President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania took their seats in the presidential box at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday for the opening night of Les Miserables, the Andrew Lloyd Weber 1980s spectacular based on Victor Hugo's epic novel. As he and she stood and faced the stage ahead of curtain, there were cheers, applause and a standing ovation.

Those in the audience around me said, “Oh there he is!" and clapped while others remarked on Melania's beauty. Some individual booing was drowned out quickly by chants of USA. The Atlantic, NPR, Politico, CNN, The New Yorker and others all remarked upon the boos, and the significance of the fact that the president, leader of the free world, and board chair was facing vocal critique at the national theater.

They were booing Trump's alleged authoritarianism, but it must be pointed out that kings are not routinely booed without consequence, and the only consequence for these malcontents was that they had to sit through a lengthy musical performance with a man they didn't like also in the audience. That's it.

Les Mis is about a man who breaks parole after being imprisoned for 19 years over the crime of stealing bread. After some initial missteps, he makes good, moves himself up in the world and puts himself in a position where instead of being a victim of injustice he's able to help people. Lefties and Dems of cultural critique complain that Trump, in loving the story, doesn't see himself in it, and that he should.

They believe that Trump is represented in story by Javert, the officer who relentlessly pursues leading man Jean Valjean all for the petty crime of stealing a loaf of bread. Trump, deemed a tyrant by the former ruling party and their minions in the ruling class, allege that he's the big bogeyman hell-bent upon infringing on the decent thieves who are thrust into criminal life by unfair circumstances.

But instead, Trump likely relates more with Valjean, the man who worked to become wealthy, entrepreneurial in spirit, who does not just become a bastion of industry (Valjean becomes a factory owner) but also rises to the ranks of elected leaders when he becomes mayor of his town. His wealth plus governmental power gives him the opportunity to truly help people in way that he could not as a petty criminal, and in ways that Javert, a petty tyrant, could only dream of.

There were early grumblings that 11 of the 12 principal actors of the Les Mis production would refuse to perform for the president and his entourage of officials. CNN had an early report that these actors in the touring show were just too horrified by the president to rail against the on-stage barricades for the enjoyment of subscribers and DC luminaries. I'd been fascinated by this because if they truly believed that Trump is more Javert than Valjean, why would they give up the opportunity to, as Hamlet put it, use the play to "catch the conscience of the king"?

I ran into Ric Grenell sitting on a couch at the end of the red carpet on Wednesday and asked him about it. He said that he did not believe the principals had decided to drop, and that he'd heard from the producers anyone who did would be blacklisted in the industry. And it seems he was right; the players did play and continue to do so through July 13.

A little less than half the country views Trump as an enemy, the other half views him as a returning hero, and the Les Mis scenario truly sums it up, which is why it was perfect that this was the opening show under Trump's fresh leadership. The fact of the matter is that at this point, the Left cannot claim Valjean as one of their own. The Left has changed—they are not simply out there stealing bread to feed their families, no matter what AOC said during the 2020 riots about the righteousness of shoplifting.

Now, large criminal cartels organize shoplifting sprees in states where criminal penalties have been reduced. Under the Biden administration, farmers who grow the wheat to make the bread had to fight against racist, discriminatory loan practices targeting white people. The Left stages massive protests that turn into riots and are funded by international groups seeking to undermine American democracy. They claim to uphold democracy then back the inflation of congressional districts with illegal immigrants.

Instead of looking out for working people, Democrats and the Left have abandoned them—a recent viral clip of protests in NYC shows two white do-gooders stopping a black mom from getting to work all in the name of their open borders, open immigration ideology. That's what Javert would do. Valjean would lift the protesters out of the way so the mom could get to work, to feed her kids, so she doesn't have to steal the bread to stave off hunger.

Everything the Left and Democrats previously stood for has been inverted to be the opposite. They don't stand with the poor they stand with the rich. They don't stand with Americans they stand for globalists. They don't stand with those seeking justice, instead they stand with those seeking to obliterate it.

They are still convinced that Trump is the wicked king, but that's only because they refuse to look in the mirror to see the bloated, petty tyrants they themselves have become.