The Hamilton Musical protest, in which the cast went political on VP-elect Mike Pence at the end of the show, certainly made the weekend interesting.
Mike Pence this morning brushed off the event, stating that the boos were “what freedom looks like” and said he wasn’t offended by the cast members actions; though he did say he’d “leave it to others” to decide if that was the right time and place for a political protest. President-Elect was less forgiving, sending out multiple tweets criticizing the protest.
You can see additional reactions in our two prior posts (here and here).
Most of those reactions miss the big point.
Increasingly we see a line crossed. I’m not talking about a line of public civility by politicians or protesters, of which there is little left.
I’m talking about the line between political and non-political life.
We’ve seen Black Lives Matters protesters confront random diners and disrupt random shopping malls as a tactic, as one example. Eating out or going shopping now becomes a political event.
The Hamilton protest showed that there is very little non-political life anymore, not even in the theater watching a musical. Mike Pence is a political figure, but others in the audience were not, yet they were dragged into the political theater.
It seems to be a trend which will accelerate. The reactions to Trump’s election have been so unhinged, I expect these random acts of political aggressiveness directed at your personal life to accelerate. The regressive alt-left of the anti-Bush coalition is reinvigorated. Publications and groups no one has given much thought to in 8 years are not back in action, like Daily Kos, TPM and MoveOn.org, just to name a few.
The alt-left if organizing furiously for “direct action,” whipping people into a frenzy over the prospect of “Hitler” taking over. If my Facebook feed is any indication, and I think it is, many otherwise rational people on the left have lost it or are about to lose it.
That delicate line between the personal and the political life will disappear completely pretty soon.
I think it’s going to get very ugly, and there will be no place to escape it, not even in the theater for a musical.
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