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      Mel King, Whose Boston Mayoral Bid Eased Racial Tensions, Dies at 94

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      The first Black finalist for mayor of the city, he was credited, along with the eventual winner, Raymond Flynn, with running a respectful, calming campaign.Mel King, a Black community activist whose barrier-breaking campaign for mayor of Boston in 1983 helped ease racial tensions there that had been caused in part by court-ordered busing to desegregate public schools, died on March 28 at his home in Boston. He was 94.His wife, Joyce (Kenion) King, confirmed the death.In the decade before he ran for mayor, Mr. King had been a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he led the passage of laws creating nonprofit agencies that helped finance and renovate substantial amounts of affordable housing,“He’s the father of affordable housing in Boston,” Lewis Finfer, a longtime community organizer in Boston who is director of Massachusetts Action for Justice, said by phone.During his mayoral campaign, Mr. King drew support from what he called a “Rainbow Coalition” — a core that included Black, Hispanic, Asian and progressive white supporters. That term was soon adopted and expanded nationally by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.Mr. King narrowly finished second to Raymond Flynn in a nonpartisan nine-candidate primary and was then soundly defeated by Mr. Flynn in the runoff general election.Still, Mr. King, the first Black mayoral finalist in the city’s history, received a strong 20 percent of the ballots cast by white voters. (Boston has never elected a Black mayor, but for several months in 2021 Kim Janey served as the acting mayor.)Mr. King and Mr. Flynn, both sons of longshoremen, ran an issues-oriented campaign that focused on working-class voters and reflected their long friendship, which began when they were teammates on a semipro basketball team.The campaign was free of rancor about their opposing positions on enforced school busing between predominantly white and predominantly Black sections of the city — Mr. King was for it, Mr. Flynn was against it. That issue had divided the city, sometimes with violence, since 1974, when a federal court ordered the measure as a remedy to racial segregation.“We set a civil tone, one of good will that changed the racial dynamic and toned it down,” Mr. Flynn said in a phone interview. “It wasn’t what people expected, but they were able to say if these two guys can do this for the city, we can do it as well.”Pat Walker, the field director of Mr. King’s campaign, said in an interview that “both campaigns kept the violence and ugliness from breaking out.”Mr. King himself told The Boston Globe a decade after his mayoral run: “What I believe people want more than anything else is a sense of a vision that’s inclusive and respectful and appreciative of who they are. What the Rainbow Coalition did was to put that right up front, because everybody could be a member.”Mr. King joined a singalong while running for mayor of Boston in 1983. He and his opponent, Raymond Flynn, ran a rancor-free campaign that focused on working-class voters and reflected their long friendship.John Blanding/The Boston Globe, via Getty ImagesMelvin Herbert King was born on Oct. 20, 1928, in Boston, one of 11 children. His father, Watts Richard King, who was from Barbados, was a union secretary in addition to working on the docks. His mother, Ursula (Earle) King, was from Guyana.Mr. King attended Claflin University in Orangeburg, S.C., a historically Black school, where he was captain of the football team. He had to adapt to the realities of living, even temporarily, in the Jim Crow South.“I stopped going to the theater where Black people had to sit upstairs and started patronizing the Black theater instead,” he wrote in his 1981 book, “Chain of Change: Struggles for Black Community Development.” “I rode in the back of the bus once and it felt so crummy that from then on I hitchhiked.”He graduated in 1951 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a year later received a master’s in education from Boston Teachers College (later Boston State College). He taught at two local high schools before becoming a social worker, first as director of boys’ activities at the Lincoln House settlement house and later as director of youth opportunities for United South End Settlements, a nonprofit social services agency that serves mostly low-income families and that had absorbed Lincoln House.When he was fired in 1967 over a policy dispute with the agency, local residents protested, saying that he had been helping them overcome poverty. An editorial in The Globe called him a “deeply respected leader” of the community.His profile in the city grew.In 1968, Mr. King led a successful demonstration by more than 1,000 people against a city plan to build a parking garage on the site of housing that had been demolished as part of an urban renewal project on the city’s South End; in 1988, a development of 269 mixed-income apartments opened at the site under the name Tent City, a nod to the tents that protesters had earlier pitched and occupied on the property.In 1989, Mr. King, who by then was executive director of the New Urban League, joined with other members of that group to disrupt an awards luncheon of the United Fund, a major local philanthropy, which had recently reduced its financial allocation to the league. Mr. King scooped half-eaten rolls and pieces of coconut pie into a laundry bag marked “Our Unfair Share — Black Crumbs,” held it over his head and dumped it on the head table.“We’ve been getting crumbs,” he said at the time. “We’re no longer going to accept crumbs.”In 1979, when Pope John Paul II visited Boston, Mr. King led a march to express outrage over the shooting of a Black high school football player during a game. The player’s wounds left him a quadriplegic. Three white teenagers were charged.“This walk,” he said during the event, “is to indicate that the pope should not come here without helping his flock to overcome their racism and to get the leaders of this city involved in that kind of dialogue that will put an end to the racism in this city.”During his mayoral campaign, Mr. King took controversial positions. He told a mostly Jewish audience that he would welcome Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, to Boston if he came peacefully. Given the choice between President Ronald Reagan and the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, he told a radio station, he would take Castro, because he had done more for the poor.Mr. King’s other work included teaching in the urban studies and planning department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1970 to 1996. There, he started a Community Fellows Program for leaders nationwide.In 1997, he created the South End Technology Center at Tent City, which offers community residents free or low-cost training in computer technology. He was its volunteer director.In addition to his wife, Mr. King’s survivors include his daughters, Pamela, Judith and Nancy King; his sons, Melvin Jr., Michael and Jomo; and his sister, Olga King. More

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      A Week of Youthful Activism Sends Out Political Shockwaves

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      After Donald Trump’s indictment on Tuesday, progressives cemented two crucial victories in Wisconsin and Chicago, and, in Nashville, a firestorm erupted after the expulsion of two liberal lawmakers.A surge of youthful activism powered major liberal victories in Wisconsin and Chicago and a boisterous legislative uprising in Tennessee this week, as Republicans absorbed a string of damaging political blows, beginning with the arraignment of their leading presidential contender on criminal charges in Manhattan.The drumbeat of news seemed to batter the G.O.P.’s brand by the hour: Donald J. Trump became the first American president to be led into a courtroom to hear his indictment. Voters in Wisconsin handed Democrats a landslide victory and a one-seat majority on the state’s Supreme Court, with the fate of abortion and Wisconsin’s heavily gerrymandered political map at stake.And liberal activists helped one of their own rise to mayor of Chicago, defeating a more moderate Democrat who had the backing of Republicans in and around the nation’s third-largest city, and overcoming conservative-tinged arguments about crime and policing.A coda, or perhaps an own-goal, came on Thursday in red-state Tennessee, when the overwhelmingly Republican Legislature voted to expel two young, Black male representatives for their roles in leading youthful protests calling for gun control, after a mass shooting at a Christian school in Nashville, but narrowly allowed a white female lawmaker who had stood with them to remain.The three Tennessee state representatives who were subject to expulsion votes on Thursday, Mr. Pearson, Justin Jones and Gloria Johnson. Ms. Johnson was the only one not expelled.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesIn so doing, Tennessee Republicans achieved little besides catapulting the representatives, Justin Jones and Justin J. Pearson, as well as Gloria Johnson, onto the national stage: Both men could be reappointed to their seats by officials in their Nashville and Memphis districts as soon as next week, as they await special elections in which they are favored to win.“If my job, along with other members of the R.N.C., is to protect the brand of the Republican Party, this didn’t help,” said Oscar Brock, a Republican National Committeeman from Tennessee. “You’ve energized young voters against us. Worse than squandering support, you’ve made enemies where we didn’t need them.”To be sure, there were bright spots for Republicans: They won a special election giving them a supermajority in the Wisconsin Senate, which entails broad impeachment powers. And a Democrat’s switch to the G.O.P. in the North Carolina House of Representatives handed Republicans a two-chamber legislative supermajority in the only Southern state where abortion is broadly legal, granting Republicans in Raleigh the ability to override the vetoes of Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.But in an odd-numbered year and a season when Americans are more taken with daffodils than with politics, the clamor of youthful activism and anger may have left the more lasting impression.“The right wing understands that time is not on their side,” said Representative Maxwell Frost, 26, a Florida Democrat who last year became the first member of Generation Z to be elected to the House. “What we saw in Chicago and Wisconsin, and what we saw in the backlash in Tennessee, is young people rising, and all of this played out in one week.”A “die-in” at the Tennessee State Capitol on Thursday. “It was a shameful day, but it will also wake people up, especially young people,” said Steve Cohen, a Tennessee congressman.Jon Cherry for The New York TimesFew Republicans defended the decision by their compatriots in Tennessee to try to silence elected Democrats by chucking them from the state house. Democrats, for their part, seized the moment.Representative Steve Cohen, the lone Democrat in Tennessee’s congressional delegation after the gerrymandering of district lines before last November’s election, recalled the one and only time he got any attention from the national press as a member of the State Legislature: with a vote against displaying the Ten Commandments. Even so, he said, it amounted to just a quote in Time magazine. Mr. Pearson and Mr. Jones became national celebrities over the course of 24 hours.“It was a shameful day, but it will also wake people up, especially young people,” Mr. Cohen said.Worrywarts in either party looking for ill omens could find plenty.Mr. Trump’s arraignment on felony charges that he falsified business records to hide hush money to a porn star in the final days of the 2016 election set off a bonanza of fund-raising for his campaign and rallied many Republicans around his third run for the presidency. And a spate of new polling pointed to Mr. Trump’s improving competitiveness against President Biden in 2024.Not even his rivals for the Republican nomination dared question the indictment’s underlying allegations that Mr. Trump engaged in extramarital dalliances with a pornographic film actress and a Playboy Playmate.“No matter how tawdry the charges and whether true or false, making a sexual encounter between two consenting adults the focal point of a criminal indictment or an impeachment strikes most Americans as an abuse of power and a distraction,” said Ralph Reed, a veteran political strategist and voice of Christian conservatives.Janet Protasiewicz at her election night party in Wisconsin after an easy victory for a Supreme Court seat.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesOne of the week’s through-lines was the awakening of the young, who are often neglected because, for all their activism, they often fail to vote. Young voters were not only crucial to the easy victory of Janet Protasiewicz, the liberal candidate for Wisconsin’s open Supreme Court seat, they also powered the liberal candidate for mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, to an upset victory over the more moderate law-and-order candidate, Paul Vallas.And in the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville, the chants of young protesters boomed through the hallways before, during and after the votes to oust the two state representatives, Mr. Jones, 27, and Mr. Pearson, 29.The drama in Nashville on Thursday was incendiary on multiple levels, a political cauldron of young versus old, Black versus white, a marginalized minority against an overwhelming majority — all playing out against the backdrop of gun violence in schools.Then there were the issues: guns and abortion.Addressing her party’s defeat in Wisconsin a day later on Fox News, Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, conceded, “Where you’re losing by 10 points, there is a messaging issue. Abortion is still an issue, and we can’t allow the Democrats to define Republicans on it.”Her comments, however, elicited a storm of protest from anti-abortion voices in her party, which has showed no letup in its push for abortion curbs. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and a potential rival of Mr. Trump’s for the presidential nomination, appears intent on signing a bill in Tallahassee to ban abortions after six weeks. Idaho’s Republican governor, Brad Little, signed legislation this week prohibiting minors from traveling outside the state for an abortion without parental consent.Still, Ms. McDaniel stood by her comments: “We can’t put our heads in the sand going into 2024,” she said on Fox News.Mr. Brock, the national committeeman from Tennessee, similarly warned his party on its response to gun violence after the shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville left six dead, including three children. Republicans, he said, can stay true to the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms and still respectfully listen to the arguments for more gun-safety regulation.“Even in Tennessee, we have swing districts in the State House and Senate,” he said, “and if you’ve angered tens of thousands of students and presumably their parents, you could theoretically expose yourself to a united front.” More

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      You Could Have Walked a Block Away and Had No Clue Trump Just Got Arrested

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      I missed George Santos at the protest outside the courthouse where Donald Trump was later arraigned on Tuesday, and I couldn’t hear a thing Marjorie Taylor Greene said over the screams of counter-demonstrators and the incessant blowing of whistles. They were the two biggest names who turned out to show their support for Trump on a day that felt at once historic and very small.The police put up metal barriers dividing a block-sized park near the courthouse in two, with dozens of Trump opponents on one side, dozens of Trump acolytes on the other, and cops everywhere. Altogether, there were hundreds of people, often screaming at each other across the divide, chants of “U.S.A.” competing with chants of “Lock Him Up!” Some characters were familiar from the Trump campaign road show, including Dion Cini, a peddler of Trump merchandise who flew a giant “Trump or Death” flag, and Maurice Symonette, founder of the groupuscule Blacks for Trump and onetime member of a violent Black supremacist cult. “He had sex with a prostitute,” Symonette said of Trump, apparently referring to the adult film star Stormy Daniels. “How is that against the law? Who hasn’t done that?”Representative George Santos.Mark Peterson for The New York TimesRepresentative Marjorie Taylor Greene.Mark Peterson for The New York TimesOf course, Trump wasn’t indicted for his affairs, but for the steps he allegedly took to cover them up. Before the indictment was unsealed, rumors flew across Twitter that it included a conspiracy count, but in the end, all 34 counts were for falsifying business records in connection with the payoff to silence Daniels, which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argued was connected to a broader scheme to squelch negative stories about Trump.According to the indictment, the business record falsifications were done “with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof.” Though no other crime is charged, the statement of facts accompanying the indictment accuses Trump of violating election laws. It’s the connection to another crime that turns falsifying business records from a misdemeanor into a felony.Observers from across the political spectrum have been skeptical of the legal theory that underlies Bragg’s case. As The New York Times reported in March, “Combining the criminal charge with a violation of state election law would be a novel legal theory for any criminal case, let alone one against the former president, raising the possibility that a judge or appellate court could throw it out or reduce the felony charge to a misdemeanor.” Trump, in other words, may still wriggle out of this predicament.As I’ve argued before, if Trump’s role in the hush-money payments broke the law, it’s a serious matter, because those payments helped him get elected, and the plot to cover them up sent his former lawyer to prison. Trump, the statement of facts says, “orchestrated a scheme with others to influence the 2016 presidential election by identifying and purchasing negative information about him to suppress its publication and benefit the defendant’s electoral prospects.” If this is true, it’s perverse to suggest that Trump’s success in this scheme — represented by him winning the presidency — is a reason not to prosecute him.Nevertheless, for all the hype going into Tuesday, the indictment feels anticlimactic. “True and accurate business records are important everywhere, to be sure,” said Bragg in his news conference after the arraignment. “They are all the more important in Manhattan, the financial center of the world.” Trump, like everyone else, should be held accountable if he failed to keep such records. We’re not owed an indictment commensurate with his depravity. Still, these are hard charges to get excited about.Indeed, what’s struck me over the last two days in New York is a distinct lack of excitement. Many who detest Trump, I suspect, have lost faith in the ability of the legal system to hold him to account. And while his supporters may threaten civil war, not many of them seem willing to brave Manhattan, which they’ve been told is a crime-ridden hellhole.Earlier this week, Roger Stone, the political dirty trickster and longtime Trump ally, promoted a Monday rally outside Trump Tower. When I went there, only a handful of people had shown up. Tuesday’s turnout was larger, but still felt more desultory than menacing, despite some threatening rhetoric. (One man carried a sign with a noose affixed to it, signifying his hopes for members of the “Liberal Biased News Media.”) You could walk a block away and be unaware that anything was happening.Mark Peterson for The New York TimesMaybe this is to be expected: Many of the people who might have led mob violence have been either indicted or convicted for their involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection. And certainly, there remains an acute danger from Trump fanatics acting alone. The way the Trump camp has targeted the daughter of the judge overseeing the Trump case has been particularly unconscionable. Arguing that the daughter’s political work constituted a conflict for her father, people including Greene, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump shared a story featuring her photograph on social media, and Trump went after her in his post-arraignment speech, likely putting her safety at risk.But while Trump still has an obsessive following, he can no longer command the country’s stunned attention, even by getting arrested. Maybe that’s the consolation of an arraignment that doesn’t feel at all momentous.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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      Trump’s calls to protest fall on weary, wary ears.

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      In Lower Manhattan on Tuesday morning, near the courthouse where Donald J. Trump was to be arraigned, Dion Cini, a Trump merchandise entrepreneur from Brooklyn and frequent presence at Trump rallies, waved an enormous flag that read TRUMP OR DEATH.“We’re living in history right now,” he told a scrum of mostly European reporters.But the crowd — for a demonstration convened by the New York Young Republican Club, where Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene would soon speak — was overwhelmingly made up of journalists. Trump supporters were so outnumbered that anyone in Make America Great Again attire was quickly swarmed by cameras.On Truth Social last month, Mr. Trump exhorted his supporters: “WE MUST SAVE AMERICA! PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!” But while his indictment has been met with outrage across right-wing media and social media, the offline response has so far been a far cry from the turnouts at his campaign rallies — much less the tens of thousands he drew to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, for the rally that became a violent attempt to avert the end of his presidency.Pro-Trump organizers and outside observers have pointed to a range of factors to explain the low turnout. They include the relatively short notice of the arraignment, the mixed messages from right-wing media figures and politicians like Ms. Greene — who last month stoked fear that an indictment protest could be infiltrated by “Feds/Fed assets” — and the question of what, exactly, a demonstration would accomplish.But the small crowds are also a testament to a political landscape that has changed since the explosive finale of Mr. Trump’s presidency.“The right has zero interest in repeating anything that even remotely resembles Jan. 6,” said Dustin Stockton, an organizer of the pro-Trump Stop the Steal rallies that culminated at the Capitol that day.The riot drew its incendiary force from its particular combination of rank-and-file Trump supporters and a smaller cohort of extremists who had found a footing in the Republican mainstream in the Trump years. Those constituencies grew closer in 2020, as Covid-19 lockdowns, racial justice protests and riots and finally Mr. Trump’s claims of a stolen election drew them together around a common set of grievances — grievances that were converted into a call to action by right-wing media and influencers, Republican politicians and Mr. Trump himself.Jon Lewis, a research fellow in the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, said those conditions would be extraordinarily hard to replicate, even after a development as extraordinary as Mr. Trump’s indictment.“The further away we get from Jan. 6, the more it is being recognized as a unique perfect storm of events, of actors, of circumstances,” Mr. Lewis said.Since Jan. 6, rallies similar to those that gathered large crowds in 2020 have struggled to produce significant turnouts. An annual gun-rights rally in Richmond, Va., which brought tens of thousands of gun owners and militia members into the streets in January 2020, drew only hundreds in late January 2021. The crowds were similarly sparse at Inauguration Day protests in Washington and statehouses across the country days later.Demonstrations against Covid-19 vaccine mandates in late 2021 and early 2022 sought to recapture the energy of the “re-open” protests in the spring of 2020, and did draw several thousand to the National Mall in January 2022. But they mostly evaporated after states eased their Covid-19 policies that spring.Claims of a stolen 2020 election animated many prominent Republican candidates and grass-roots groups in last year’s midterm elections. But the most prominent election deniers lost, and the most significant demonstration over the candidates’ defeats, in Phoenix, drew only a couple of hundred people.A crucial missing element in all of these events was Mr. Trump himself. His ability to draw supporters to the new cause of his prosecution remains to be seen.But participants and observers have also pointed to the chilling effect of the law enforcement crackdowns and congressional investigations since Jan. 6. F.B.I. domestic terrorism investigations have more than doubled since 2020, according to the Government Accountability Office. Under the Biden administration, “you have seen the early signs of a sea change in how the U.S. government is approaching domestic violent extremism,” Mr. Lewis said.High-profile federal prosecutions related to Jan. 6 have swept up the national leaderships of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, some of whom have been convicted of sedition and other serious crimes. Individual rioters, many of whom documented their activities on Jan. 6 on social media, have faced detention and prosecution on lesser charges, or at least visits from federal agents.The result has been a climate of paranoia around the open social media organizing that was critical to the Stop the Steal demonstrations, as well as around large offline gatherings. This is particularly true in Washington, with its large federal law enforcement presence, and New York, where prosecutors have become particularly reviled figures on the right for their legal proceedings against the Trump Organization, the National Rifle Association, the former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon and now Mr. Trump himself.Among right-wing organizers, “the overwhelming consensus is D.C. is a no-go zone, and New York has weaponized lawfare against everyone on the right,” said Mr. Stockton, who was raided in 2020 by federal agents for his role in a border-wall fund-raising venture involving Mr. Bannon, who has been charged by Manhattan prosecutors with defrauding contributors. (Mr. Bannon has pleaded not guilty and Mr. Stockton was never charged. Timothy Shea, another participant, was convicted of related federal charges in October.) “Everyone assumes there are traps everywhere.”While denunciations of the charges against Mr. Trump have dominated the conservative and right-wing media for weeks, the question of whether to protest them has been met with less unanimity.While some, like the former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka, have called the moment a “time of sorting” and urged Trump supporters to “peacefully protest,” others have warned that the political risk of such a protest’s turning violent far outweighs the potential reward.“DO NOT PROTEST IN NYC TOMORROW,” the talk radio host John Cardillo, a former New York police officer, wrote on Twitter on Monday. “The Democrats want you to do that. They want people to get out of hand, be arrested, and be able to claim another J6.”And to some people and groups closely associated with the Jan. 6 riot, Mr. Trump is a more ambivalent cause than he once was.“Remember what happened last time Trump called a protest? He threw everyone under the bus,” a local Proud Boys chapter in Illinois posted on Telegram last month, amid a series of memes depicting Trump protest organizers as undercover federal agents.But Joe McBride, a lawyer for a number of Jan. 6 defendants who said he has served as an intermediary between their families and Mr. Trump’s circle, said that “there’s certainly a sense of brotherhood” with the former president after his indictment.Karen Lichtbraun, a preschool teacher from New York who attended Tuesday’s demonstration in Manhattan, said the fear of arrest was one reason for the relatively modest turnout. “Look what’s happening with the people who participated in Jan. 6,” she said.But she noted that the rally site in deep blue Manhattan played a role as well.“It’s New York, unfortunately,” she said.Alexandra Berzon More

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      New York Already Knows a Lot About Donald Trump

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      If Donald J. Trump seems a little on edge lately, so does the city where he made his name.The former president, after largely eluding legal accountability of any kind for decades, has now been indicted by a grand jury in a case brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.So far Mr. Trump has handled the investigation, which has looked into whether he broke laws while paying hush money to a porn star ahead of the 2016 election, exactly as one might imagine: with the minimum amount of class and the maximum use of racist slurs. Not only has he made sure everyone knows Mr. Bragg is Black, he has also suggested he is subhuman.“HE IS A SOROS BACKED ANIMAL,” the former president told his followers on Truth Social while waiting for the indictment, using anti-Black racism as well as antisemitism to describe Mr. Bragg. Mr. Trump also called for widespread protests before he was indicted and predicted “death and destruction,” forcing law enforcement agencies to prepare for possible violence in the streets on Tuesday, when he is expected to be arraigned.All of this has made New York City, his former hometown, a bit anxious, too. The wait for Mr. Trump’s arraignment and any backlash that may come from it has the city unnerved.Few Americans have seen Mr. Trump shimmy his way out of a jam more often than New Yorkers. We’ve seen him bounce back from bankruptcy six times, and he has never been truly held to account for his long history of excluding Black people from the rental properties that helped make him rich. We’ve seen his political fortunes soar despite credible claims of sexual assault and tax fraud. We’ve watched up close his gravity-defying, horrifying metamorphosis from a tacky real estate developer and tabloid fixture into a C-list celebrity and, finally, a one-term president with authoritarian aspirations.Given that history, the idea that Mr. Trump will soon be fingerprinted and booked in a New York courthouse has left many in disbelief. A kind of collective angst over the Trump prosecution has settled over New York City, where many deeply disdain him but seem unconvinced he will ever truly be held to account.During a recent stage performance of “Titanique,” the hit musical comedy and glitter-filled parody of the 1997 film about the doomed ship, Russell Daniels, the actor playing Rose’s mother, let out a kind of guttural scream. “It’s not fair that Trump hasn’t been arrested yet!” Mr. Daniels cried. Inside the Manhattan theater, the audience roared.In Harlem recently, the Rev. Al Sharpton held a prayer vigil for Mr. Bragg, who received threats after Mr. Trump used his social media platform to share a menacing photograph of himself with a baseball bat juxtaposed with a photo of the district attorney, in a clear hint of his violent mind-set.“We want God to cover him and protect him,” Mr. Sharpton said, referring to Mr. Bragg. “Whatever the decision may be, whether we like it or not, but he should not have to face this kind of threat, implied or explicit. Let us pray.”New Yorkers, weary and still recovering from the pandemic Mr. Trump badly mismanaged, are also now bracing themselves for the possibility of demonstrations by the former president’s supporters. In the hours after the indictment on March 29, N.Y.P.D. helicopters hovered over the courthouses of Lower Manhattan and officers set up barricades along largely empty streets. The Police Department ordered all roughly 36,000 uniformed members to report for duty amid bomb threats and the arrest of one Trump supporter with a knife.The inevitable spectacle began on Monday, when television helicopters tracked every inch of Mr. Trump’s motorcade from LaGuardia Airport to Manhattan, as if he were visiting royalty. The courthouse area downtown is expected be largely closed to traffic on Tuesday. All Supreme Court trials in the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building will be adjourned early. There are also police lines and TV trucks around Trump Tower, where the former president stayed on Monday night. Meanwhile, Republican groups and Trump supporters are planning or sponsoring rallies nearby, one of which will be addressed by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who will bring her destructive rhetoric up from Georgia.Of the four known criminal investigations Mr. Trump faces, the Manhattan case is seen by some legal experts as the least serious, in part because it may involve allegations of campaign finance violations before his presidency rather than attempts to abuse his office by overturning the results of an election or inciting supporters to effectively overthrow the United States government. Fair enough.Still, it’s a poetic irony that the former president will face his first criminal indictment in New York City, the town where he sought to burnish his “law and order” credentials. In 1989, Mr. Trump took out a notorious ad in several newspapers, including The New York Times, calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty when a group of Black and Latino teenagers were accused of the sexual assault of a jogger in Central Park. After serving prison sentences that varied from six to 13 years, the teens were exonerated.“What has happened to the respect for authority, the fear of retribution by the courts, society and the police for those who break the law, who wantonly trespass on the rights of others?” Mr. Trump wrote in the 1989 ad. “How can our great society tolerate the continued brutalization of its citizens by crazed misfits?”Over many years, New York has learned a painful lesson. Mr. Trump and his many misdeeds are best taken seriously.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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      For Some G.O.P. Voters, Fatigue Slows the Rush to Defend Trump

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      The Republicans who will pick their 2024 nominee expressed anger, defensiveness and also embarrassment about the indictment facing Donald J. Trump.Republican officials almost unanimously rallied around Donald J. Trump after his indictment, but the actual G.O.P. voters who will render a verdict on his political future next year weren’t nearly as solidly behind him.Some previous Trump voters said the indictment, the first ever of a former president, was the latest shattering of norms in a ledger already stuffed with chaos from the Trump years, and it was time for their party to move on in seeking a 2024 nominee.In Hawthorne, N.Y., Scott Gray, a land surveyor who voted for Mr. Trump in two elections, said he had wearied of him.“I think he did a lot of things right,” Mr. Gray said, then immediately darted in the other direction: “I think he’s completely unpresidential. I can’t believe he’s still running for office.”As an alternative, Mr. Gray said he was interested in “that guy down in Florida who’s governor — DeSantis.” (Ron DeSantis, who is expected to run but has not yet announced a campaign, is Mr. Trump’s closest rival for the G.O.P. nomination in recent polling of primary voters.)In conversations with Republican-leaning voters around the country, Mr. Trump’s indictment brought out much anger, occasional embarrassment and a swirl of contradictory reactions, not unlike every other twist in the yearslong high drama of Donald Trump.As expected, many rallied around the former president, calling the indictment by a Democratic prosecutor in New York a sham — a provocation they said would only cement their allegiance to Mr. Trump, who for years has encouraged supporters to see attacks on him as also attacks on them.Vendors selling Trump merchandise on Friday near the White House.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesBut for some the rush to defend was weighed down by scandal fatigue and a sense that Mr. Trump’s time has passed.Outside Wild Cherry Nail and Hair Studio in Port Richey, Fla., on Friday, Ilyse Internicola and Meghan Seltman, both Trump supporters, discussed the indictment during a smoke break.“How far are they going to go?” Ms. Internicola, a hair stylist in the salon, demanded.Ms. Seltman, a manicurist, said she would “always stay loyal” to Mr. Trump. “But for the presidency, I’d like to see DeSantis have his chance,” she said. “He’s done well with Florida, and I’d like to see what he does with the nation. Get it back to how it used to be.”Mr. Trump was charged by a grand jury on Thursday with more than two dozen counts, with an arraignment expected on Tuesday, when specific charges will be unsealed.The news of the day on Thursday in Times Square in Manhattan.Todd Heisler/The New York TimesPolling has shown a marked shift toward Mr. Trump among Republicans in recent months, primarily at Mr. DeSantis’s expense, which may partly reflect the highly anticipated indictment, on charges stemming from a $130,000 payment to a porn star on the eve of the 2016 election. Nearly two weeks ago, Mr. Trump incorrectly predicted the day of his arrest and called for protests, seeking to energize supporters. His provocations have included posting a picture of himself wielding a baseball bat beside a picture of the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.William Stelling, a real estate agent in Jacksonville, Fla., once kept his options open about the 2024 Republican primary. But the indictment goaded him to stand up for the former president.“I am dusting off my Trump flags and hanging them proudly,” Mr. Stelling said. “This proves to me that he’s the right candidate. Because they’re throwing the kitchen sink at him on a trumped-up charge that we all know is basically a misdemeanor at best.”Debbie Dooley, a staunch Trump loyalist who helped found the Atlanta Tea Party, went so far as to organize a demonstration for Mr. Trump during a DeSantis visit to suburban Atlanta on Thursday. She said the indictment bolstered her faith that he would win the presidency in his third campaign.“I’m going to go ahead and make reservations for a hotel in D.C. for the inauguration because Trump is going to be the next president of the United States,” she said. “The prosecutor’s not doing anything but helping him.”And Allan Terry, a Trump supporter in Charleston, S.C., who has Trump flags flying in his front and back yard, plans to add a new one to his truck, he said.“If he messed around, so what?” Mr. Terry said of the payment to the former porn star, Stormy Daniels, which prosecutors say underlies violations of campaign finance and business records laws. “It’s immoral. It’s wrong. He shouldn’t have done it. If he did, so what does that have to do with his presidency?”But not all previous Trump backers share such loyalty. In a Quinnipiac University poll released this week before the indictment, one in four Republicans and one in three independents said criminal charges should disqualify Mr. Trump as a presidential candidate.A Fox News poll of the potential Republican field this week showed Mr. Trump with 54 percent of support from primary voters, followed by Mr. DeSantis at 24 percent and others, including former Vice President Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador and South Carolina governor, in single digits.In Iowa, which will hold the first Republican nominating contest early next year, Gypsy Russ, who lives in Iowa City, said she once supported Mr. Trump but doubted he could win the party’s embrace yet again.“There’s not enough Republicans supporting him,” she said.Gypsy Russ, of Iowa City, who identifies as a moderate Republican, on Thursday evening.Rachel Mummey for The New York TimesMs. Russ said Mr. Trump had shown over and over that he is not presidential. “He’s just very rude,” she said. “And he doesn’t talk like a president is supposed to.” Although he has many fans, including her parents, she added, “He didn’t gain any more followers because of the way he carries himself.”Jim Alden, a Republican businessman from Franconia, N.H., who is no particular fan of Mr. Trump’s, nonetheless predicted that the indictment would strengthen his support because Republicans find the behavior underlying the charges to be inconsequential, and they believe politics were driving Mr. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, in his inquiry.“Unfortunately, it will embolden Trump’s core supporters because he has cultivated this persecution complex, and being indicted on what may be a questionably strong case is only going to strengthen the persecution complex,” said Mr. Alden.Outside Mar-a-Lago on Friday. Josh Ritchie for The New York TimesOne of those core supporters was Keith Marcus, who owns a wholesale beauty supply business in New York City.“I’m shocked and I’m upset,” he said. The indictment “is setting a really bad precedent for the future,” he added. “It’s just a witch hunt. The D.A. is a joke — a total joke.”But the indictment also seemed to have shaken at least some Trump voters’ willingness to back him in a bid for another four years in the White House.In Hawthorne, N.Y., a red island of Republican voters in the otherwise liberal northern suburbs of New York, Palmy Vocaturo said he twice voted for Mr. Trump, but his confidence in him has eroded in light of the criminal investigations, not just in Manhattan but in cases pursued by a Georgia prosecutor and a special counsel for the Justice Department.“I’m getting mixed feelings,” said Mr. Vocaturo, a retired construction worker. “If he is as bad as I think he is, go ahead and do something,” he said of the indictment.Jon Hurdle More

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      With Judicial Overhaul Paused, U.S. Softens Tone on Netanyahu

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      News that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be welcomed in Washington came a day after the Israeli leader delayed plans to limit the power of the courts and signaled a calmer atmosphere.In a sign of easing tensions in Israel after the suspension of a contentious judicial overhaul, the United States ambassador to Israel said on Tuesday that President Biden would host the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Washington in the coming months, but did not specify a date.The possibility of such a meeting, long coveted by Mr. Netanyahu, came after other shifts in tone overnight from the Biden administration, as Washington signaled its support for Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to delay the divisive judicial plan.But the news did not suggest a complete reset after weeks of fraught relations: The ambassador, Thomas R. Nides, said that no date had been fixed for any meeting, leaving open the possibility that it could be delayed if Mr. Netanyahu pushed ahead with the plan after a delay.The news was nevertheless one of several signs on Tuesday that emotions were calming across Israel after concerns over the judicial overhaul had set off civil unrest on a scale rarely seen in the country and had exacerbated tensions with the Biden administration.After Mr. Netanyahu’s reversal, the country’s leading union called off a general strike, hospitals resumed full services after reducing them in protest on Monday, and the main airport began to allow outbound flights again after putting them on hold a day earlier.But suspicion and disappointment on both sides remained. Protesters feared that the government would resume the overhaul after only a superficial delay, and some demonstrations were still scheduled for Tuesday. And some government supporters complained that their views and goals had been crushed despite right-wing parties’ winning a majority in an election last November.The comments from Mr. Nides came the morning after Mr. Netanyahu made a last-minute decision to delay the overhaul. Opponents to the government plan had begun a general strike that shut down large parts of the Israeli economy, shuttering universities and schools, stopping outgoing flights, and pausing nonurgent medical services.Protesters in Jerusalem rallying against the proposed judicial overhaul on Monday. Israel had been gripped by turmoil in recent days as mass demonstrations and strikes swept across the country.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York TimesThe Biden administration had avoided extending an invitation to Mr. Netanyahu in recent weeks as officials in Washington grew increasingly concerned about the pace of the judicial overhaul, its effect on Israeli social cohesion and its consequences for Israeli democracy — as well as about the Netanyahu government’s policies in the occupied West Bank.“There’s no question that the prime minister will come and see President Biden,” Mr. Nides said in an interview on Tuesday morning on Israeli radio.“He obviously will be coming,” Mr. Nides said, adding, “I assume after Passover.” The Jewish festival of Passover ends on April 13.Reached by phone, Mr. Nides said that no fixed date had been set for the visit. The Israeli prime minister’s office did not issue a response.Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to delay the judicial overhaul, days before its enactment, led to the postponement of several further protests this week. Opponents of the overhaul still fear he could reinstate it later in the year and say they will not hesitate to organize further demonstrations if he reverses course again. Opposition lawmakers accused the government of playing a double game by delaying the legislation while also taking procedural measures that would make it swifter to vote on the package in Parliament in the future. The coalition said that was simply a technical move.More generally among the opposition, there was a sense of relief.“This morning, we are allowed to rejoice a little,” Nadav Eyal, a columnist for Yedioth Ahronoth, a major centrist broadsheet, wrote on Tuesday morning. “Israeli democracy may die one day,” he added. “But it will not happen this week, nor this month, nor this spring.”Nonetheless, many in the opposition remain worried that the overhaul has been delayed but not scrapped entirely. There were also fears about Mr. Netanyahu’s promise to Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right minister for national security, that he would consider creating a national guard under Mr. Ben-Gvir’s control.Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right Israeli minister for national security, in Jerusalem on Monday night.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York TimesCritics warned that if Mr. Netanyahu followed through on that proposal, made after Mr. Ben-Gvir agreed to remain in the government despite the delay to the overhaul, it would effectively place a paramilitary body under the control of a man convicted of racist incitement and support for a terrorist group.In a statement, Mr. Ben-Gvir said that the body — which has yet to be created — would prevent rioting and “strengthen security and governance in the country.”There was also uncertainty about the future of Yoav Gallant, the defense minister fired by Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday night after Mr. Gallant called for a halt to the overhaul.Mr. Gallant’s dismissal has not formally taken effect, and Israeli commentators speculated that Mr. Netanyahu may yet allow him to keep his job.Among government supporters, there were feelings of uncertainty, disappointment and resentment at Mr. Netanyahu’s inability to push through the legislation, even though right-wing parties had won a majority in Parliament in the general election in November.“At school they told me that Israel is a democracy,” Evyatar Cohen, a commentator for Srugim, a right-wing news outlet, wrote. “They said that as soon as I reach the age of 18 I can go to the polls and influence the future of the country, its character and goals.”Government supporters organized small protests overnight, with some attacking journalists and an Arab taxi driver, and chanting against Arabs. Some formed a roadblock in northern Israel, stopping drivers from an area associated with the centrist opposition.Gabby Sobelman More

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      Trump ya no controla a su movimiento

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      El intercambio más revelador en el mitin de Donald Trump en Waco, Texas, el sábado, no vino del propio Trump. Ocurrió al principio, cuando Ted Nugent, una vieja estrella del rock, animaba a la multitud. “Quiero que me devuelvan mi dinero”, gritó. “No autoricé ningún dinero a Ucrania, a un tipo raro y homosexual”.Momentos después, en Real America’s Voice, un canal de televisión de extrema derecha, el excorresponsal de Fox News Ed Henry calificó de “asombrosas” las palabras de Nugent “sobre Zelenski” y sobre el financiamiento a Ucrania. Luego resumió la carrera hacia el fondo del movimiento trumpista en una frase sucinta: “Está canalizando el sentir de muchos estadounidenses”.En efecto. Y también todos los oradores del maratónico mitin de Trump. Uno tras otro, miraron a una multitud enardecida y adepta a las conspiraciones y consintieron, alimentaron y avivaron cada elemento de su furiosa visión del mundo. No vi a ningún verdadero líder en el escenario de Trump, ni siquiera al propio Trump. Vi una colección de seguidores, cada uno compitiendo por el afecto del verdadero poder en Waco, la turba populista adulada.Para entender la dinámica social y política de la derecha moderna, hay que comprender cómo es que millones de estadounidenses se inocularon contra la verdad. Durante las primarias republicanas de 2016 no faltaron líderes ni comentaristas republicanos dispuestos a poner en evidencia a Trump. John McCain y Mitt Romney, los dos candidatos presidenciales anteriores del partido, incluso dieron el extraordinario paso de condenar a su sucesor en términos inequívocos.Sin embargo, cada vez que Trump se enfrentaba a la oposición, él y sus aliados llamaban a los críticos “elitistas”, “noticias falsas”, “débiles” o “cobardes”. Era mucho más fácil decir que los detractores de Trump tenían el “síndrome de enajenación de Trump”, o que eran “simples títeres de la clase dominante”, que comprometerse con una crítica sustancial. Así comenzó la adulación a la mente populista (irónico para un movimiento que se deleitaba llamando “copos de nieve” —que no aguantan nada— a los estudiantes progresistas).El desacuerdo en la derecha se convirtió de inmediato en sinónimo de falta de respeto. Si “nosotros, el pueblo” (el término que los partidarios de Trump aplican a lo que ellos llaman el “Estados Unidos de verdad”) creemos algo, entonces el pueblo merece que sus políticos y expertos reflejen esa opinión.Lo vemos en los documentos internos de Fox News que salieron a la luz en el litigio por difamación de Dominion, en el que Dominion Voting Systems demandó a Fox News por difundir afirmaciones falsas sobre las máquinas de votación después de las elecciones de 2020. En repetidas ocasiones, los líderes y personalidades de Fox que no parecían creer que las elecciones de 2020 fueron robadas se refirieron a la necesidad de “respetar” a su audiencia al decirles lo contrario. Para estos empleados de Fox, respetar a la audiencia no significaba transmitir la verdad (un verdadero acto de respeto). Por el contrario, significaba alimentar el hambre insaciable de los espectadores por confirmar sus teorías conspirativas.Fui testigo directo de este fenómeno al principio de la era Trump. Conversaba con un pequeño grupo de pastores evangélicos sobre cómo los evangélicos blancos ya no valoraban la buena reputación de los políticos. En comparación con otros grupos cristianos y estadounidenses no afiliados, los evangélicos blancos pasaron de ser el grupo menos propenso en 2011 a creer que “un funcionario electo que comete un acto inmoral en su vida personal puede, a pesar de ello, comportarse con ética y cumplir su deber” al grupo más propenso a excusar a los políticos inmorales en 2016, según una encuesta del Public Religion Research Institute/Bookings Institution.En esa conversación hablé de la Resolución de la Convención Bautista del Sur de 1998 sobre la moralidad de los funcionarios públicos. Aprobada durante el punto álgido del escándalo en torno a la aventura de Bill Clinton con Monica Lewinsky, declaraba un compromiso cristiano con la integridad política en términos inequívocos. “La tolerancia de las faltas graves por parte de los líderes”, decía, “cauteriza la conciencia de la cultura, engendra inmoralidad desenfrenada y anarquía en la sociedad, y sin duda resulta en el juicio de Dios”.Cuando le recordé esas palabras al grupo, un pastor de Alabama planteó una objeción: “Eso les va a parecer elitista a muchos miembros de mi congregación”. Yo estaba confundido. Un pastor bautista me estaba diciendo que a su congregación le parecería “elitista” una declaración reciente de creencia bautista. Quedó claro que muchos bautistas creían en su propia resolución cuando se refería a Clinton, pero no cuando se refería a Trump.Los políticos siempre tienen la tentación de ser complacientes, pero rara vez se ve una abdicación tan completa de cualquier cosa que se acerque a un verdadero liderazgo moral o político como lo que ocurrió en el mitin de Waco. Comenzó con esa ridícula e irrelevante declaración sobre Volodímir Zelenski (¿qué tiene que ver su orientación sexual con la rectitud de la causa ucraniana?); continuó con Mike Lindell, de MyPillow, quien repitió aseveraciones electorales totalmente falsas y terminó con un airado, aunque repetitivo, discurso de Trump, también plagado de falsedades.Y si se piensa por un momento que hay algún arrepentimiento en el mundo de Trump por la insurrección del 6 de enero de 2021, el mitin ofreció una respuesta contundente. Antes de su discurso, Trump se puso de pie —con la mano sobre el corazón— mientras escuchaba una canción llamada “Justicia para todos”, que grabó con algo llamado el “Coro de la Prisión J6”, un grupo de hombres encarcelados por asaltar el Capitolio. La canción consiste en que el coro canta el himno nacional mientras Trump recita el juramento a la bandera.Es habitual criticar el movimiento trumpista como un culto a Donald Trump, pero eso ya no es del todo correcto. Sigue teniendo una influencia enorme, pero ¿acaso los verdaderos sectarios abuchean a su líder cuando se desvía del guion aprobado? Sin embargo, eso es lo que ocurrió en diciembre de 2021, pues una parte de la multitud de un mitin en Dallas abucheó a Trump cuando dijo que se había puesto un refuerzo de la vacuna contra la covid. ¿Y alguien cree que Trump es aficionado a QAnon? Sin embargo, en 2022 impulsó contenido explícito de Q en Truth Social, su plataforma de redes sociales preferida.Quizá haya habido un momento en el que Trump de verdad dirigiera su movimiento. Ese tiempo ya pasó. Ahora es su movimiento el que manda. Alimentado por teorías de la conspiración, está hambriento de confrontación, y mítines como el de Waco demuestran su dominio. Como el pirata que se planta frente al personaje de Tom Hanks en la popular película de 2013 Capitán Phillips, la derecha populista se planta frente al Partido Republicano, los medios conservadores e incluso los republicanos de base reticentes y lanza un único y sencillo mensaje: “Ahora yo soy el capitán”.David French es columnista de opinión del New York Times. Es abogado, escritor y veterano de la Operación Libertad Iraquí. Es un exlitigante constitucional y su libro más reciente es Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. @DavidAFrench More