Trump's administration is nothing but Javerts

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The news, in brief …

• Trump announces Israel, Hamas agreement on “peace plan”

  The president said that both sides of the war in Gaza have taken a step toward peace. Read more.

• Comey pleads not guilty to charges pushed by Trump

  The former FBI director faces up to five years in prison. Read more.

• Supreme Court ruling could let GOP add 19 House seats and “clear the path for a one-party system”

  Supreme Court case could wipe out all Democratic-held seats in some deep-red Southern states. Read more.

• Zach Bryan’s ICE-critical teaser ruffles feathers in the Trump administration

  Bryan said his upcoming single has been "misconstrued." Read more.

• House Dems demand more info about Homan scandal from Trump admin

  Trump's border czar reportedly took a $50,000 cash bribe from undercover agents. Read more.

• California candidate threatens to cut off testy interview over “follow-up questions”

  “I don’t want to have an unhappy experience with you, and I don’t want this all on camera,” Katie Porter said. Read more.

• Progressives see an opening in Tennessee

  The Memphis-area state Rep. Justin Pearson tells Salon he wants Democrats to center the working class again. Read more.

Make me smarter …

Why the ACLU is backing a GOP lawmaker at the Supreme Court

For technical reasons, the group is backing a Republican in a Supreme Court case related to mail-in ballots. Read more.

The dark of ages past …

Victor Hugo’s 19th-century doorstop “Les Misérables” was reborn as a musical 40 years ago this week. And audiences are still captivated by its big ideas.

The unlikely smash uses its sprawling cast and revolving stage to discuss the torment of young love, the doomed optimism of idealists and how awesome it feels to be a completely amoral cheat. These ideas spill out and over each other over the play’s nearly three-hour runtime, with characters frequently interrupting each other in a rush to share their philosophies and gripes before they die in some quick, cruel way.

There’s plenty to chew on in the overstuffed epic, from the showstopping tearjerker of “I Dreamed A Dream” to the cheeky worksong of “Lovely Ladies.” Rafter-shaking sing-alongs like “Do You Hear the People Sing?” and “One Day More” are beloved, but it’s the songs around escaped convict-turned-pillar of the community Jean Valjean and ruthless Inspector Javert that provide the play’s most enduring arguments.

Valjean insists he’s a changed man and lives his life accordingly. Like his modern Hollywood analogue, Samuel Gerard, the conservative hardliner Javert doesn’t care. His binary, law-and-order view of the world won’t allow for redemption. Their cat-and-mouse game forces the audience to ponder whether it’s possible to ever leave the past, whether a man can truly change and, ultimately, whether the scolding patriarch of the Old Testament or the endlessly forgiving papa of the New Testament is the true face of God.

This heady debate maintains its deadly seriousness even as each man inevitably breaks into song. It’s a massive credit to the craft of creators Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil that it all works somehow. Four decades of box office receipts can’t lie.

As an unashamed Broadway fanboy with a personal penchant for big, showy numbers, President Donald Trump has almost definitely seen “Les Mis” more than once. He’s watched Jean Valjean find grace first through God and then through family. He’s watched Javert’s unshakable beliefs drive him to ruin and then suicide. And yet, it’s hard not to feel like the lessons of the play rolled right over the president’s duck’s back hairdo. Trump’s actions give off the unmistakable air of a Javert, someone who believes that there are people who will never scrub off the stain of their inherent sinfulness.

A dive into Trump’s involvement with the Central Park Five case provides plenty of evidence, but you don’t need to go so far into the past to see Trump’s unforgiving worldview. Take a look at his second term’s central platform: that the minor crime of being in the United States illegally is akin to a cardinal sin. A paperwork crime on par with snatching a loaf of bread is used to justify all manner of cruel punishments. He’s staffed his Cabinet with fellow true believers, who gleefully hound established immigrants in their homes and workplaces without pausing for reflection.

This lack of self-awareness will rob the real world of any conclusion as satisfying as the end of Javert’s arc. The color of the world might be changing day by day, but Trump’s own unsettling orange has outlasted decades of mockery. People like Tom Homan (lately accused of accepting bribes) and Trump (actually convicted of many felonies) do not care that they are themselves criminals. It will not drive them mad. On the West End, this sort of damnable determination ends in doom. In America, it makes you unstoppable.

What do you think? Will the Trump administration’s gleeful sadists ever become self-aware? Will some outside force make them consider their own criminality? Click the speech bubble icon to sound off in the comments.

Before you go …

How SCOTUS erased the abuse of LGBTQ kids

In conversion therapy case, conservative justices imply queer kids are born hating themselves. Read more.

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