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John Killacky has had a front-row seat in America’s culture wars. As a gay man and a dancer in the 1980s, he lost over 100 friends to AIDS. As an arts administrator in the 1990s and 2000s, he confronted police who threatened to shut down artists who they deemed to be obscene. And as the former director of the Flynn Theater in Burlington, he agreed to allow a visit by presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016 — and broke down in tears after a night filled with rage, vitriol and protest.
The Trump campaign overbooked the theater, causing overflow crowds to spill onto the streets and confront anti-Trump protesters. As protesters inside the Flynn disrupted his speech, Trump demanded of police, “Get ’em out. Confiscate his coat. It’s about 10 degrees below zero outside. … Tell him we’ll send it to him in a couple of weeks.”
Today, Killacky is a state representative from South Burlington and is one of a handful of openly LGBTQ+ legislators. He has a new book of essays, Because Art.
Killacky was targeted by protesters for giving a platform to Trump in 2016. He remains unsettled by what he saw that night.
“I felt like I experienced fascism from the stage,” he says. He talks about whether he would make the same decision again.
