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In what may be one of the year's most ironic moments, President Donald Trump will spend Wednesday night attending the opening of the musical “Les Misérables” at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. No, this isn’t some presidential obligation that Trump is reluctantly fulfilling. Rather, as he told Fox News Digital last week: “I love the songs, I love the play. I think it’s great.”
For once, Trump seems to be telling the truth. True, none of the numbers from "Les Mis" appeared on his official playlist for his 2024 campaign, unlike other Broadway musicals like “Cats” or “Phantom of the Opera.” (His love of Andrew Lloyd Webber is well-known and deeply telling in its own way.) But I’d forgotten until today that during the announcement of his third presidential run in 2022, he walked onstage immediately following the strains of “Do You Hear the People Sing?”
In fact, he’s used the song multiple times at events over the years, almost always prompting similar bouts of confusion from people who understand “Les Misérables.” Which brings us to the other half of his statement to Fox News Digital: that he thinks the show is "great." It’s entirely unclear to me whether there’s anything about the show’s characters, plot, themes, or general vibe that would speak to Trump on any deeper level.
For starters, “Do You Hear the People Sing?” is a wild choice of anthem for someone like Trump who has only known wealth and power. The song calls for a revolutionary uprising against the reestablished monarchy in favor of republican ideals and uplifting the poor and downtrodden. The students who belt the number then build a barricade on the streets before the army crushes their insurrection and dreams of a brighter future for France along with it.
Given his eagerness this week to deploy Marines onto the streets of Los Angeles, and attacks on protests on college campuses, I have a hard time picturing Trump either sympathizing with the students' cause or mourning their deaths.
Further, am I supposed to believe that the “law and order president” identifies at all with former convict Jean Valjean’s story of the cruelty of the law toward the poor and needy? Or that he feels moved by Inspector Javert hurling himself into the Seine when he realizes that mercy can be more just than the law as written? I wouldn’t put it past him to describe Gavroche, the young street urchin shot down mid-song as he aids the rebels, as "no angel."
Granted, as The Washington Post noted, there are Trump supporters out there who see the MAGA movement as following in the footsteps of the Friends of the ABC in fighting tyranny. But I’m less convinced that Trump feels similarly. My money is on him being more captivated by the way the sweeping, booming, overwhelming score sounds than any moral that the show might be trying to bestow on the audience. C’est la vie.