The media flap that was waiting to happen — the confrontation in which the cast of “Hamilton” dressed down from the stage our incoming vice president — followed the usual pattern of this sort of incident, which is that both sides tend to act badly, and only the rare soul does well. The cast behaved badly when it ambushed a guest in its house, without warning and in front of an audience it knew would side with it, committing therein an instance of “bullying,” which left-wingers all claim to abhor.
That said, Trump (and Newt Gingrich) did not help themselves either when they struck back in the aggrieved and combative manner in which the affront had been given, calling the play, which is said to be excellent, “overrated,” and leading some of their fans to sound idiotic in urging a boycott of a production that has been sold out now for years. It was Mike Pence, the boo-ee, if you will, who handled things better, telling his relatives who saw the show with him that “this is what freedom is.” This answer is fine, but it should be augmented. And this is what Pence ought to do:
Sometime soon, before or after the inauguration (and the Naval Observatory would make a nice venue), Pence ought to call up the cast of “Hamilton” and ask them to tea. To join them, he might call in his own diverse cast from the evolving road show known as the Republican Party, which, though it has a preponderance of white men in it and in its leadership, could put together an ensemble that looks not unlike the show’s cast itself. That ensemble includes but is not limited to Govs. Brian Sandoval, Susana Martinez, Nikki Haley and Bobby Jindal; Sens. Tim Scott, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio; Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iraq war veteran; Rep. Mia Love, a black Mormon from Utah; Rep. Martha McSally, a retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force, the first woman to head a USAF flying squadron and to herself fly in combat; and Elise Stefanik, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, winning her seat in New York in 2014.
Did you say you want immigrants? Martinez, Haley, Jindal, Rubio and Cruz are children of immigrants, all of them regarded at one time as being presidential material, the latter two having been leading contenders in the most recent primaries and four of the five seen now as being among the party’s most powerful people. This leads us in turn to the left’s little secret: That while the Democrats have by far the largest number of nonwhites and women in political office, most of these are at the local or House levels (or in one-party cities). Meanwhile, there are fewer Republican women and minorities in higher office but more of them are near the pinnacle of power and are regarded as leaders by those in their party and by the public at large.
In the House, most Democratic nonwhites come from carved-out majority-minority districts, and never learn how to play to a more diverse audience. By contrast Tim Scott, one of the two blacks now in the Senate, was elected by largely white voters in South Carolina, and got his start in his House primary by defeating a son of Strom Thurmond. As Alexander Hamilton was both a conservative AND an abolitionist, and was joined in his quest by his friend John Laurens, a son of one of the great families of South Carolina, this is something the cast of “Hamilton” might find it useful to hear.
Noemie Emery, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of “Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.”
