(Getty Images)
Last night, Mike Pence attended the hit Broadway show Hamilton and the Vice President-elect was decried with a chorus of boos by the audience. Afterward, Hamilton actor Brandon Victor Dixon- who plays Aaron Burr- addressed Pence in a statement that began, “There’s nothing to boo here, ladies and gentlemen, nothing to boo,” before thoughtfully explaining the fears of minorities about the incoming administration.
https://twitter.com/HamiltonMusical/status/799828567941120000
This seemed like a reasonable way to engage in civil dialogue, but predictably Donald Trump bashed the cast of Hamilton and demanded they apologize.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/799972624713420804
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/799974635274194947
Now there’s no way any reasonable person could have watched that address and thought it was harassment, which is why this is such brilliant trolling. There’s nothing liberals in America currently love more than Hamilton, and Donald Trump clearly knows that by going at it will push their buttons. And of course, it worked like a charm.
#BoycottHamilton has been trending all day on Twitter, and it’s largely people mocking the notion of a Hamilton Boycott. The idea that Trump supporters are the ones spending absurd amounts of money to see a Broadway show that is all about multiculturalism is of course laughable, and tickets to Hamilton are already sold out until the year 2348.
But Hamilton’s audience oozes with the self-congratulatory smugness of rich liberals, so it’s the perfect target for Trump to go after. Because of course the smug New Yorker who schemed his way to the presidency wants middle America to keep on believing the facade that he’s really just like them.
This is all a perfect diversion from Trump’s questionable White House appointments, the news that he reached a $25 million settlement in his Trump University fraud case, or the potential massive conflict-of-interest concerns surrounding a Trump presidency.
Obviously nobody from Hamilton is going to apologize for their address to Pence. And we shouldn’t let Trump distract us from the real concerns about his upcoming tenure in the Oval Office.
