‘Hamilton’ Won’t Play Trump’s Nazi Kennedy Center, How Intolerant!

Cry more, MAGA whiny-asses.

Mar 07, 2025

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OK, let’s talk about Hamilton and the Trumpers who are very, very upset about them canceling their Kennedy Center run.

‘Hamilton’ original cast, live 2016 (screengrab, YouTube)

Last week, in the morning news roundup at Wonkette, I wrote:

[I]f you have not heard of this new theater sensation Hamilton, it’s pretty popular these days and probably will never play at the Kennedy Center again, but I thought it might be an interesting time to see it for the first time, and oh boy was I correct.

It’s a little unnerving how often I make offhand comments/jokes like that, only for them to come true approximately seven seconds later.

Yes, I saw Hamilton last week for the first time ever, yes I made that joke the next day, and yes, Hamilton announced this week that it would be canceling its 2026 run at the Kennedy Center, now that Donald Trump has decided to destroy that too, by touching it.

The Moral High Ground

Everything Trump Touches Dies, Kennedy Center Edition

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4 months ago · 340 likes · 103 comments · Evan Hurst

And that’s exactly why they canceled too.

The statements from the production team were thoughtful and extensive. Producer Jeffrey Seller said:

"Political disagreement and debate are vital expressions of democracy. These basic concepts of freedom are at the very heart of Hamilton. However, some institutions are sacred and should be protected from politics. The Kennedy Center is one such institution. The Kennedy Center was founded over 50 years ago with a sincere bipartisan spirit. Indeed, it was founded during the administration of President Dwight Eisenhower, named after President John F. Kennedy, and opened in 1971 under the administration of Richard M. Nixon. The Kennedy Center was meant to be for all Americans, a place where we could all come together in celebration of the arts. Politics have never affected the presentation of thousands of shows and the display of extraordinary visual arts. 1/3

However, in recent weeks we have sadly seen decades of Kennedy Center neutrality be destroyed. The recent purge by the Trump Administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national cultural center represents. This spirit of nonpartisanship ended on February 7, 2025, with the firing of Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter, the Chairman of the Board David Rubenstein, and numerous other Kennedy Center board members, as well as the cancellation of important programming. These actions bring a new spirit of partisanship to the national treasure that is the Kennedy Center. Given these recent actions, our show simply cannot, in good conscience, participate and be a part of this new culture that is being imposed on the Kennedy Center. Therefore, we have cancelled the third engagement of Hamilton at the Kennedy Center, originally scheduled for March 3-April 26, 2026. Hamilton was proudly performed at the Kennedy Center in 2018 during the first Trump administration. We are not acting against his administration, but against the partisan policies of the Kennedy Center as a result of his recent takeover. 2/3

Our cancellation is also a business decision. Hamilton is a large and global production, and it would simply be financially and personally devastating to the hundreds of employees of Hamilton if the new leadership of the Kennedy Center suddenly cancelled or re-negotiated our engagement.' The actions of the new Chairman of the Board in recent weeks demonstrate that contracts and previous agreements simply cannot be trusted. This is sad, because basic integrity and the rule of law have long been great American principles that help serve as a foundation for our Nation. I have personally loved the Kennedy Center since touring it as a seventh grader in 1977 along with the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial. I watched the first Kennedy Center Honors in 1978. Regardless of the political climate, I have always felt at home at The Kennedy Center, and I am grateful for every person who has spent the last 50 years making it a beacon of nonpartisanship and celebration. But we cannot presently support an institution that has been forced by external forces to betray its mission as a national cultural center that fosters the free expression of art in The United States of America." 3/3

They weren’t canceling out of partisanship or because of politics. It was because Donald Trump decided to turn the place fascist by purging staff and the board and replacing it with loyalists. It was because of what Donald Trump did to it, like a modern-day Stupid Hitler. Also, as Hamilton is one of the biggest and most successful theater productions on the planet — put a pin in that fact — they didn’t trust the capricious used car salesmen of the Trump administration to be reliable business partners even if they kept up their end of the deal. So, you know, fuck off.

Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda was even more pointed: “The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center. We’re just not going to be part of it.”

Notably, this means Hamilton will not be part of the Kennedy Center’s planned America’s 250th Birthday celebrations. We imagine Trump will find something from the era of America’s founding that’s more to his liking than a musical where non-white performers play the founding fathers. Or maybe he’ll just screen Birth Of A Nation.

One of the loyalists Trump shoved in at to remake the Kennedy Center in his own white supremacist image is Ric Grenell, the belligerent gay quisling Trump devotee who during the last Trump administration held the distinction of being the ambassador most loathed by his host country (Germany), probably in American history. He’s a total piece of shit. Anyway, Trump stuck Ric in as the president of the Kennedy Center — probably only because he’s gay and it’s a theater, such is how I am certain Trump’s expired, bigoted mind works — seemingly in order to get rid of all the performances that old, half-senile white Nazis don’t understand or that feature too many people who aren’t white and heterosexual. In other words, to get rid of the art and the culture and the good things and replace it with Trump’s Reichskulturkammer.

Trump tweeted on Truth Social: “Ric shares my Vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture, and will be overseeing the daily operations of the Center. NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA – ONLY THE BEST. RIC, WELCOME TO SHOW BUSINESS!”

Whatever, you sick fucking weirdo.

In response to Hamilton's decision and the statements from Miranda and Seller, poor Ric Grenell just queened out all over the place.

Grenell tweet: "Let’s be clear on the facts. Seller and @Lin_Manuel first went to the New York Times before they came to the Kennedy Center with their announcement that they can’t be in the same room with Republicans. This is a publicity stunt that will backfire. The Arts are for everyone - not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with. The American people need to know that @Lin_Manuel is intolerant of people who don’t agree with him politically. It’s clear he and Sellers don’t want Republicans going to their shows. Americans see you, Lin."

So melodramatic! “They can’t be in the same room with Republicans.” Waaaaah! “This is a publicity stunt that will backfire,” shrieked Ric Grenell, about Hamilton, which definitely needs publicity stunts to sell tickets. Hamilton.

“The Arts are for everyone!” he bellyached. “The American people need to know that [Miranda] is intolerant of people who don’t agree with him politically. It’s clear he and Sellers don’t want Republicans going to their shows.”

Is Hamilton really for white supremacist Nazi fascist Christian Trump supporters? Are they into it? Again, lots of non-white people on that stage. And lots of hip-hop. And lots of people saying out loud that slavery was bad. Lots of extremely talented people. Literally no Lee Greenwood or Kid Rock songs.

Of course, Ric is just blubbering about in histrionics for theatrical effect — he’s the president of a theater now, after all! — but I do think it’s notable that Republicans, the pube-filled shower drains of American culture, are still bitching and moaning every chance they get about how “Americans” need to know how “intolerant” the woke liberals are … of people who are fundamentally intolerant.

It’s called the “Paradox of Tolerance,” and it’s not a new concept. It’s not really a paradox either. It simply says that if you’re truly tolerant of everything — including intolerant people, like Nazis and fascists and conservative Christians and so forth — then true tolerance will cease to exist. Intolerance is the one thing you can’t tolerate. Parker Molloy wrote a good primer on it almost 10 years ago.

But yet this mentality is still just goddamned everywhere, perhaps even moreso now that Trump and MAGA are in charge, while all the parts of the culture in possession of any class or cultural value still wholly reject them. The New York Times has a (ridiculously sympathetic) piece this very week on some whinyass white conservative Christian asshole, full of apologetics for why he and his followers had to go full-on fascist because waaaaaaaaaaah! the mean liberals won’t tolerate their intolerance anymore. Why, they call them bigots and everything, just because they’re enormous bigots!

You can’t tolerate people who don’t, themselves, tolerate people.

You can’t be tolerant of ignorant, mouthbreathing hate and the people who spew it.

It just doesn’t work.

In order to create a world that’s truly safe for all kinds of people — races, religions, genders, sexual orientations, all the other woke DEI shit that’s always forcing people to try to be decent fuckin’ human beings — then you by definition cannot make room for, well, Nazis.

And what are Donald Trump and his MAGA followers? Fucking Nazis is what.

So no, when Donald Trump comes in and announces he’s going to unzip and piss all over beloved cultural institutions like the Kennedy Center, it’s incumbent upon all decent and patriotic people who are able to back out and say not just no but fuck no. Ben Folds did. Renée Fleming did. Rhiannon Giddens did.

Now Hamilton has.

Lin-Manuel Miranda and the rest of the Hamilton team are saying thanks but no thanks, we don’t want to perform in Stupid Hitler’s Nazi Playhouse. They’re not saying Republicans can’t come see Hamilton. (Which has literally zero monster trucks in it, why are we even pretending those cows are lining up to buy tickets?) They don’t check political affiliation when they scan your tickets.

They’re just not going to do it in Stupid Hitler’s house. Cry about it.

May many more follow Hamilton’s lead as it finds new lessons to teach us in these godforsaken times.

(Also seriously go see it if you haven’t, or if you have! I can’t believe I waited until this year. It’s fabulous.)

UPDATE: By the way, after I sent this out, I saw that Grenell went on “Hannity” last night to whine and cry some more. Get a load of this quote: “[T]hat’s one of the things that Donald Trump has really brought back – into Washington, into America, into the Kennedy Center – is to say everyone is welcome. We’re not gonna cancel, we’re not gonna tell people they’re not welcome. Everyone is welcome.” That’s after lying again and saying Lin-Manuel Miranda didn’t want Republicans to attend Hamilton. What a craven bootlicker, yes, but I think that quote really starts to scratch at the scab of how damaged Grenell is, to think that in Trump is where he finds welcome and acceptance. What depths of self-loathing must that require?

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