DAVID MARCUS: Dems' Kennedy Center gay ‘Guerrilla Theater' stunt is why their act wears thin
On Monday night, Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., put on the "Love is Love" concert co-hosted by Democrat Sens. Tammy Baldwin , of Wisconsin; Jacky Rosen, of Nevada; Brian Schatz, of Hawaii; and Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, as an affair to protest what they claim is anti-LGBT bias at the arts center.
The show, featuring Broadway stars and a gay men's chorus in the 144-seat Justice Forum was invitation only, and no, you were not invited.
It turns out Hickenlooper had reached out to Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller, to co-produce the show, the same Seller behind the hit musical "Hamilton," and who recently canceled a production at the Kennedy Center, along with the show's creator Lin Manuel-Miranda, also in protest against alleged anti-gay bias.
The senators used a little-known provision that allows them to rent space at the Kennedy Center as a perk of the job. Who knew?
Setting aside the fact that the merits of the claim that the Kennedy Center has somehow become anti-gay fall somewhere between wet tissue paper flimsy and non-existent, the form of this protest by powerful Democrats warrants some scrutiny, and can tell us a lot.
According to The New York Times, Hickenlooper reached out to Seller and asked if he wanted to make some "guerrilla theater," which, for anyone who knows anything about theater, is absolutely hilarious.
Guerrilla theater, often associated with the Living Theater founded in 1947, is when a company just takes over a space and starts putting on a show. In the 1980s, they used to have stage lights they could plug into municipal light poles, for example.
What guerrilla theater is definitively and unquestionably not, is 5 of the most powerful human beings on earth asking a super-rich Broadway producer to put on a concert in one of the most venerated performance spaces in America that they can rent by Congressional prerogative.
That is, in fact, the perfect polar opposite of guerrilla theater.
This confusion by Hickenlooper and Seller is an incredibly illuminating window into the current mindset of the far-left elites in the Democrat Party and their cultural wingmen. They think they are being raw and edgy, when actually, they just look ridiculous.
We see this performative nonsense everywhere from Democrats, whether in Corey Booker's farcical filibuster, Rep. Eric Swalwell's cringeworthy TikTok skits, or elected officials getting themselves arrested on purpose for eager cameras.
They think all of these things, like their "guerilla theater," are provocative and brave, a counter-culture that stands up to Trump and all his alleged crimes.
What these prancing Democrats fail to understand is just how inauthentic their antics are to the everyday Americans who can see through them like Superman checking what's in the fridge without opening the door.
Democrats and their advisers have lost sight of the difference between symbolism and reality, Booker wasn't filibustering any real bill, members of Congress aren't really being arrested in any meaningful way, and 5 senators sure as hell did not really "occupy" the Kennedy Center.
Everybody knows it's all for show, because they have seen the show before.
Hickenlooper and Seller thought they were speaking their truth to the power of Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell, a gay man who they absurdly accuse of anti-gay bias because he wants the institution he leads to focus on artistic excellence instead of identity grievance.
In fact, it is Grennell and the new board of directors at the Kennedy Center who are pushing back against decades of hegemonic left-wing power in arts and culture, and at the slightest threat to its power, the political and artistic left has thrown a hissy fit.
Americans don't need guerrilla theater from our elected officials, especially those who have no idea what guerrilla theater actually is.
Democrats need to wake up to the fact that just doing one more performative stunt isn't going to convince Americans they are living in a fascist dictatorship and should come running back to their party.
While Republicans are tackling the budget and the border, the Democrats are making sure that gay people aren't underrepresented in theater, which is like making sure that guys named "Cheech" aren't underrepresented in the mafia.
The American people have no idea who leads the Democrats, what they stand for, or what policies they would enact, it is my job to know these things and I don't even know, because they won't tell us.
For now at least, the theater kids are gonna be theater kids, so keep your Playbills handy, you never know what mind numbingly awful show these Democrats may put on next.
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