When the Hamilton musical opened on Broadway in 2015, it was a game-changer. Setting the story of an American founding father to a ’90s-era hip-hop beat was an audacious move by creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda, but it paid off. Crowds lined up for days for the chance to see it live. The show amassed awards and lavish praise from critics and the media, including a lot of coverage from Vox. Like, a lot.

The show’s stature only continued to grow with the 2015 release of the original Broadway cast recording and the 2020 premiere of the live-capture version of the musical on Disney . The filmed version is now in movie theaters for the first time, where diehard Hamilton fans will undoubtedly show up in Revolutionary War-era cosplay to belt out their favorite numbers.

But 10 years later, how does a progressive, flag-waving, Obama-coded hip-hop musical hold up?

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner teaches English and theater at Portland State University and is the author of “Lin-Manuel Miranda: The Education of an Artist.” He told Today, Explained co-host Sean Ramewaram about how the musical’s legacy is tied up with Obama’s, and what it feels to watch the show in 2025 in the second Trump term.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

How much time have you spent in the last several years thinking about Hamilton?

God, this feels like that meme about “how often do you think about the Roman Empire.” Like, daily.

Kind of hard to avoid this phenomenon for the past 10 years. Now that it’s coming to theaters for the first time, we have an excuse to talk about how this musical feels different in 2025 than it did in 2015. Your thoughts?

So Hamilton has these two acts and I felt........

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