

The exodus of artists speaks volumes. Issa Rae cancelled her sold-out show. Shonda Rhimes resigned as treasurer. Ben Folds stepped down from the National Symphony Orchestra. Renée Fleming departed her artistic adviser role. These are a vote of no confidence from America’s cultural leaders. They see the dying canary up close and are wise to flee, to warn others of what’s coming.

History teaches us that institutional capture starts quietly. It begins with board changes, programming “reviews,” and administrative restructuring, with early censorship. By the time the dictatorship rolls, the infrastructure for cultural control is already in place.

The Kennedy Center transformation isn’t following the playbook of outright suppression – it’s following the more subtle playbook of institutional realignment into autocracy.

Trump’s statement that “it’s not going to be woke” might sound like classic McCarthyist rhetoric echoing Nazi Germany. But when coupled with administrative seizure of one of America’s premier cultural institutions, it signals something far more ominous than even “black ball” tactics: the beginning of total national programmatic control over artistic expression.

And by that I mean hate speech is being normalized again. It’s like Trump will say to the board “they wanted to convince people that lead in water is bad, so we’re going to say lead in water is good. Same thing, right?!”

The question isn’t about whether state driven control and censorship is coming – it’s here already. The question is who will stop the spread to other cultural institutions. Who will heed the warning, before Trump air becomes toxic to everyone.