Catherine Rampell has a hot new theory about Mike Pence’s Hamilton experience: Pence and Donald Trump planned the whole thing.

Trump, and only Trump, won this round in the culture wars. And with many more rounds to come, liberals need to find some way not to take his bait.

What “bait”? Because she assumes that the mere presence of the vice president-elect constitutes a provocation by the incoming Trump administration. Having listed certain — much more plausible — reasons why an American statesman may want to see a play about America, Rampell moves onto her thesis nevertheless:

But I also wouldn’t be surprised if Pence attended Friday’s performance specifically hoping, or at least expecting, to stoke boos and a brouhaha that would ultimately rouse the Republican base — and distract from much more embarrassing Trump-related news.

In other words, Rampell is either proposing that Pence and Trump are silently and simultaneously diabolical, or that the pair had an actual conversation in which Trump said, “Hey Mike, you should go to this play, Hamilton. People will boo you, the actors will disrespect you, and then we will use it to rouse our base, even though we don’t have to run for re-election for four whole years.”

For Trump and Pence to cook this up — all while handling a presidential transition — would demonstrate remarkable attention to detail and prescience about something ridiculously minor. One can’t help but conclude that Rampell has concocted this sophisticated theory to avoid the glaringly obvious fact that New York liberals are rude.

Later in her post, Rampell theorizes about the racial undertones of the incident. But the grandest absurdity comes in her stirring conclusion:

Calling out injustice always feels like the righteous thing to do. The uncomfortable question for Trump’s opponents in the years ahead now must be: How do we call out injustice, without unintentionally reinforcing it?

Nothing says “righteousness” like booing someone before he even has the chance to do his job.