Elections

The New York Times Audio app includes podcasts, narrated articles from the newsroom and other publishers, as well as exclusive new shows — including this one — which we’re making available to readers for a limited time. Download the audio app here.Although 12 candidates have entered the Republican presidential race so far, only Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is polling anywhere close to Donald Trump. What does DeSantis actually believe? How has he governed? And what case will he make to Republicans to vote for him over Trump?To answer those questions, I wanted to spend some time reading DeSantis in his own words. So I invited Carlos Lozada — the Pulitzer Prize-winning former book critic for The Washington Post, current Times Opinion columnist and the author of “What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era” — to join me. Lozada has read many, many books by and about Republican politicians, including DeSantis’s two books, “Dreams From Our Founding Fathers: First Principles in the Age of Obama” from 2011 and “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” released this year.[You can listen to this episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]We discuss DeSantis’s striking definition of — and rhetorical assault on — “elites,” why his campaign book makes no effort to showcase bipartisan credentials, DeSantis’s awkward transition from a Tea Party figure to MAGA crusader, what DeSantis has actually done as governor of Florida, why Florida’s Covid record is such a cornerstone of his political appeal, what DeSantis means by “wokeness” and why he’s waging a “war” on it, the surprising absence of major economic ideas from his book, how he is trying to differentiate himself from Trump without alienating Trump voters, whether his aggressive actions toward Disney will backfire and more.You can listen to our whole conversation by following “The Ezra Klein Show” on Apple, Spotify, Google or wherever you get your podcasts. View a list of book recommendations from our guests here.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesThis episode was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Efim Shapiro. The show’s production team is Emefa Agawu, Jeff Geld, Rogé Karma and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero, Edwin Benton, Peter Bergerson, David Wallace-Wells and Kristina Samulewski. More

We’re covering a new poll about the Democratic Party, Donald Trump’s court appearance and the N.B.A. finals.About 60 percent of U.S. voters do not have a four-year college degree, and they live disproportionately in swing states. As a result, these voters — often described as the American working class — are crucial to winning elections. Yet many of them are deeply skeptical of today’s Democratic Party.Republicans retook control of the House last year by winning most districts with below-median incomes. In nearly 20 Western and Southern states, Democrats are virtually shut out of statewide offices largely because of their weakness among the white working class. Since 2018, the party has also lost ground with Black, Asian and especially Latino voters.Unless the party improves its standing with blue-collar voters, “there’s no way for progressive Democrats to advance their agenda in the Senate,” according to a study that the Center for Working-Class Politics, a left-leaning research group, released this morning.The class inversion of American politics — with most professionals supporting Democrats and more working-class people backing Republicans — is one of the most consequential developments in American life (and, as regular readers know, a continuing theme of this newsletter).Today, I’ll be writing about what Democrats might do about the problem, focusing on a new YouGov poll, conducted as part of the Center for Working-Class Politics study. In an upcoming newsletter, I’ll examine the issue from a conservative perspective and specifically how Republicans might alter their economic agenda to better serve their new working-class base.A key point is that even modest shifts in the working-class vote can decide elections. If President Biden wins 50 percent of the non-college vote next year, he will almost certainly be re-elected. If he wins only 45 percent, he will probably lose.‘Fight for us all’Elections can be tricky for social scientists to study. The sample sizes are small and idiosyncratic. Researchers can’t conduct hundreds of elections in a laboratory, changing one variable at a time and analyzing how the results change. But researchers can conduct polls that pit hypothetical candidates against each other and see how the results change when the candidates’ biographies, messages and policy proposals change.This approach, which has become more common among pollsters, is the one that YouGov used. It focused on swing voters — those who don’t identify strongly with either party, many of whom are working class. The poll described a pair of Democratic candidates, each with a biography and a campaign platform, and asked respondents which one they preferred.Among the findings:Voters preferred a candidate who was a teacher, construction worker, warehouse worker, doctor or nurse. The least popular candidate professions were lawyer and corporate executive.Many effective messages involved jobs, including both moderate policies (like tax credits for training at small businesses) and progressive ones (like a federal jobs guarantee). “People are obviously interested in good-paying jobs,” said Bhaskar Sunkara, the founder of Jacobin, a leftist magazine that helped sponsor the project. “They have an identity that’s rooted in their work.”Black and Latino candidates were slightly more popular than other candidates, mostly because some voters of color preferred candidates of color. (Related: Black candidates — of different ideologies — have beaten non-Black candidates in recent mayoral primaries and elections in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia, Matthew Yglesias of Substack pointed out to me.) But candidate messages that explicitly mentioned race were unpopular.Voters liked Democrats who criticized both political parties as “out of touch.” There is real-world evidence to support this finding, too: Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona and Representative Marcy Kaptur of Ohio won close races last year while highlighting their differences with Democratic leaders, as Data for Progress, another research group, has noted.Moderate social policies fared better than more liberal ones. The single most effective message in the poll was a vow to “protect the border”; decriminalization of the border was very unpopular.Swing voters liked tough, populist messages such as “Americans who work for a living are being betrayed by superrich elites” and “Americans need to come together and elect leaders who will fight for us all.” As Jared Abbott, the director of the Center for Working-Class Politics, argued, “Democrats need to be less concerned with rhetorical niceties.” Doing so would hardly be new: Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt used such red-blooded language.The bottom lineI find the study’s conclusions fascinating because they are both original and consistent with other evidence. Democrats who have won difficult recent elections, including both progressives and moderates, have often presented a blue-collar image.President Biden talks about growing up in a working-class neighborhood. Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez, who owns a car-repair shop, flipped a House district in Washington State partly by criticizing her own party for being elitist. Senator Sherrod Brown, the only Democrat to win statewide in Ohio since 2011, is a populist. So is John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, the only Senate candidate from either party to flip a seat last year.Many Americans are frustrated with the country’s direction, and they want candidates who will promise to fight for their interests. One of the vulnerabilities of today’s Democratic Party, as my colleague Nate Cohn has written, is that it has come to be associated with the establishment.More on politicsDuring a CNN town hall last night, Chris Christie called Donald Trump angry and vengeful.Hard-right House Republicans will give Kevin McCarthy a reprieve from a weeklong blockade of the House floor to allow legislative business to move forward.The Senate said it would investigate the merger between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf. (This story goes behind the scenes of the deal.)THE LATEST NEWSTrump IndictmentDonald Trump arriving in Miami yesterday.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesTrump will appear in court in Miami today.He is expected to plead not guilty on charges that he illegally kept documents and obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve them.Trump has tested several defenses, including painting himself as a victim. But the evidence already presented could make them hard to sustain in court.Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, will preside over the trial.There have been about a dozen cases involving classified information in recent years. Many of them ended in prison sentences.Business and MediaJPMorgan Chase will pay $290 million to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. The bank kept him as a customer despite media reports about him abusing teenage girls.Fox News told Tucker Carlson to stop posting videos on Twitter. Although Fox canceled his show, Carlson is under contract with the network until 2025.The F.T.C. sued to stop Microsoft from buying Activision Blizzard, a major video game company.Fred Ryan, the publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post, is stepping down.Other Big StoriesRussia struck a residential building in central Ukraine this morning, killing at least six people. Rescuers were searching for survivors.A climate trial has begun in Montana. Sixteen young people are accusing the state of robbing their future by embracing fossil fuels.Keechant Sewell, the N.Y.P.D.’s first female commissioner, will resign after less than 18 months. She didn’t give a reason.New York City set a minimum wage for food delivery workers: $17.96 per hour before tips.OpinionsSilvio Berlusconi provided a template for Trump’s political career, Mattia Ferraresi writes.To achieve universal health coverage, the United States should take inspiration from other countries, Aaron E. Carroll writes.Ezra Klein and Carlos Lozada discuss how Ron DeSantis’s books make the case for his candidacy over Trump’s.Here are columns by Lydia Polgreen on the decline of free news and Jamelle Bouie on Republican loyalty to Trump.MORNING READSIllustration by Eric YahnkerMr. Beast: His headline-grabbing giveaways made him the Willy Wonka of YouTube. Why do people think he’s evil?Health: Sleep is more challenging for women than for men.Lives Lived: Treat Williams, famous for his roles in the movies “Hair” and “Deep Rising” and the TV show “Everwood,” died at 71.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICNikola Jokic last night.Daniel Brenner for The New York TimesN.B.A. finals: The Denver Nuggets beat the Miami Heat to win their first championship. Nikola Jokic cemented his spot in the pantheon of N.B.A. greats with a stunning performance.A departure: The Oklahoma softball ace Jordy Bahl said she would leave the program.A mission: Christian McCaffrey’s voice was the last thing Logan Hale heard. Now McCaffrey, a 49ers running back, is helping fulfill his young fan’s final wish.ARTS AND IDEAS A gallery in Copenhagen.Charlotte de la Fuente for The New York TimesAn ancient reunion: It’s not a coincidence that so many of the statues in museums are missing their heads: Throughout history, invaders would target statues when they attacked a city, decapitating the likenesses of local leaders to make a statement. And the statues that survived were often chopped up by smugglers, who wanted two artifacts to sell instead of one. Now, as Graham Bowley writes in The Times, those ancient acts of vandalism have made it hard for museums to match heads with their long-lost torsos.More on culturePat Sajak is retiring from “Wheel of Fortune” after 41 seasons as its host.The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which was at the center of recent scandals, is shutting down. The Golden Globes will continue.Elizabeth Gilbert, author of “Eat, Pray, Love,” delayed her new novel indefinitely after being criticized for setting the story in Russia.THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …Armando Rafael for The New York TimesMake a one-pot vegetable pulao, which combines rice, vegetables and spices.Try the best summer eats in New York.Visit vineyards in California that are far from the Napa crowds.Read an old magazine. You’ll understand the past in a new way.GAMESHere are today’s Spelling Bee and the Bee Buddy, which helps you find remaining words. Yesterday’s pangram was expletive.And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidSign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at [email protected]. More

A former federal prosecutor, Chris Christie said he expected the government had much more evidence in its case against the former president.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey laced into Donald J. Trump on prime-time television on Monday night, casting the former president as an “angry” and “vengeful” man who bears responsibility for thrusting the nation into another extraordinarily divisive moment, after Mr. Trump became the first former president in American history to face federal charges.During a roughly 90-minute CNN town hall in New York, a high-energy and often-polished Mr. Christie leaned on his background as a former federal prosecutor, saying he believed the indictment was “a very tight, very detailed, evidence-laden indictment, and the conduct in there is awful.” Mr. Christie, who is running for president against Mr. Trump in a Republican primary field the former president dominates, said he believed prosecutors had more evidence than had been put forward so far.Mr. Trump faces 37 criminal counts related to issues including withholding national defense information and concealing possession of classified documents.“This is vanity run amok,” Mr. Christie told the moderator, Anderson Cooper. “He is now going to put this country through this, when we didn’t have to go through it.”“He’s saying, ‘I’m more important than the country,’” Mr. Christie said at another point, as he questioned why Mr. Trump had, according to prosecutors, refused to turn over critical government documents. He suggested the former president missed the “trappings of the presidency.”“We’re in a situation where there are people in my own party who are blaming D.O.J.,” he said, referring to the Justice Department. “How about, blame him? He did it. He kept — he took documents he wasn’t supposed to take.”When he was not tearing into the current Republican front-runner, Mr. Christie could sound like a pre-Trump-era politician. He emphasized the importance of finding common ground and played up his credentials as a blue-state executive, even when some in the audience were plainly skeptical of the idea of compromise.“With all due respect to these governors from red states who have Republican legislatures — man, I’m telling you, I would have given my own right arm to have a Republican legislature for a week,” Mr. Christie said at one point, seeming to draw an implicit contrast with Gov. Ron DeSantis, the powerful and pugnacious Florida Republican and another 2024 candidate who enjoys a supportive legislature in Tallahassee. “But what I learned was that, sometimes, getting 60 percent of what you want isn’t bad.”In Washington, he continued, “you’re going to want somebody tough, who’s a fighter, but who fights to get to an end, to accomplish something for you. We can all fight to get headlines.”He also noted that even with a Republican-controlled Congress for part of his tenure, Mr. Trump failed to deliver on a central campaign promise of securing the southern border.“Not one piece of legislation to change our immigration laws,” he said, bashing Mr. Trump as a “bad executive.” “It is an abject failure, and now he blames Joe Biden for it. But what the heck did you do to make it better?”For the most part, Mr. Christie, who announced his campaign last week, has tried to reintroduce himself to the nation as the Republican candidate most willing to forcefully confront Mr. Trump.But Mr. Christie, who ran a short-lived campaign for president in 2016, has gained little traction in available polling this year and has a more unfavorable rating among Republican voters than any other candidate, according to a recent Monmouth University poll. And he occupies a relatively lonely lane. Most of the other 2024 hopefuls have shied away from much direct criticism of Mr. Trump.“It was like he was Voldemort from ‘Harry Potter’ — nobody wanted to mention his name,” he said of a recent Republican campaign event, adopting a mocking voice. “Like, say his name, man, say his name.”Mr. Christie was once a key adviser to Mr. Trump, and was a relatively early endorser of his 2016 campaign after his own bid collapsed. But he has since condemned Mr. Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and for his incitement of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.In the town hall, Mr. Christie compared Mr. Trump’s lies about a stolen election to how a child might try to explain away a bad grade, by offering a litany of dubious or false excuses.“It’s a child’s reaction. And I just — I beg you to think about this,” he told the Republican-leaning audience. “Don’t allow the showmanship to obscure the facts. The facts are, he lost to Joe Biden. And he lost to Joe Biden, in my opinion, because he lost independent voters.”Mr. Trump lashed out last week in response to Mr. Christie’s earlier criticism, mocking Mr. Christie’s weight and writing on his Truth Social platform, “Hard to watch, boring, but that’s what you get from a failed Governor (New Jersey) who left office with a 7% approval rating and then got run out of New Hampshire.”Mr. Christie made few waves when questioned on issues unrelated to Mr. Trump, but offered a striking admission when a man whose son was killed in the 2017 Las Vegas massacre asked how he would reduce the enormous number of mass shootings in the United States.His response was effectively: I don’t know.“I’m mad because I don’t have a great answer,” he said, after saying that law enforcement needed to be more attentive to warning signs from potential attackers, but that he did not believe restrictions on guns would make a difference — in part because Americans already own hundreds of millions of them. He also said that reducing gun violence was in “tension” with the Second Amendment.When reminded that early in his political career he supported an assault weapons ban, he called that “naïveté” and said he no longer believed it was appropriate.On abortion rights, Mr. Christie declined to take a firm position on gestational limits — or whether he would sign a national ban, should he become president and one were to reach his desk — arguing that the matter was better left up to the states for now.And on Social Security, he reiterated his support for means-testing the program, as he proposed during his 2016 campaign.Time and again, Mr. Christie reinforced a central argument of his campaign: that he would be more responsible than Mr. Trump, but also more productive.“Look, I think the single biggest thing I can contribute to unifying this country is to get rid of Joe Biden and get rid of Donald Trump,” he said. “They are past their sell-by dates, OK? It’s done. It’s time.” More

Los sentimientos encontrados entre algunos residentes sobre el expresidente y el caso en su contra reflejan la complicada política del estado.Como votante registrada en el condado de Palm Beach, Florida, Bette Anne Starkey sabe que existe la posibilidad de que la elijan para formar parte de un jurado en el caso penal federal contra el expresidente Donald Trump. Pero a pesar de que ha votado dos veces por Trump, en realidad no sabe cómo actuaría si fuese miembro del jurado que podría analizar el caso.Haciéndose eco del propio Trump, Starkey, una contadora de 81 años, usó la frase “cacería de brujas” en una entrevista para describir la acusación federal contra el expresidente, la cual lo acusa de sustraer de forma deliberada documentos clasificados de la Casa Blanca. Pero también le cuesta entender por qué Trump no devolvió los documentos cuando se los pidieron, y eso es parte de su indignación latente con el presidente número 45.“Estoy harta de escuchar sobre todas sus artimañas”, dijo.Sus comentarios reflejan los sentimientos complejos que Trump puede suscitar en estos días incluso entre los republicanos que votaron por él. Pero Starkey también es un reflejo de la política complicada y volátil del sur de Florida, el terreno de Trump, y el grupo de jurados que ofrece.El diverso y densamente poblado sur de Florida será el lugar donde se convocará a un jurado para juzgar la inocencia o culpabilidad de Trump si el caso llega a juicio, aunque no se ha determinado ni el lugar exacto del juicio ni el grupo de jurados.Partidarios del expresidente se reunieron el domingo cerca de Mar-a-Lago en Palm Beach, Florida.Saul Martinez para The New York TimesEl caso se presentó en la división judicial de West Palm Beach del Distrito Sur de Florida, lo que significa que el jurado podría ser seleccionado entre los votantes registrados en el condado de Palm Beach, hogar del resort Mar-a-Lago de Trump, donde ha vivido desde que dejó la Casa Blanca. En 2020, Trump perdió en el condado de Palm Beach ante el presidente Biden por casi 13 puntos porcentuales.Pero un grupo de jurados compuesto por votantes del condado de Miami-Dade, al sur de Palm Beach, también es una posibilidad, en particular si se determina que el juzgado federal en Miami, donde se espera que Trump haga una comparecencia inicial el martes, está mejor equipado para organizar el que probablemente será uno de los juicios penales más importantes en la historia de Estados Unidos.Trump perdió en Miami-Dade por solo siete puntos en las últimas elecciones y obtuvo un fuerte apoyo de los votantes hispanos en particular; más de dos tercios de los residentes del condado se identifican como hispanos, según datos del censo.Sin embargo, ambos condados se han vuelto más republicanos en los últimos años, y los candidatos de ese partido han tenido un éxito notable en las contiendas estatales. Trump ganó en Florida tanto en 2016 como en 2020, y el estado eligió dos veces al gobernador Ron DeSantis, quien es el principal rival de Trump para la candidatura presidencial republicana.Todo esto debería ofrecer cierto consuelo a los miembros del equipo de defensa de Trump, quienes saben que solo se necesita un voto para que el resultado sea un jurado dividido. Además, muchos habitantes del sur de Florida, al igual que estadounidenses en otras partes del país, creen que Trump es víctima de un trato injusto por parte de fuerzas poderosas en la izquierda política.George Cadman, un agente de bienes raíces de 54 años y padre de dos hijos, dijo que no ha seguido de cerca las noticias en los últimos meses. Afirmó que no había oído nada sobre los cargos federales contra Trump, lo que lo convierte, en cierto sentido, en un buen candidato para servir como jurado.El caso se presentó en la división de West Palm Beach del Distrito Sur de Florida, lo que significa que el jurado podría ser seleccionado entre los votantes registrados en el condado de Palm Beach, donde está el resort Mar-a-Lago de Trump. Saul Martinez para The New York TimesPero Cadman, que vive en el condado de Miami-Dade, en el sur, también dijo que apoya a Trump “100 por ciento” y que cree que las investigaciones previas sobre el expresidente tuvieron motivaciones políticas. Tras agregar que cree que la interferencia electoral de Rusia en 2016 y el escándalo sobre Trump y Ucrania fueron engaños, dijo que “sería muy cauteloso al tomar una decisión sobre lo que pienso al respecto”, refiriéndose al nuevo caso contra Trump.(En una llamada telefónica posterior, Cadman dijo que por mucho que le gustaba Trump, planeaba votar por el presidente Biden en 2024, porque el aumento del valor de las propiedades había beneficiado su trabajo como agente de bienes raíces).Muchos de los cubanoestadounidenses del sur de Florida aprendieron por las malas, durante y después de la Revolución Cubana, sobre el impacto de la política incluso en las vidas apolíticas. Y para algunos de los conservadores entre ellos, como Modesto Estrada, un empresario jubilado que llegó a Miami hace 18 años, vale la pena apoyar a Trump como un poderoso freno para los demócratas y las políticas liberales que, según Estrada, están “arruinando el país” pues disuaden a la gente de trabajar.Estrada, de 71 años, señaló que también se había descubierto que Biden y el ex vicepresidente Mike Pence tenían documentos gubernamentales confidenciales en su poder. (Sin embargo, Biden hasta ahora, a todas luces, ya devolvió los documentos a las autoridades tras descubrirlos, al igual que Pence). Al igual que muchas personas entrevistadas, Estrada confesó que le resultaría difícil ser un jurado imparcial en el caso.“Desde mi perspectiva personal, hasta el momento, no tienen nada contra él”, dijo sobre Trump. “Y no le va a pasar nada. No va a ir a la cárcel. El caso se va a desmoronar y eso es lo que espero que suceda”.Así como Estrada afirmó que su experiencia con una dictadura de izquierda había influido en su esperanza de que Trump sea declarado inocente, Viviana Domínguez, de 63 años, se refirió a su propia experiencia en su Argentina natal, la cual estuvo gobernada por una dictadura militar de derecha de 1976 a 1983, cuando expresó su aversión a Trump.Modesto Estrada apoya a Trump. “El caso se va a desmoronar y eso es lo que espero que suceda”, afirmó, sobre los cargos.Saul Martinez para The New York TimesDomínguez, una restauradora de arte que ha vivido en Miami durante 13 años, calificó a Trump como una “vergüenza” y agregó: “Creo que irá a la cárcel, pero no sé si eso sea una ilusión”.Domínguez describió el caso de los documentos y la todavía considerable base de apoyo de Trump, en términos de una inquietante flexibilización de los estándares cívicos. “Vimos todo eso en mi propio país, cuando las mentiras se hicieron cada vez más grandes”, afirmó. “El margen de tolerancia se hizo cada vez más amplio, de modo que nunca veías el límite. Hablaban de moralidad y de la familia, pero eran las personas más corruptas y obscenas del mundo. Es como un estado de locura”.Roderick Clelland, un veterano de la guerra de Vietnam de 78 años, de West Palm Beach, la ciudad más poblada del condado de Palm Beach, dijo que le preocupaban las implicaciones internacionales de lo que sentía que había sido una actitud laxa de Trump hacia los secretos nacionales.“El mundo entero nos está mirando”, afirmó Clelland. “Y algunos de esos documentos sobre otros países… ¿van a confiar en nosotros? La gente ha sido encarcelada por menos que eso. Así que no puedes simplemente violar la ley y salirte con la tuya. Por eso espero que haya un castigo”.Clelland tuvo cuidado de señalar que no odiaba a Trump. “Pero no me gusta su comportamiento y su actitud”, dijo.A pesar de haber votado dos veces por Trump, Starkey, quien es secretaria del Club Republicano de Palm Beaches, dijo que nunca ha sido una gran admiradora. Pero tanto en 2016 como en 2020, no pudo decidirse a apoyar al candidato más liberal. Por estos días está pensando en votar por Nikki Haley, exembajadora de las Naciones Unidas y exgobernadora republicana de Carolina del Sur. Aclaró que solo hablaba a título personal y no en nombre de su club.Sin embargo, Starkey dijo que la acusación formal contra Trump parecía una estrategia partidista en un momento en que la política estadounidense carece de gran parte de la cortesía entre los dos partidos que recuerda con cariño del pasado. Afirmó que esa era una de las razones por las que tendría dificultades si la eligieran para ser un eventual jurado en el caso. “¿Estás segura de que tienes todos los hechos a favor y en contra?”, se preguntó.Starkey dijo que estaba harta del drama que rodeaba la acusación y que sabía que muchas otras personas pensaban igual que ella.“Solo quiero que todo esto desaparezca”, dijo.Richard Fausset es un corresponsal radicado en Atlanta. Escribe sobre política, cultura, raza, pobreza y el sistema penal del sur de Estados Unidos. Antes trabajó para Los Angeles Times, donde fue corresponsal en Ciudad de México. @RichardFausset More

The former president keeps consolidating Republican support, but the legal peril is the greatest he has ever faced and adds to his challenges with independent voters.Donald J. Trump will make his first appearance in federal criminal court on Tuesday. But the former president has been pleading his case for days in a far friendlier venue — the court of Republican public opinion, where he continues to dominate the 2024 field.For Mr. Trump and his team, there has been a sense of familiarity, even normalcy, in the chaos of facing a 37-count indictment in the classified documents case. After two House impeachments, multiple criminal investigations, the jailing of his business’s former accountant, his former fixer and his former campaign manager, and now two criminal indictments, Mr. Trump knows the drill, and so do his supporters.The playbook is well-worn: Play the victim. Blame the “Deep State.” Claim selective prosecution. Punish Republicans who stray for disloyalty. Dominate the news. Ply small donors for cash.His allies see the indictment as a chance to end the primary race before it has even begun in the minds of Republican voters by framing 2024 as an active battle with President Biden. Until now, the main pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., has focused heavily on Mr. Trump’s chief Republican rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, in its $20 million of ad spending. But that messaging has shifted after the indictment, with a new commercial already being shown that pits Mr. Trump directly against Mr. Biden.The intended effect, said a person familiar with the strategy, is to present Mr. Trump as the party’s leader and the presumptive nominee who has already entered a head-to-head battle with Mr. Biden and his Justice Department, making Mr. Trump’s Republican opponents look small by comparison.Mr. Trump, who flew to Florida on Monday ahead of his Tuesday appearance, is determined to serve as narrator of his own high-stakes legal drama. He posted on Truth Social to reveal he had been indicted minutes after his lawyer had called to alert him last week.“The only good thing about it is it’s driven my poll numbers way up,” Mr. Trump told the Georgia Republican Party in a combative speech on Saturday.So far, the indictment fallout appears to be moving along two parallel tracks in different directions, one political, the other legal.Politically, Mr. Trump has continued to consolidate Republican support. In a CBS News poll on Sunday, only 7 percent of likely Republican primary voters initially said the indictment would change their view of Mr. Trump for the worse — and twice as many said it would change their view “for the better.” A full 80 percent of likely Republican voters said Mr. Trump should be able to serve even if convicted.Mr. Trump will make his first appearance in the federal criminal court in Miami on Tuesday.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesLegally, the specificity and initial evidence presented in the charging document that was unsealed on Friday showed the gravity of the case.That evidence includes a recording of Mr. Trump claiming to have a classified document in front of him and acknowledging he no longer had the power to declassify it, photographs of documents strewn across a storage room floor — which Mr. Trump was particularly rankled by — surveillance footage, reams of subpoenaed texts from his own aides and notes from his own lawyer. “If even half of it is true, then he’s toast,” Bill Barr, who served as attorney general under Mr. Trump, said on Fox News. “It’s very, very damning.”As he headed to Miami, Mr. Trump was working to reassemble a legal team shaken by two major resignations on Friday as the special counsel who brought the charges, Jack Smith, said he would push for a “speedy trial.”For Mr. Trump, who has long blurred public-relations woes and legal peril, his 2024 campaign began in part as a shield against prosecution, and victory at the ballot box would amount to the ultimate acquittal. Still, few political strategists in either party see running while under indictment as a way to appeal to the independent voters who are crucial to actually winning the White House.But Mr. Trump has rarely looked past the task immediately in front of him, and for now that is the primary. The CBS poll showed him dominating his closest rival, Mr. DeSantis, 61 percent to 23 percent.“The only good thing about it is it’s driven my poll numbers way up,” Mr. Trump told the Georgia Republican Party on Saturday.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesOn Sunday night, the chief executive of the MAGA Inc. super PAC, Taylor Budowich, sent a memo of talking points to surrogates that tellingly does not mention Mr. DeSantis at all, only Mr. Biden.Another person familiar with the super PAC’s strategy said that the fundamentals of the political race had not changed even as the indictment has brought Mr. Trump the gravest legal threat he’s ever faced. And the PAC would eventually continue attacking Mr. DeSantis, while also elevating other Republican candidates to shear off some of Mr. DeSantis’s support.The uncomfortable initial posture of Mr. Trump’s rivals was captured in a video released by Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC attacking the “Biden DOJ” for “indicting the former president.” Mr. Trump’s team was delighted to see it, even if the ad cast Mr. DeSantis as the man to clean house inside the federal government. Forcing rivals to rally around Mr. Trump, as they see it, is a reaffirmation of the former president’s place at the head of the G.O.P.Yet on Monday, there was a slight shift in tone from solely denouncing the Justice Department. “Two things can be true,” Nikki Haley, the former United Nations ambassador, said on Fox News, adding if the indictment was accurate “President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security.” Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina called it a “serious case with serious allegations” during a campaign stop in his home state, according to The Post and Courier.The arc of how Mr. Trump has bent the Republican Party and its voters to his interests is not new. He famously joked that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose support in his 2016 campaign.He survived a succession of scandals as president — including the long-running investigation by a previous special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, that sent some Trump advisers to prison — that few others could. One reason, his advisers and allies say, is that Republican voters have become inured to the various accusations he has faced, flattening them all into a single example of prosecutorial and Democratic overreach, regardless of the specifics.Jack Smith, the special counsel who charged the former president, said he would push for a “speedy trial.”Kenny Holston/The New York Times“Most people on my side of the aisle believe when it comes to Donald Trump, there are no rules,” Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of Mr. Trump’s most ardent Republican defenders, said on ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday. “And you can do the exact same thing or something similar as a Democrat and nothing happens.”The New York Post captured the sentiment succinctly with a tabloid banner on Monday that read, “What About the Bidens?”One Trump adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy, noted that most politicians would assume a defensive crouch when facing a federal indictment. But not Mr. Trump, who delivered two speeches on Saturday, has posted dozens of times on his social media site and is determined to use the national spotlight to drive a proactive message of his own. “It is Trump 24/7, wall-to-wall — why not use that to your advantage?” the adviser said, referring to the blanket media coverage Mr. Trump has been receiving after his indictment.On Monday evening, Mr. Trump did three straight radio interviews, including one with Americano Media, where the host, Carines Moncada, told Mr. Trump that the charges against him had echoes of “persecution” of conservative leaders in Latin America. “I think maybe one of the reasons they like me, so many people have been so hurt in Colombia, in other countries in Latin America, South America,” Mr. Trump replied.The charges, however, could pose a long-term political challenge. An ABC/Ipsos poll from the weekend found that more independents thought Mr. Trump should be charged than thought he should not. And 61 percent of Americans found the charges either very or somewhat serious.In the CBS poll, 69 percent of independent voters said they would consider Mr. Trump’s possession of documents about nuclear systems or military plans a national security risk (46 percent of Republicans said the same, suggesting a potential fracture in the party over that point).On Tuesday, Mr. Trump will fly to New Jersey after his hearing, commandeering the cameras again to deliver prime-time remarks that his team hopes will be televised.Mr. Trump’s advisers took note that some cable and broadcast networks gave live coverage on Monday to the departure of his motorcade as it headed for the airport. On Twitter, the Trump adviser Jason Miller noted that even Fox News, which has generally shied away from extensive live Trump coverage, broadcast footage the motorcade. Mr. Miller had mocked Fox News over the weekend for not carrying Mr. Trump’s appearances live.The Trump operation said it had raised $4 million in the first 24 hours after his previous indictment by the Manhattan district attorney in March. But the campaign has yet to disclose the sum this time.Trump supporters outside Mar-a-Lago on Sunday. Saul Martinez for The New York TimesIn a major fund-raiser that was in the works before the indictment, Mr. Trump is gathering top donors on Tuesday evening at Bedminster, his private club. Those who raise at least $100,000 are invited to attend a “candlelight dinner” after his address to the media.The indictment news has blotted out other developments on the campaign trail. The announcement over the weekend by Mr. DeSantis of his first endorsement from a fellow governor, Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, was barely a blip. And when Mr. Trump turns himself in at a Miami courthouse on Tuesday, it will keep the attention on the former president.Roughly 15 different groups are trying to galvanize Trump supporters to come to the Miami courthouse for his hearing, according to one person briefed on the plans. The juxtaposition in Mr. Trump’s own language about the stakes, legally and politically, can be jarring.“This is the final battle,” Mr. Trump said on Saturday.But aware of the violence that broke out on Jan. 6, 2021, when Mr. Trump urged supporters to march on the Capitol, he was more cautious on Sunday when speaking to Roger J. Stone Jr., his longest-serving adviser, in an interview for Mr. Stone’s radio show.Mr. Trump said they should join that final battle while protesting “peacefully.” More

As Donald Trump made history by becoming the first former president to face federal charges, many Republicans tried to change the subject by renewing an eight-year-old controversy.It is the topic the nation just can’t delete from its political conversation: Hillary Clinton’s emails.In the days since Donald J. Trump became the first former U.S. president to face federal charges, Republicans across the ideological spectrum — including not only Mr. Trump and his allies, but also his critics and those who see prosecutors’ evidence as damaging — have insistently brought up the eight-year-old controversy.They have peppered speeches, social media posts and television appearances with fiery condemnations of the fact that Mrs. Clinton, a figure who continues to evoke visceral reactions among the Republican base, was never charged.The two episodes are vastly different legal matters, and Mrs. Clinton was never found to have systematically or deliberately mishandled classified information. Still, Republicans have returned to the well with striking speed, mindful that little more than the word “emails” can muddy the waters, broadcast their loyalties and rile up their base.“Lock her up,” chanted a woman at last weekend’s Georgia Republican Party state convention, where Mr. Trump sought to revive the issue of Mrs. Clinton’s email use. “Hillary wasn’t indicted,” he said in a speech at the event. “She should have been. But she wasn’t indicted.”Campaigning in North Carolina, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida bashed Mrs. Clinton’s email practices while being far more circumspect in alluding to Mr. Trump, his top rival for the Republican nomination.Even former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who has made criticizing Mr. Trump a central theme of his presidential campaign, said on CNN recently that the Justice Department “is at fault for not charging Hillary Clinton,” while casting the facts laid out against Mr. Trump as “damning.”“The perception is that she was treated differently,” Asa Hutchinson, a former Arkansas governor, a 2024 presidential candidate and Trump critic, said in an interview on Monday. “Perception can become a reality very quickly.”Mr. Hutchinson, once a chief Clinton antagonist from former President Bill Clinton’s home state — he helped guide impeachment proceedings against Mr. Clinton — said he saw distinctions between Mrs. Clinton’s email episode and the charges Trump faced. But, he added, “If the voters say it’s relevant, it becomes relevant politically.”Taken together, the moment offers a vivid reminder of the ways the ghosts of the 2016 campaign continue to shape and scar American politics.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, campaigning in North Carolina, criticized Mrs. Clinton’s email practices.Kate Medley for The New York Times“There are few politicians on the Democratic side of the aisle that raise the ire of Republicans more than Hillary Clinton,” said Neil Newhouse, a veteran Republican pollster.Mrs. Clinton and her supporters, of course, have not forgotten the email saga. After Mr. Trump’s indictment, the episode to many of them serves as a symbol of a political system and a mainstream news media often focused on the superficial at the expense of the substantive.Clinton backers now make light of what they view as comparatively flimsy and unproven accusations she faced about her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. And some relish the fact that the man who crowed about “Crooked Hillary” finds himself facing a range of serious charges and the prospect of prison if he is convicted.Speaking on Monday with the hosts of the “Pod Save America” podcast at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, Mrs. Clinton laughed when a host noted the tendency of some Republicans to make parallels to her emails.“When in doubt, right?” she said. “I do think it’s odd, let’s just say, to the point of being absurd, how that is their only response. You know, they refuse to read the indictment, they refuse to engage with the facts.”On Friday, Mrs. Clinton posted an edited photo of herself on Instagram wearing a black baseball hat that reads, in pink letters, “BUT HER EMAILS.” That three-word phrase has become something of a shorthand among Democrats for frustration at the grief she received for how she handled classified correspondence compared with the blowback Mr. Trump confronted for all the legal and ethical norms he busted while in office.She included a link to buy the hat for $32 on the website of her political group. (Asked about that decision, Nick Merrill, who served as a longtime spokesman for Mrs. Clinton and remains an adviser, replied, “We’re seven years past what was widely viewed as, at worst, a stupid mistake. And reminding people that a piece of merchandise exists in order to raise money to preserve our democracy is something I’m very comfortable with.”)Substantively, there are many clear differences between the episodes.A yearslong inquiry by the State Department into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server found that while it increased the risk of compromising classified information, “there was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.”The indictment against Mr. Trump, by contrast, accuses him of not only mishandling sensitive national security documents found at his Mar-a-Lago club, but also willfully obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them. He has been charged with 37 criminal counts related to issues including withholding national defense information and concealing possession of classified documents.Robert K. Kelner, a Republican lawyer and Trump critic who is a partner in the white-collar defense and investigations practice group at Covington & Burling, said Mr. Trump most likely would not have been indicted had he cooperated with the government’s requests to return classified documents he took from the White House.“There were lots of things to criticize about the way the Hillary Clinton investigation was handled — none of which, however, in any way to my mind, suggests that the case against Donald Trump is unfounded,” Mr. Kelner said.Jack Smith, the special counsel who indicted Mr. Trump, seemed to anticipate efforts to bring up Mrs. Clinton’s emails. The indictment cited five statements Mr. Trump made during his 2016 campaign about the importance of protecting classified information.“Hillary wasn’t indicted,” Donald J. Trump said in a speech in Georgia. “She should have been. But she wasn’t indicted.”Jon Cherry for The New York TimesFor veterans of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, the Republican attempt to resurface their old boss’s email server to defend Mr. Trump’s storage of boxes of classified documents in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom and other places would be comical had their 2016 defeat not been so painful.“The best evidence that Trump’s actions are completely indefensible is the Republican Party’s non-attempt to defend it and instead rehash seven-year-old debunked attacks on somebody who is no longer even in politics,” said Josh Schwerin, a former Clinton campaign spokesman who for years after the 2016 election had a recording of Mr. Trump saying his name as his voice mail greeting.Mr. Merrill said that if there was a single word for “particularly acute hypocrisy,” it would apply to Republicans now.For Republicans, “whether you believe she was cavalier, or you believe that she should be tried for treason for the risky position she put Americans in by sending correspondence about yoga or whatever,” he said, “Donald Trump has done the most severe possible thing. It’s not a close call with him.”Trump acolytes are now delighting at the prospect of reviving one of their favorite boogeywomen.“Republicans believe there’s been an unequal application of justice,” said former Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican who as chairman of the House Oversight Committee investigated myriad Clinton episodes leading up to the 2016 election. He added, “What is it that Donald Trump did that was worse than Hillary Clinton? Nothing, nothing, nothing.”Timothy Parlatore, a criminal defense lawyer who quit the Trump legal team last month, said he did not believe that Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Trump or President Biden — who has cooperated with a special counsel’s investigation into his own handling of classified documents after his tenure as vice president — should have been charged for their handling of classified information.Mr. Trump’s Justice Department had four years to prosecute Mrs. Clinton and did not. Mr. Parlatore said that Mr. Trump no longer saw her as a threat — and instead called for an investigation into Mr. Biden and his son.“Here is a big difference,” Mr. Parlatore said. “The Trump administration wasn’t looking at Hillary as being a presidential candidate. The Biden administration is looking at Trump in a different way.”In Boston, Rebecca Kaiser, a political consultant, has worn her “BUT HER EMAILS” hat regularly since she received it as a gift.Sophie Park for The New York TimesFor now, the most devoted Clinton supporters are following her lead and wearing “BUT HER EMAILS” hats as a badge of honor. They appeared in recent days at dog parks, soccer tournaments and Pride events as a sort of celebration of Mr. Trump’s comeuppance.In Boston, Rebecca Kaiser, a political consultant, has worn her “BUT HER EMAILS” hat regularly since she received it as a gift the day before Mr. Trump was indicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in Manhattan in April.Since then, at Little League and soccer games, the supermarket, the beach and during dates with her wife, Ms. Kaiser has sported the black hat with pink letters, which she said served as a conversation starter about an election that many other Democrats would rather forget.“There are definitely people who notice the hat and very quickly avert their eyes,” Ms. Kaiser said. “There are other people who look at the hat and just roll their eyes. And honestly, I think there are a good amount of people who have no idea what it’s referencing.”Anjali Huynh More

Donald Trump’s campaign posted a video using the movie’s audio as part of a fund-raising appeal days after he was indicted on federal charges.A studio founded by the actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck denounced former President Donald J. Trump’s use of audio from its movie “Air” in a campaign video posted online over the weekend.The video, shared on Truth Social early Saturday, featured a nearly two-and-a-half-minute monologue from the movie that played alongside photos and videos depicting Mr. Trump throughout his life.It was posted, alongside a fund-raising appeal, days after Mr. Trump was indicted on federal charges that he illegally kept possession of national security documents after leaving office and obstructed efforts to return them. He is expected to make his first court appearance in the case on Tuesday.Artists Equity, Mr. Damon and Mr. Affleck’s production studio, aired its objection to the campaign video on Twitter later Saturday.“We had no foreknowledge of, did not consent to and do not endorse or approve any footage or audio from ‘Air’ being repurposed by the Trump campaign as a political advertisement or for any other use,” the organization wrote.“Air” features Mr. Affleck and Mr. Damon, who both have a history of supporting Democrats. The film, a biographical drama, recounts how Nike ascended to a household name by establishing a partnership with Michael Jordan, then a pro-basketball rookie, to create the Air Jordan shoes.The campaign video includes audio of Mr. Damon saying “money can buy you almost anything. It can’t buy you immortality — that, you have to earn,” as an image shows Mr. Trump walking away from a helicopter.The video remained on Truth Social as of Monday afternoon. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to inquiries seeking comment.A line of celebrities and production studios have publicly disavowed the use of their works during Mr. Trump’s campaigns. In 2018, HBO criticized Mr. Trump’s imitation of material from its television show “Game of Thrones.” And artists including Neil Young, Pharrell and Rihanna have objected to the use of their music during campaign rallies. More

Support for Scottish independence has dipped, but backing for Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom is fragile, too. Nicola Sturgeon’s arrest leaves the fate of the movement in flux.For almost a decade Nicola Sturgeon, as the leader of the Scottish government, was the uncontested figurehead of the push to break Scotland’s centuries-old union with England.Her resignation earlier this year — and now her arrest on Sunday over an investigation into her Scottish National Party’s finances — leaves the fate of the movement in flux.Support for independence has dipped, but backing for Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom, a bond forged in 1707, is fragile, too. Opinion polls show the Scottish public still roughly split on the issue. For now, the political path to an independent Scotland is blocked.“It’s a stalemate, there is no settled will for independence, but equally we have to acknowledge that there is no settled will for union either,” said Nicola McEwen, professor of territorial politics at the University of Edinburgh.“Reports of the demise of the independence movement and indeed of the S.N.P. are somewhat exaggerated,” said Professor McEwen, who added that “given everything that’s going on, maybe it’s surprising that support hasn’t declined more than it has.”Operation Branchform, the code name for inquiry into the Scottish National Party’s finances, began in 2021 and was reported to have followed complaints about the handling of about 600,000 pounds, or about $750,000, in donations raised to campaign for a second vote on Scottish independence. In 2014, Scots voted by 55 to 45 percent against breaking away from the United Kingdom in a divisive referendum.Ms. Sturgeon, who was released on Sunday after seven hours of questioning and who swiftly proclaimed her innocence, has not been charged. On Monday, her successor, Humza Yousaf, rejected calls for Ms. Sturgeon to be suspended from the party.She is the third senior figure in the party to be arrested but not charged. Another is Ms. Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive who held the post from 1999 until March, when he resigned after accepting blame for misleading statements from the party about the size of its dues-paying membership.Police officers outside the home of Ms. Sturgeon and her husband, Peter Murrell, in Uddingston, Scotland, in April.Andrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated PressThe police investigation deepened in the weeks after Ms. Sturgeon’s surprise resignation and the fractious competition to succeed her that was won, narrowly, by Mr. Yousaf.His leadership is still relatively new but, so far, he has struggled to match the high profile of his predecessor, or to advance toward the prize that ultimately eluded her: Scottish independence.Supporters have pressed for a second vote on Scottish independence after the first one failed in 2014. Their argument was bolstered by Brexit, which took Britain out of the European Union because the majority of Scots who voted in the Brexit referendum of 2016 wanted to remain in the European bloc. They were outnumbered by voters in England and Wales who wanted to leave.But, to have legal force, the government in London must agree to another vote on independence, and successive prime ministers have refused, insisting that the decision of 2014 stands for a generation.Ms. Sturgeon hit another roadblock last year when she tested in court her right to schedule a referendum without approval from London. In November, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled against her.Some hard-line voices favor unilateral action, perhaps holding a vote in defiance of London. Catalan separatists in Spain took that route in 2017, but it led to the imprisonment or exile of some independence movement leaders. And going outside the law would block an independent Scotland’s path toward membership of the European Union, the S.N.P.’s objective.Frustrated on all sides, Ms. Sturgeon finally proposed using the next British general election, which is expected in the second half 2024, as a de facto independence referendum, making Scotland’s constitutional future the central question. Internal critics doubted the practicality of that idea, given that other political parties would not agree.Nicola Sturgeon at a news conference in 2022 about Scottish independence.Andrew Milligan/Press Association, via Associated PressIn an interview broadcast on Sunday, before Ms. Sturgeon’s arrest, Mr. Yousaf said he was confident that, even with recent setbacks, an independent Scotland was coming.“Despite having some of the most difficult weeks our party has probably faced, certainly in the modern era, that support for independence is still rock solid. It’s a good base for us to build on,” he told the BBC. “I’ve got no doubt at all, that I will be the leader that will ensure that Scotland becomes an independent nation.”The party might have missed its moment, however. It is hard to see a more favorable backdrop for the independence campaign than the messy aftermath of Brexit, the chaotic leadership of the former prime minister, Boris Johnson — who was unpopular in Scotland — and the political dramas of 2022 when Britain changed prime ministers twice.Paradoxically, while Brexit may have strengthened the political case for Scottish independence, it has complicated the practical one. Britain has left the European Union’s giant single market and customs union, and that implies that there would be a trade border between an independent Scotland and England, its biggest economic partner.The years of gridlock and chaos that followed the Brexit referendum may also have scared some Scottish voters away from further constitutional changes.In addition, the S.N.P. has been criticized over its record in government, and the opposition Labour Party senses an opportunity to recover in Scotland, where it dominated politically before the S.N.P. decimated it.“Coming after dishonest claims of party membership, a very poor record in government and making no progress on independence this simply adds to the S.N.P.’s woes,” said James Mitchell, a professor of public policy at Edinburgh University, referring to recent events.“It would be damaging enough to the S.N.P.’s electoral prospects but with Labour looking ever more confident and competent in Scotland as well across Britain, it looks as if the S.N.P.’s opportunity to advance its cause has passed.”Humza Yousaf, Scotland’s new first minister, has said he was confident that, despite recent setbacks, an independent Scotland was coming.Russell Cheyne/ReutersThe next British general election might present Mr. Yousaf with a new opening if, as some pollsters predict, Labour emerges as the biggest party but without an overall majority. In that scenario, the S.N.P. could try to trade its support for a minority Labour government in exchange for a promise to hold a second referendum.The problem is that Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has so far rejected any such deal. And, if some Scottish independence supporters vote for Labour to try and defeat the Conservative government, led by Rishi Sunak, the S.N.P. could lose seats at Britain’s Parliament, weakening its hand.Some analysts believe that the independence movement should concentrate on building wider popular support, including through other organizations and political parties, reaching out beyond the confines of the S.N.P. and its supporters.After all, Scotland’s union with England was entered into voluntarily, and were opinion polls to show around 60 percent of voters consistently favoring an independent Scotland, that would be difficult for a British government to ignore.Even Mr. Yousaf acknowledges that is some way off, however. At present, he told the BBC, “it’s pretty obvious that independence is not the consistent settled will of the Scottish people.”The question confronting him, his colleagues and the wider independence movement is how they intend to change that. “I don’t really see any signs of a strategy,” said Professor McEwen, “that doesn’t mean there isn’t one, I just don’t see any evidence of it.” More