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      In Legal Peril, Trump Tries to Shift the Spotlight to Biden

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      Donald J. Trump, who is under indictment, is trying to undermine the American justice system by lashing out at his successor.Under indictment and enraged, former President Donald J. Trump — with the help of Republican allies, social media supporters and Fox News — is lashing out at his successor in the hopes of undermining the charges against him.“A corrupt sitting president!” Mr. Trump blared on Tuesday night after being arrested and pleading not guilty in Miami. “The Biden administration has turned us into a banana republic,” one of his longtime advisers wrote in a fund-raising email. “Wannabe dictator,” read a chyron on Fox News, accusing Mr. Biden of having his political rival arrested.The accusations against Mr. Biden are being presented without any evidence that they are true, and Mr. Trump’s claims of an unfair prosecution came even after Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed a special counsel specifically to insulate the inquiries from political considerations.But that hardly seems to be the point for Mr. Trump and his allies as they make a concerted effort to smear Mr. Biden and erode confidence in the legal system. Just hours after his arraignment, Mr. Trump promised payback if he wins the White House in 2024.“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Mr. Trump said during remarks at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J.On Twitter, the former president’s followers used words like “traitor,” “disgrace,” “corrupt” and “biggest liar” to describe the current president. And while Fox News said on Wednesday that the “wannabe dictator” headline was “taken down immediately” and addressed, the network counts Mr. Trump’s many followers as loyal viewers.The response from Mr. Biden and his advisers has been studious silence.The president has vowed not to give the slightest hint that he is interfering in the criminal case against Mr. Trump, and he has ordered his White House aides and campaign staff members not to comment. That decision has quieted what is usually a robust rapid response team that aims to counter Republican attacks.The president’s press aides responsible for instantly blasting out pro-Biden commentary to reporters have gone dark. Even Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, issued a terse “no comment” on Wednesday.Jill Biden, the first lady, broke the code of silence on Monday, telling donors at a fund-raiser in New York that she was shocked that Republicans were not bothered by Mr. Trump’s indictment. “My heart feels so broken by a lot of the headlines that we see on the news,” she said at the event, according to The Associated Press.The attorney general also weighed in — somewhat — on Wednesday with his first public comments since Mr. Trump was charged. He took the opportunity to defend Jack Smith, the special counsel, as “a veteran career prosecutor.”“He has assembled a group of experienced and talented prosecutors and agents who share his commitment to integrity and the rule of law,” Mr. Garland said.Still, the no-comment strategy out of the White House is reminiscent of the determined silence by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election and links between Russian operatives and Mr. Trump’s campaign. Mr. Mueller said virtually nothing for more than a year as Mr. Trump and his allies attacked his investigation and his motives.Like Mr. Mueller’s approach, Mr. Biden’s refusal to comment is intended to make sure he does not provide ammunition that his adversaries can try to use to undermine his credibility and integrity.But in the end, the sustained assault on Mr. Mueller and his investigation helped Mr. Trump create a false narrative and survive the damning revelations contained in the more than 400-page report bearing the prosecutor’s name.On Wednesday, when a reporter noted that Mr. Trump had accused Mr. Biden of “having him arrested, effectively directing his arrest,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said, “I’m not going to comment.”Eddie Vale, a longtime Democratic strategist, said the White House position made sense, given the need to avoid even the hint that Mr. Biden was meddling in Mr. Trump’s case.But he said members of outside Democratic groups would most likely begin coming to Mr. Biden’s defense if the attacks continued.“This is such a charged and hot subject,” Mr. Vale said. “There’s nothing to be gained by weighing in. But I think as it goes on, you will have folks on the outer circle weighing in.”Strategists for Mr. Trump promise that the attacks will continue.Chris LaCivita, a senior campaign consultant for Mr. Trump, said on Wednesday that it was fair to assign responsibility for the investigation to Mr. Biden because the special counsel was appointed by Mr. Biden’s attorney general.“There’s a thing called in government, the chain of command,” he said.America First Legal, the pro-Trump group founded by Stephen Miller, the architect of the former president’s immigration agenda, sent out a fund-raising appeal on Wednesday morning, using the indictment as a rallying cry.The theme has been echoed by Mr. Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress, who trained their ire on Mr. Biden even as they also railed against the Justice Department, the F.B.I., the “mainstream media” and Democrats generally.Most of them, it seemed, were trying to goad Mr. Biden into a reaction.“I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice,” tweeted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the leading Republican in Congress.Mr. Biden has so far focused on governing.On Tuesday, the president met with Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO, in the Oval Office. Later, he hosted a Juneteenth concert on the South Lawn of the White House, an event where it was easy to avoid the subject of Mr. Trump.“To me, making Juneteenth a federal holiday wasn’t just a symbolic gesture,” Mr. Biden told the crowd in brief remarks. “It was a statement of fact for this country to acknowledge the original sin of slavery.”But it is likely to get more difficult to refrain from wading into the Trump situation.On Saturday, the president is scheduled to attend a political rally with union supporters in Philadelphia. It is the kind of event where he would be expected to draw the contrast between himself and his rivals. Mr. Biden may be able to navigate that issue in the short term; Mr. Trump has a long way to go to win the Republican nomination.But if he does become Mr. Biden’s opponent for the presidency again, the strategy of avoidance may eventually have to change.As the first lady told donors at an event in California — referring to Mr. Trump’s four-year term in the White House: “We cannot go back to those dark days. And with your help, we won’t go back.” More

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      Fox News Chyron Calls Biden a ‘Wannabe Dictator’ During Trump Speech

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      The onscreen text appeared Tuesday beneath split-screen footage of President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, who had been charged with federal crimes hours earlier.A Fox News chyron appeared to refer to President Biden as a “wannabe dictator” during footage of his remarks from the White House on Tuesday, the same day that former President Donald J. Trump was charged with federal crimes in a Miami courtroom.The onscreen text appeared briefly at the bottom of a split-screen broadcast that showed President Biden and former President Trump speaking from respective podiums, at the White House and a Trump golf club in Bedminster, N.J.“Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested,” the chyron read. It did not refer to Mr. Biden by name, but the implication was clear.The alert appeared at the end of the 8 p.m. broadcast of “Fox News Tonight,” a prime-time show that recently replaced one that had been hosted by Tucker Carlson, a popular nightside host who was dismissed by the network in April. The footage of Mr. Biden showed him speaking on the South Lawn of the White House on Tuesday at a holiday event.The term “wannabe dictator” was unusually strong even for a network that generally had a friendly relationship with the Trump White House and has been heavily critical of the Biden administration.On Tuesday’s edition of “Fox News Tonight,” host Brian Kilmeade also referred incorrectly to Mr. Trump as the “president of the United States” before he began speaking at his New Jersey club.Representatives for Fox News did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Mr. Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, on Tuesday became the first former president to be charged with federal crimes. He pleaded not guilty to 37 counts related to his handling of classified documents after he left office and his refusal to return them.Later on Tuesday, after President Biden delivered remarks during a White House reception for American diplomats, he declined to answer questions from reporters in the room about Mr. Trump’s courtroom appearance.A number of major television networks have declined to broadcast Mr. Trump’s speeches live out of concern that doing so could give him a platform for spreading misinformation. When CNN hosted a town hall with Mr. Trump in May, it was roundly criticized by observers who called the decision to air the event live irresponsible.Since the 2020 election, Fox News has occasionally cut away from Mr. Trump’s speeches or declined to run them. In other cases, as on Tuesday, the network has given them prime-time slots. More

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      He’s No Jack Kennedy

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      Let’s just go ahead and say the quiet part out loud: Robert Kennedy Jr. — the nephew of John F. Kennedy, the son of Robert F. Kennedy — is a bit of a crank.This is not breaking news. The 69-year-old scion of America’s most famous political family has been peddling anti-vaccine hysteria since long before Covid-19 made it trendy, along with a spicy stew of other conspiracy theories. Notable offerings: that the 2004 presidential election was stolen by Republicans, psychopharmaceuticals are responsible for mass shootings and the C.I.A. had a hand in the assassination of his uncle.But now Mr. Kennedy is looking to take his screwball act prime time, challenging President Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination. The troubling part is that this guy has a non-negligible degree of support.Multiple polls from recent months show backing for Mr. Kennedy hovering around 20 percent among Democratic-inclined voters — not enough to pose an existential threat to Mr. Biden, but sufficient to give some in the party the jitters. The last thing Democrats want is some conspiracy-mongering fringe dweller highlighting the vulnerability of the party’s re-election-seeking incumbent. And the last thing the American public needs in this twitchy political moment is another high-profile circus act.It’s no mystery what’s going on. The only reason anyone cares what Mr. Kennedy thinks or says is because of his political pedigree. The Kennedy name ain’t what it used to be, but it still speaks to plenty of voters. (Sooo much Camelot nostalgia lingering out there.) In a recent CNN poll, 64 percent of Democratic voters and leaners said they would support or at least consider supporting Mr. Kennedy’s White House run, with 20 percent of those who would consider it citing his political lineage as the top reason.This is about more than one overromanticized family. The American electorate has a long-running, if tortured, romance with political dynasties in general. We love to grumble about them. Another Bush running for office? Another Clinton? Come on. But we also love to embrace them, up and down the political ladder. Just ask the Roosevelts or the Udalls or the Sununus or the scores of other clans for whom politics has become the family business.There is nothing inherently wrong with this inclination. In many ways, voters going with the devil they think they know makes perfect sense — but only if they avoid letting a candidate’s familiar name become a lazy substitute for a real measure of the person.Many Americans find the whole concept of political dynasties distasteful. Legacy politicians can carry a whiff of inherited power and entitlement that seems downright undemocratic. Way back in 2013, when the political world was waiting for Jeb Bush to become the third member of his family to run for president, his doting mother, Barbara, shared her reservations: “I think it’s a great country, there are a lot of great families, and it’s not just four families or whatever,” she told the “Today” show. “There are other people out there that are very qualified, and we’ve had enough Bushes.”This maternal wisdom proved painfully on point for poor Jeb. And, several years on, the Republican Party has gone all in on trashing “professional politicians” — or pretty much anyone with a clue about or an interest in how government works. The more ignorant and unqualified you are, the more the base loves you. (See: Marjorie Taylor Greene.)Still, no one is entitled to any elective office by virtue of their birth. That said, there is a case to make in appreciation of candidates who hail from families that take public service seriously and who are familiar with the weird world of politics. Exhibit A is Nancy Pelosi, the most formidable and effective House speaker in more than 60 years, who learned much about her craft growing up in a local Democratic dynasty in Baltimore.Plenty of Americans follow their families into a particular field, be it the military, law enforcement, teaching, acting or journalism. So if George P. Bush wants to run for this or that office in his home state of Texas, more power to him. And if voters choose to smack him down, as they did in the Republican primary for state attorney general last year, good on them. (Although sticking with Ken Paxton instead? Really?)But there is a dark side to all of this. Certain dynastic players can begin to feel — and behave — as though they are entitled to elected office, treating the honor as if it is not something to be earned so much as handed down like a family heirloom or a dry-cleaning business. That way inevitably leads to trouble.Just as problematic, and far more common, is when voters treat a well-known political name as a substitute for seriously vetting a candidate’s fitness for office. As one poll respondent mused to CNN about the colorful Mr. Kennedy: “I liked his dad (R.F.K.) and his uncle (J.F.K.) a lot. I would hope he has a similar mind-set.” Woo, boy. Cross your fingers that this voter does some due diligence before casting a ballot.Being born into a political family doesn’t magically make you qualified for office. As the scholar Stephen Hess, who literally wrote the book on America’s political dynasties, has pointed out, the offspring of these high-powered clans all too frequently turn out to be extremely … problematic. At the risk of sounding harsh, for every Beau Biden, there is a Hunter.Seriously, if you think Mr. Kennedy’s presidential aspirations are troubling — and you should — best start trying to wrap your mind around what a Trump dynasty could look like. Governor Ivanka? Senator Jared? President Don Jr.? Mock if you must. But spend a minute on the campaign trail with Don Jr. and it’s clear he has developed a taste for it. And voters in the Republican base love him.As chilling as this thought may be, it points to the democratic twist that America has put on political royalty. Our dynasties are not fixed. As Mr. Hess has noted, they are forever shifting and expanding. Influential families fall out of favor even as new ones rise up. And anyone can aspire to start their own power clan. Which makes it all the more important for voters to pay attention and refuse to give an easy pass to any candidate, no matter how storied his or her family tree.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Fact Check: Trump’s Misleading Defenses in Classified Documents Case

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      The former president drew misleading comparisons to others, misconstrued the classification process and leveled inaccurate attacks at officials.Hours after pleading not guilty in a federal court in Miami to charges related to his handling of classified documents, former President Donald J. Trump defended his conduct on Tuesday with a string of familiar falsehoods.Appearing at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., Mr. Trump drew misleading comparisons to other political figures, misconstrued the classification process and leveled inaccurate attacks at officials.Here’s a fact check of claims Mr. Trump made related to the inquiry.What Mr. Trump Said“Threatening me with 400 years in prison for possessing my own presidential papers, which just about every other president has done, is one of the most outrageous and vicious legal theories ever put forward in an American court of law.”False. The Presidential Records Act of 1978 governs the preservation and retention of official records of former presidents, and gives the National Archives and Records Administration complete ownership and control of presidential records. The law makes a distinction between official records and personal documents, and has applied to every president since Ronald Reagan.The agency has said that “it assumed physical and legal custody of the presidential records from the administrations of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, when those presidents left office.”Separately, after Mr. Trump repeatedly and misleadingly compared his handling of records to that of his immediate predecessor, the National Archives said in a statement that former President Barack Obama turned over his documents, classified and unclassified, as required by law. The agency has also said it is not aware of any missing boxes of presidential records from the Obama administration.What Mr. Trump Said“The decision to segregate personal materials from presidential records is made by the president during the president’s term and in the president’s sole discretion.”False. The Presidential Records Act defines what constitutes personal materials — such as diaries or political campaign documents — from official records. It does not give the president “sole discretion” in determining what is and is not a personal record. Under the law, a departing president is required to separate personal documents from official records before leaving office.F.B.I. agents searched Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August, more than a year after the general counsel of the National Archives requested the recovery of the materials and after months of repeated inquiries from officials at the agency and at the Justice Department.What Mr. Trump Said“I was supposed to negotiate with NARA, which is exactly what I was doing until Mar-a-Lago was raided by gun-toting F.B.I. agents.”False. The Presidential Records Act does not establish a process of negotiation between the president and the archives. The court-approved search of Mr. Trump’s Florida residence unfolded after he repeatedly resisted the government’s requests that he return the material, even after being subpoenaed.What Mr. Trump Said“Biden sent 1,850 boxes to the University of Delaware, making the search very, very difficult for anybody. And he refuses to give them up and he refuses to let people even look at them, and then they say how he’s behaving so nicely.”This is misleading. Joseph R. Biden Jr. donated 1,850 boxes of documents to the University of Delaware in 2012 from his tenure as a senator representing the state from 1973 to 2009. Unlike presidential documents, which must be released to the archives once a president leaves office, documents from members of Congress are not covered by the Presidential Records Act. It is not uncommon for senators and representatives to give such items to colleges, research institutions or historical facilities.The University of Delaware agreed not to give the public access to Mr. Biden’s documents from his time as senator until two years after he retired from public life. But the F.B.I. did search the collection in February as part of a separate special counsel investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of government documents and in cooperation with his legal team. The New York Times reported at the time that the material was still being analyzed but did not appear to contain any classified documents.What Mr. Trump Said“When caught, Hillary then deleted and acid-washed. Nobody does that because of the expense, but it’s pretty conclusive. Thirty-three thousand emails in defiance of a congressional subpoena already launched. The subpoena was there and she decided to delete, acid-wash and then smash and destroy her cellphones with a hammer. And then they say I participated in obstruction.”This is misleading. There are several key differences between Mr. Trump’s case and Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state — which Mr. Trump also described inaccurately.Crucially, several official investigations have concluded that Mrs. Clinton did not systematically or deliberately mishandle classified material, and a 2018 inspector general report supported the F.B.I.’s decision not to charge Mrs. Clinton.In contrast, Mr. Trump is accused of mishandling classified documents and obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to recover them and making false statements to officials. The indictment unsealed last week featured photographs of documents stored in sometimes haphazard ways, including boxes stacked in a shower and others piled on the stage of a ballroom that guests frequented.According to the F.B.I.’s inquiry into the matter, Mrs. Clinton’s lawyers provided about 30,000 work-related emails to the State Department in 2014 and instructed an employee to remove all personal emails older than 60 days. In 2015, after The Times reported Mrs. Clinton’s use of a personal email account, a Republican-led House committee investigating the 2012 attacks on American outposts in Benghazi, Libya, sent a subpoena requesting all emails she had in that account related to Libya.That same month, an employee working for the company that managed Mrs. Clinton’s server realized he did not actually delete the personal emails as instructed in 2014. He then used a free software program called BleachBit — not actual acid or chemical compounds — to delete about 30,000 personal emails.The F.B.I. found thousands of additional work-related emails that Mrs. Clinton did not turn over to the State Department, but the director of the bureau at the time, James B. Comey, said it found “no evidence that any of the additional work-related emails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them.”Mrs. Clinton would almost certainly disagree with Mr. Trump’s assertion that the F.B.I. and the Justice Department “protected” her, and has said that Mr. Comey’s actions as well as Russian interference cost her the 2016 election.What Mr. Trump Said“He totally exonerated Mike Pence. I’m happy about that. Mike did nothing wrong, but he happened to have classified documents in his house. But they exonerated him. And Biden is a different story.”This is misleading. Classified documents were found at former Vice President Mike Pence’s home in Indiana in January and President Biden’s former office at a Washington think tank in November and his Delaware residence in January. The Justice Department declined to pursue charges against Mr. Pence, and the investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of materials is continuing.But those cases differ in several significant ways from Mr. Trump’s, particularly in the volume of documents found and in Mr. Pence’s and Mr. Biden’s response.About a dozen documents with classified markings were found at Mr. Pence’s home. The F.B.I. searched his home in February with his agreement and found one additional classified document. It is unclear how many classified documents were found in Mr. Biden’s possession, but his lawyers have said “a small number” were discovered at his former office and about a half-dozen at his Delaware home.In contrast, Mr. Trump stored “hundreds” of classified documents, according to the Justice Department’s indictment, which said some records included information about the country’s nuclear programs as well as “potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack.” In total, the government has retrieved more than 300 files with classified markings from his Florida home and private club.Representatives for Mr. Pence and Mr. Biden have said that they inadvertently kept those documents and quickly alerted the National Archives once they were discovered. Both men also cooperated with government officials in turning over the documents and appeared to have voluntarily complied with searches of their properties.In contrast, Mr. Trump repeatedly defied requests to return materials for months and, according to the indictment, played an active role in concealing classified documents from investigators. The archives alerted Mr. Trump in May 2021 that presidential documents were missing. Officials retrieved 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago in January 2022 but suspected that other records remained missing. Seven months later, F.B.I. agents searched the Florida property and recovered additional documents.What Mr. Trump Said“Unlike me, who had absolute declassification authority as president, Joe Biden as vice president had no authority to declassify and no right to possess the documents. He had no right.”This is misleading. Vice presidents do have the power to declassify certain material, though the scope of their declassification powers has not been explicitly tested in courts.Mr. Trump has previously insisted that he had the power to declassify material without needing to inform anyone. There are formal procedures for declassifying information, but whether presidents must abide by them is an unsettled legal issue, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service and the American Bar Association. A federal appeals court ruled in 2020 that “declassification, even by the president, must follow established procedures.” But the Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on the matter.It is worth noting, though, that Mr. Trump followed these procedures for certain documents, like issuing a memorandum on the day before leaving office declassifying information related to the F.B.I. investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia.Separately, legal experts have noted that the classification of information related to nuclear weapons or “restricted data” is governed by a separate legal framework entirely, the Atomic Energy Act. That law does not explicitly give the president the authority to declassify nuclear secrets unilaterally and establishes a strict process for declassification that involves several agencies. It is unclear whether documents stored at Mar-a-Lago included “restricted data.”Chris Cameron More

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      No Proud Boys at Trump Arraignment, but Colorful Crowds Show Up

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      In the days leading up to his arraignment in Miami, former President Donald J. Trump and several of his allies called on supporters to rally to his side.Roger J. Stone Jr., Mr. Trump’s longtime political adviser, called for protests, insisting that they should be peaceful. A Miami chapter of the Proud Boys — long associated with Mr. Stone — echoed the invitation, posting a flier on its Telegram page last week advertising an event at the federal courthouse on Tuesday morning.All of this raised the level of concern among civic leaders in the city, who issued calls for protesters to remain peaceful. In the end, their fears did not materialize. It did not appear that any Proud Boys showed up and about 500 people, including one with a pig’s head on a spear, answered Mr. Trump’s call to action.The atmosphere outside the building was circuslike. There was the Uncle Sam who sped around the courthouse grounds on a two-wheeled hoverboard singing pro-Trump songs, the woman with a unicorn horn affixed to her forehead who wore an “Aunt-ifa” shirt and chanted derisively about the former president, and the man in a black-and-white jail jumpsuit carrying a sign that read, “Lock Him Up.”That man in the jumpsuit later instigated the most hectic moment of the day, when he ran in front of Mr. Trump’s S.U.V. as it left the courthouse. The man, who was not immediately identified, was pushed out of the way by the police and later taken into custody. As officers took him away, a crowd of Trump supporters used the message on his sign to taunt him: “Lock him up!”As he left, Mr. Trump, sitting in the back seat of the S.U.V., flashed a thumbs up to supporters, some of whom sprinted after the vehicle as they cheered. He headed to the famous Cuban restaurant Versailles, where a smaller crowd of supporters awaited him, a rabbi and minister prayed for him and he briefly shook hands and posed for photos.It was the second time this year that Mr. Trump had called for protests at a court appearance, only to have his summons receive a kind of fizzled response. When he was arraigned in a separate case in April in Manhattan, the New York City Police Department mobilized in force over concerns about unrest, but the chaos never occurred.In Miami, too, on a blazingly hot day thick with humidity, the crowd was calmer than some had feared. Miami’s police chief, Manuel Morales, faced tough questions from reporters a day earlier on whether he was doing enough to keep the area safe during the court proceeding and why he did not plan to separate anti-Trump and pro-Trump demonstrators.“We know there is a potential of things taking a turn for the worse, but that’s not the Miami way,” he said in response.The Proud Boys, who were founded during Mr. Trump’s first campaign for office, have rallied for years on his behalf, often violently. During the 2020 election, Mr. Trump notably called out the group, urging them during a presidential debate to “stand back and standby.”Scores of Proud Boys took part in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and federal investigators cracked down hard on them in the aftermath. The group’s former leader, Enrique Tarrio, who is from Miami, was convicted of seditious conspiracy along with three of his lieutenants for their role in the attack. Dozens of other Proud Boys have either been charged or questioned by the authorities.It is possible that the group never intended to take part in an event in Miami. It is also possible that the group has simply had enough of supporting Mr. Trump and suffering the consequences. After the violence at the Capitol, some high-ranking Proud Boys disavowed Mr. Trump, expressing anger at him for having left them standing on a limb.As temperatures reached nearly 90 degrees by lunchtime, trucks circled around the courthouse with flags and loudspeakers, and several people on foot with selfie sticks broadcast live video streams to thousands of viewers while weaving in and out of the crowds.“This is craaaazy,” shouted one pro-Trump streamer, Rafael Gomez, as he walked among the palm trees in front of the tall, shimmering courthouse. “Welcome to the banana republic of Miami!”Also seeking to capture an audience were more established conservative figures, such as the Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who held a news conference in front of the courthouse defending Mr. Trump and said that he would pardon his campaign rival if elected.In an interview after his news conference, Mr. Ramaswamy said that despite his defense, he would not have done what Mr. Trump is accused of. “I wouldn’t have taken the boxes,” he said. “I’m not a memento guy. Not my style.”The police largely stayed out of the way of the demonstrators, observing from close by while a helicopter circled overhead and jumping into the crowd only a few times when more hostile arguments sprouted up.At one point, however, Homeland Security and Miami Police Department officers urgently closed in and began clearing a large area of the courthouse grounds. They investigated a large TV that had been affixed to a pole on the sidewalk and that bore a message criticizing what it called “the Communist-controlled news media.” About an hour later, the police removed the television and reopened the area.Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami, a Republican who is mulling his own presidential bid, arrived in the early afternoon wearing a Miami Police Department polo shirt. He hugged several Trump supporters before shaking hands with a line of police officers. “I think, up until now, it’s a peaceful demonstration for people exercising their constitutional rights to express themselves, which we love about this country,” he said.Nearby, Carlos Brito, 66, sold American flags for $5. Mr. Brito, who immigrated from Cuba in 1980, said he supported Mr. Trump and criticized President Biden for sending money to support Ukraine while Americans struggled financially. “Look how much a cup of coffee costs here,” he said. “We need help here at home.”Scott Linnen, 61, a Trump critic from Miami, said he came to the courthouse because he had grown distraught over the direction of the country. As a gay man, he said he had seen a rise in anti-L.G.B.T.Q. rhetoric, hate speech and extremist behavior on the right.“This man tried to overthrow the 247-year-old American experiment,” he said of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. “I don’t understand why more people’s hair isn’t on fire.”Luke Broadwater More

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      How Democrats Can Win Workers

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      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 themorning@nytimes.com. More

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      Ron DeSantis Thinks Power Corrupts … Everyone Else

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      Campaign books written by politicians are often dismissed as focus-grouped fluff. I disagree. You can learn a lot about people by paying close attention to how they want to be seen. And so it is with Ron DeSantis’s “The Courage to be Free.” It’s not a good book, exactly. But it is a revealing one.As I read through it, I started marking down every time he told a story about using the power of his office to punish or sideline a perceived enemy or obstacle. There is his bill to make it easier to sue tech companies if you feel they’re discriminating against your politics. Here are his laws limiting what teachers can say about gender identity and imposing criminal penalties on medical providers who offer certain types of gender-affirming care. There’s his effort to punish Disney for opposing his anti-L.G.B.T.Q. laws by removing its self-governing status. Here’s his suspension of Andrew Warren, the state attorney for Hillsborough County, because Warren declined to enforce laws criminalizing abortion. There’s the bill to increase criminal penalties against rioters during Black Lives Matter protests.Then there’s what DeSantis wants to do, but hasn’t yet done. He thinks the federal government has become too “woke” and too liberal, and Congress should “withhold funding to the offending executive branch departments until the abuses are corrected.” He is frustrated that President Donald Trump didn’t do more with an authority known as Schedule F that can reclassify around 50,000 federal employees to make them more like political appointees, enabling the president “to terminate federal employees who frustrate his policies.” He tried to make it easier to sue media outlets for defamation, though that plan got bogged down in the Florida Legislature. Outside the book, he has called for a national “reckoning” on Covid and promised to hold people like Dr. Anthony Fauci “accountable” for the damage he believes they’ve caused.“For years, the default conservative position has been to limit government and then get out of the way,” DeSantis writes. Such reticence about using the power of government to fight back against the arrayed forces of the left — including Facebook, Disney, the government, the schools, the media and much else — means “essentially greenlighting these institutions to continue their unimpeded march through society.”My colleague Carlos Lozada traced many of the critiques of Trump that are threaded through DeSantis’s book, but to his list I’d add one more: DeSantis is saying that Trump, for all his complaints about the “deep state,” shied away from fully using the power of his office to destroy the threatening forces of the left. And DeSantis is trying to show, in vignette after vignette, that he has both the will and the discipline to do what Trump did not. (That Trump is now under federal indictment for, among other things, keeping boxes with classified documents piled in an ornate bathroom and scattered across a storage room floor at Mar-a-Lago, helps DeSantis’s case.)Trump often appears in DeSantis’s book as a faintly comic figure. When DeSantis requests federal aid after Hurricane Michael devastated the Panhandle, Trump says, according to DeSantis’s recounting, “They love me in the Panhandle. I must have won 90 percent of the vote out there. Huge crowds. What do they need?” It is left to Trump’s chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to beg DeSantis to delay announcing the aid because Trump “doesn’t even know what he agreed to.”The Trump that emerges in DeSantis’s anecdotes is overmatched by the details and minutiae of government. That is clearest in DeSantis’s extensive account of his Covid governance, in which he marinates in the details of his response and his decisions while battering away at Dr. Fauci as the personification of biomedical Leviathan. As Lozada observes, this is DeSantis criticizing Trump by proxy — Dr. Fauci served under Trump, and DeSantis is making clear he would have never let that stand. The critique of Trump is not so much that he agreed with Dr. Fauci as that he didn’t care enough to figure out where he disagreed with him and how to bend the state to his will.And so DeSantis delights in describing the methodical, relentless effort he put in to bending the state of Florida to his will. He describes winning Florida’s governorship and ordering his transition team to “amass an exhaustive list of all the constitutional, statutory, and customary powers of the governor.” Much of the rest of the book is an exhaustive, and at times exhausting, account of how he used them.DeSantis is portraying himself as the figure liberals have long feared: a Donald Trump who plans, a Donald Trump who follows through. One question is whether that’s what Republicans really want. In an interview with Ben Shapiro, DeSantis tried out a counterattack on Trump. “He’s been attacking me by moving left,” DeSantis said. “So this is a different guy than 2015, 2016.”Is it? Part of Trump’s appeal in 2015 and 2016 was his willingness to defy conservative orthodoxy. He promised to raise taxes on rich guys like himself, leave Medicare and Social Security alone, and make sure everyone had great health care. Polls showed he was viewed as a more centrist candidate than Hillary Clinton.DeSantis is leaving himself no such room. His voting record from his time in Congress includes plenty of efforts to slash Medicare and Social Security. As governor, he signed a six-week abortion ban into law. If you see Trump’s ideological deviations as a problem for Republican voters, DeSantis’s attacks make sense. If you see them as part of what endeared Trump to Republican voters, then it’s a vulnerability for DeSantis.DeSantis’s other problem, both in writing and on the stump, is that he can’t bring himself to extend even a modicum of compassion to his opponents. When he describes the George Floyd protests he doesn’t spare even a word condemning or grieving Floyd’s murder. His anti-L.G.B.T.Q. agenda is unleavened by even the barest sympathy for L.G.B.T.Q. kids.He opened a recent speech in New Hampshire with a riff on Joe Biden tripping and falling over a sandbag. “I don’t know if he sustained injuries,” DeSantis said, “but I just want to say that we hope and wish Joe Biden a swift recovery from any injuries he may have sustained, but we also wish the United States of America a swift recovery from the injuries it has sustained because of Joe Biden.” It’s a classless riff, leaden with insinuation, delivered humorlessly.Still, DeSantis has a real case to make to Republicans. I thought DeSantis was overvalued in the immediate aftermath of the 2022 election, where his victory was no more impressive than those of Mike DeWine in Ohio or Jared Polis in Colorado. But I think he’s being underestimated now.I’ve been listening to DeSantis’s speeches and interviews, and while he’s not a generational talent, and he does have that tic of gratuitous cruelty, he’s not as stilted on the stump as many liberals seem to think. The technical glitches of his launch on Twitter Spaces don’t mean anything for his campaign. He has a proven ability to win tough races. And polling in the mid-20s against a popular former president in that president’s own party isn’t that weak of a starting point.A lot can happen from here, and DeSantis has proved himself nothing if not a capable opportunist.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Trump Documents Case Puts the Justice System on Trial

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      The former president’s efforts to defend against multiple felony counts by discrediting law enforcement pose a grave challenge to democracy.Former President Donald J. Trump has a lot at stake in the federal criminal case lodged against him. He could, in theory, go to prison for years. But if he winds up in the dock in front of a jury, it is no exaggeration to suggest that American justice will be on trial as well.History’s first federal indictment against a former president poses one of the gravest challenges to democracy the country has ever faced. It represents either a validation of the rule-of-law principle that even the most powerful face accountability for their actions or the moment when a vast swath of the public becomes convinced that the system has been irredeemably corrupted by partisanship.Mr. Trump, his allies and even some of his Republican rivals have embarked on a strategy to encourage the latter view, arguing that law enforcement has been hijacked by President Biden and the Democrats to take out his strongest opponent for re-election next year. Few if any of them bothered to wait to read the indictment before backing Mr. Trump’s all-caps assertion that it was merely part of the “GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME.” It is now an article of faith, a default tactic or both.Jack Smith, the special counsel, and his prosecutors knew that defense was coming and have labored to avoid any hint of political motivation with a by-the-book approach, securing the assent of judges and grand jurors along the way. Moreover, their indictment laid out a damning series of facts based on security camera video, text messages and testimony from within Mr. Trump’s own team; even some who have defended him in the past say it will be harder to brush aside the evidence in a courtroom than in the court of public opinion.In the public arena, though, it may be a one-sided fight. Mr. Trump and his allies can scream as loudly as they can that the system is unfair, but prosecutors are bound by rules limiting how much they can say in response. To the extent that Democrats defend prosecutors, it may only buttress the point Mr. Trump is trying to make to the audience he is trying to reach.“I think the verdict on democracy ultimately comes down to Republican leaders and Republican voters,” said David Jolly, a former Republican congressman from Florida who left the party during the Trump presidency. “Their current weaponization narrative is dangerous and destabilizing, but seems to reflect the party’s early consensus. If they don’t pivot soon to due process and faith in the system, I think we could have very dark days ahead. I do worry.”Mr. Trump has attacked the Justice Department and Jack Smith, the special counsel in the case, calling him a lunatic.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesPolls suggest that Mr. Trump has made headway in persuading at least his own supporters that any and all allegations against him are just political. After the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, brought state charges against him related to hush money paid to an adult film actress, the former president’s support among Republicans rose, rather than fell.While 60 percent of all adults surveyed by CNN afterward approved of the charges, 76 percent agreed that politics played a role in the prosecution. As for the effect on America’s system, 31 percent said the indictment strengthened democracy, while 31 percent said it weakened it.All of which indicates that the system’s credibility is on the line in a way it has not been before. Many have criticized American justice over the years for systemic racism, excessive punishment, mistreatment of women subjected to assault or other issues, but they did not command the bullhorn of the presidency. When past presidents like Richard M. Nixon or Bill Clinton got in trouble, they defended themselves aggressively, but did not call the whole system into question.“In 1972 to 1974, the Republicans participated as good-faith members of the process,” said Garrett Graff, the author of “Watergate: A New History,” published last year. “They saw their roles as legislators first and Republicans second. They definitely were skeptical” initially of the allegations against Nixon, “but they followed the facts where they led.”Even Nixon’s sharp-tongued vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, was careful about disparaging the justice system broadly. “Agnew, of course, was Nixon’s attack dog, but mainly against the press, not the F.B.I. or the special prosecutor,” Mr. Graff said.Mr. Trump, on the other hand, is holding nothing back as he assails “the ‘Thugs’ from the Department of Injustice” and calls Mr. Smith a “deranged lunatic.” Republicans like Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona have called for dismantling the F.B.I. “We have now reached a war phase,” he wrote on Twitter on Friday. “Eye for an eye.” Elon Musk said the authorities were showing “far higher interest in pursuing Trump compared to other people in politics.”Several of Mr. Trump’s competitors for the Republican presidential nomination joined in. Former Vice President Mike Pence compared the indictment to leaders of “third-world nations” who “use a criminal justice system in their country against their predecessors.” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said “the weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society.”The former president’s defenders generally do not address the substance of the 37 counts against him, but instead make a case of selective prosecution that resonates powerfully among many Republicans: What about Mr. Biden? What about Hunter Biden? What about Hillary Clinton?They point to the origin of the Russia investigation against Mr. Trump, citing the recent report by the special counsel John H. Durham that harshly criticized the F.B.I. for its handling of the case even though it did not come up with any new blockbuster revelations of politically motivated misconduct nor result in the conviction of any major figure.They point to Republican congressional inquiries that they say hint at wrongdoing by the Bidens even without confirmation. They point to the continuing federal criminal investigation of the president’s son Hunter, suggesting it has been impeded. And they point to the fact that the president himself is also under investigation over retaining classified documents yet not charged.The differences between the cases, however, are stark, making apples-to-apples comparisons complicated. In the documents investigation, for instance, Mr. Biden’s advisers by all accounts so far returned the papers to the authorities promptly after discovering them. Mr. Pence did the same after a voluntary search found that the former vice president had kept classified documents, and he was recently cleared by the Justice Department because there was no evidence of willful violations of the law.Mr. Trump, by contrast, refused to hand over all the documents he had taken from the White House — even after being subpoenaed for them. According to the indictment, he orchestrated an expansive scheme to hide papers and feed lies to authorities seeking them. On two occasions, the indictment charged, Mr. Trump showed secret documents to people without security clearance and indicated that he knew he was not supposed to.As for seeking to weaponize the Justice Department, there was ample evidence that Mr. Trump sought to do just that while in office. He openly and aggressively pushed his attorneys general to prosecute his perceived enemies and drop cases against his friends and allies, making no pretense that he was seeking equal and independent justice. His friends-and-family approach to his pardon power extended clemency to associates and those who had access to him through them.He chipped away at so many norms during his four years in office that it is no wonder that institutions have faced credibility problems. Indeed, he has made clear that he does not respect the boundaries that constrained other presidents. Since leaving office, he has called for “termination” of the Constitution so that he could be returned to power without waiting for another election and vowed that he would devote a second term to “retribution” against his foes while pardoning supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to stop the transfer of power.There is no known evidence, on the other hand, that Mr. Biden has played any role in the investigations against Mr. Trump. Unlike the voluble Mr. Trump, he has made a point of not even publicly commenting on individual prosecutions, saying he respects the autonomy of the Justice Department.Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has been sensitive to the matter of perception and sought to insulate the inquiries by appointing Mr. Smith, a career prosecutor who is not registered with either political party, as a special counsel with a guarantee of independence absent manifest wrongdoing on his part.But that was never going to convince Mr. Trump or his most fervent supporters of the fairness of the process. At bottom, the former president and front-runner for his party’s nomination to be the next president is being charged by a prosecutor appointed by an appointee of the man he hopes to beat. It is a recipe for distrust, especially when stoked by a defendant who has mastered the politics of grievance and victimhood.Will that result in lasting damage to democracy? Even some who support charging Mr. Trump fear that it may. Still, some who have studied politically fraught investigations counseled patience. There will be fireworks. Many will doubt the credibility of the system. But in the end, they said, the system will survive just as it has for more than two centuries.“It’s messy and uncomfortable for the generation living through it, but the system is durable enough to win out,” said Ken Gormley, the president of Duquesne University and the author of books on Watergate and the Clinton investigations. “As painful as the next year is likely to be as the criminal justice system grinds forward toward a fair verdict in the Mar-a-Lago documents case — whatever that outcome may be — we are fortunate that our predecessors have spent 234 years shoring up the bulwark.” More