Vice President-elect Mike Pence was booed and cheered when he entered the theater to watch the musical, Hamilton. At the end of the show, a member of the cast read a short statement directed at Pence. That’s what actually happened. Trump tweeted that Pence was “harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton.” That didn’t happen. The cast didn’t “harass” Pence. In another tweet, Trump wrote, “The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!” That also didn’t happen. The cast wasn’t “rude” to Pence. It doesn’t owe him, or Trump, an apology.

What we have here is another post-election shot across the bow of the First Amendment. Trump is once again putting people on notice that criticizing him is dangerous business. For now he’ll respond verbally. Later, well, we don’t know what will happen later. His response as president could be more than words. The country could become a Trump rally writ large, with dissenters treated like protesters were treated during the campaign, with Trump’s consent and assistance. “Get ’em out! Get ’em the hell out of here!”

Let’s go through the Hamilton incident piece by piece.

The cast didn’t “harass” Pence.
Here is the full statement read by Brandon Victor Dixon, a cast member, while the rest of the cast stood behind him, holding hands.

“Vice President-elect Pence, we welcome you, and we truly thank you for joining us here at Hamilton, an American Musical, we truly do. We, sir — we — are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”

That is a pointed, eloquent statement. There isn’t a word of harassment, no threatening tone of voice. It is polite dissent, spoken with theatrical diction by a man wearing a formal, American Independence-era suit.

Dixon prefaced his written statement by noting that Pence was in the audience and that he was leaving, and he hoped Pence would stay to listen to the statement. When some audience members booed, Dixon said, “There’s nothing to boo here, ladies and gentlemen, we’re all here telling a story of love.” You can watch a video of the statement here.

Trump criticized the cast, not the audience.
If anyone could be accused of harassing Pence, it’s the audience, some of whom booed him when he walked in, then booed the mention of his name by Dixon after the show. Why did Trump go after the cast and not include the audience in his condemnation? Well, the audience is a well-heeled, predominantly white crowd who could afford to pay anywhere from $300 to thousands of dollars for a ticket. They’re Trump’s class of people, one percenters to five percenters, even though many of them are of the liberal persuasion. The cast, but for their costumes, could have been a Black Lives Matter demonstration, predominantly people of color with some white faces thrown in. They’re among Trump’s prime targets.

Obama wouldn’t have reacted like Trump in a similar situation.
What if Obama or Biden had been called out by the cast of a play? Would they have called it harassment or asked for an apology? I doubt it, though since it didn’t happen so far as I can remember, I’m speculating here.

To create a similar situation, Obama or Biden would have to be watching a performance where the performers and members of the audience had serious reservations about the administation’s points of view. So imagine either of them attending a performance of a play with a conservative Christian theme, where the cast and the audience members tended to be against abortion and gay marriage. If someone in the cast read a statement similar in tone and sentiment to the one above but focusing on issues where they disagreed with the Obama administration, I’m reasonably certain Obama or Biden would have listened politely and, if they spoke about it later, would have defended the cast’s right to express its views, maybe even applauded them for the polite way the views were expressed. They might say, for instance, “My family and I really enjoyed the show. We heard a few boos and some cheers. I nudged my kids and reminded them, that is what freedom sounds like.” If it sounds like I’m glorifying our current administration for their level-headedness with the quote, in fact, it’s almost the exact words Pence used to describe the incident. It’s pretty much what any politician would, and should, say. Trump is the glaring, and frightening, exception.

Pure and simple, Trump went after a group of people, most of whom are minorities, because they dared to express alarm and anxiety about some of the policies Trump promised to enact if he was elected president.

This article appears in Nov 17-23, 2016.

21 replies on “T.H.R.E.A.T. Watch: ‘I Threatened and Insulted You, So You Owe Me an Apology.’”

  2. David could you share with us what Trump threatened blacks with if he was elected President? I am talking black citizens, not organized black protest groups funded by George Soros. Use whatever links you can find. Audio is a real plus.

  3. It really is pitiful what this man chooses to spend his time commenting on. There are real threats to the wellbeing of many of our citizens – declining access to decent educational opportunities, increasing efforts to blackmail large portions of our population into making themselves indentured servants in exchange for obtaining an education through taking on huge burdens of undismissable student loan debt, and he wants to devote this level of attention to a dialogue between Mike Pence and the cast of Hamilton.

    What a crusader in the cause of social justice. On his watch 90 percent of the population could be consigned to the equivalent of a labor camp and he’d be pissing and moaning about whether there were transgender toilets available to the laborers.

  4. They owe him an apology and his daughter and niece, those tickets ain’t cheap and he went there with family to enjoy the play!
    I can see if it was just him alone how you might feel compelled to say something off stage in the hallway… But with family in tow, no way… Total lack of class on the part of the cast … You would expect a higher caliber of entertainers for such expensive surroundings!

  5. Will Twitter be our new president’s primary place for domestic policy? Limited audience actually.

  7. Safier – do you realize you’re defending, sympathizing with a blatant racist?

    “4 every racist comment I get about Trayvon Im going 2 turn 1 white married suburban housewife & mother n2 a jump off The. Best.”

    ‘Hamilton’ star Brandon Victor Dixon’s tweets surprising given on-stage Pence letter reading?

    http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2016/11/21/hamilton-star-brandon-victor-dixons-twitter-behavior-surprising-after-on-stage-pence-letter-reading.html

  9. But they are so scared. It appears they refuse to accept our role of limited government and look for a nanny state to attend to their needs.

  11. Wrong, Again:

    Settle down Snowflake. Your twisted panties and your hate are expanding your head so much that you won’t be able to take it out of your ass when you actually have to.

    Eh, it really doesn’t matter. You never remove your head from there anyways.

  12. riorican. Apparently you’re new around here. You should read some of the things I’ve been called because people didn’t like my comments.

  13. Trump and Pence, and apparently their fans, need to grow some thicker skin. Besides, if this was Hillary or Obama being mildly insulted it would be a barrel of laughs for you. It’s always the ones who love dishing it out but can’t take any in return.

    And What, Again: how was that Tweet racist? Unless you consider interracial sex to be racist. It’s barely even relevant to this story.

  14. If this group of actors wanted to express their fear and anxiety one would have thought they would vote. Did nobody explain the rules to them?

    They are acting like that birther group after the 2008 election. It’s a little late and disingenuous folks.

  15. stalecloud – you don’t think that this guy saying he’s going to find a white married woman with children to screw because of what he hears about Trayvon Martin is racist? He didn’t say he was going to find any married woman with a child to defile. How about if a white guy said that if hears Black Lives Matter saying bad stuff about Trump he’s going to find a black woman with kids to screw, maybe Michelle Obama?

    And you don’t even see that offensive to women? How about if he was talking about screwing your wife? This is who Safier is defending, sympathizing with.

  16. It will be okay Snowflake. Just change your panties and everything will be fine.

    This is meant to look stupid. I’m just giving Wrong, Again the shitty advice he gives to others.

    Turnabout is fair play.

  17. It really is pitiful what this Safier chooses to spend time commenting on. There are real threats to the well-being of many of our citizens. What threats Safier? The response was about harassment toward Pence invading a private moment — there was no issue of race — simply harassment and bad taste.

    That is purposefully invoked by you Safier to create a racial issue when there was none. What are you up to Safier, following the brain-dead left-wing ding-bat/socialist/communist operative manual?

  20. No What Again I don’t see how that’s racist. Maybe you can explain it to me. It’s funny how you’re crying foul now and playing the victimost when you have no problem dropping a deuce on Hispanics on other articles. It’s gonna be OK. He won. We’re gonna be great!

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