{"id":3369,"date":"2015-11-17T17:58:30","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T00:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/?p=3369"},"modified":"2015-11-17T17:58:30","modified_gmt":"2015-11-18T00:58:30","slug":"trump-kennedy-kemp-and-les-miz-and-maybe-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/17\/trump-kennedy-kemp-and-les-miz-and-maybe-paris\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump, Kennedy, Kemp and Les Miz (and Maybe Paris)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Donald_Trump_Laconia<\/a>Donald Trump is important.  Maybe he’s channeling Huey Long, maybe Lonesome Rhodes<\/a>, maybe just “the Donald,” but despite his xenophobia and thinly veiled racist take on immigrants, he has spun a new American dream and captured those who have been without one for a long time.<\/p>\n

Despite those excluded, whom Ta-Nehesi Coates<\/a> describes so well, the belief that the dream exists is a gigantic part of the American story even though, for many, it\u2019s faded from view. Today, in the shadow of the attacks in Paris, I wonder whether his message will thrive or wither in the face of such horror and fear.<\/p>\n

\"Jack<\/a>\"Teddy<\/a>With all that in mind, what does Trump have to do with John Valjean? What did the story mean to Jack Kemp (there’s a new biography <\/a>) and Teddy Kennedy (there’s a new book about him<\/a>, too) both of whom, from opposite parties and ideologies, saw Les Miz multiple times? Can what spoke to them teach or maybe comfort us as we recoil from another bloody revolution in the streets of Paris?  Tell me that this* is not what they \u2013 and we \u2013 are feeling today.<\/p>\n