Demonstrations, Protests and Riots

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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

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      At the Waco Rally and Beyond, Trump’s Movement Now Commands Him

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      The most telling exchange in Donald Trump’s Waco, Texas, rally on Saturday didn’t come from Trump himself. It came at the beginning, when the aging rock star Ted Nugent was warming up the crowd. “I want my money back,” he yelled. “I didn’t authorize any money to Ukraine, to some homosexual weirdo.”Moments later, speaking on Real America’s Voice, a far-right television channel, the former Fox News correspondent Ed Henry called Nugent’s words “about Zelensky” and about funding for Ukraine, “amazing.” He then summed up the Trumpist movement’s race to the bottom in one succinct line: “He is channeling what a lot of Americans feel.”Yes, he is. And so did virtually every speaker at Trump’s marathon rally. One after another, they looked at a seething, conspiracy-addled crowd and indulged, fed, and stoked every element of their furious worldview. I didn’t see a single true leader on Trump’s stage, not even Trump himself. I saw a collection of followers, each vying for the affection of the real power in Waco, the coddled populist mob.To understand the social and political dynamic on the modern right, you have to understand how millions of Americans became inoculated against the truth. Throughout the 2016 Republican primaries, there was no shortage of Republican leaders and commentators who were willing to call out Trump. John McCain and Mitt Romney, the party’s two previous presidential nominees, even took the extraordinary step of condemning their successor in no uncertain terms.Yet every time Trump faced pushback, he and his allies called critics “elitist” or “fake news” or “weak” or “cowards.” It was much easier to say the Trump skeptics had “Trump derangement syndrome,” or were “just establishment stooges,” than to engage with substantive critique. Thus began the coddling of the populist mind (ironic for a movement that delighted in calling progressive students “snowflakes”).Disagreement on the right quickly came to be seen as synonymous with disrespect. If “we the people” (the term Trump partisans apply to what they call the “real America”) believe something, then the people deserve to have that view reflected right back to them by their politicians and pundits.We see this in the internal Fox News documents that surfaced in the Dominion defamation litigation, in which Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for broadcasting false claims about its voting machines after the 2020 election. Repeatedly, Fox leaders and personalities who did not seem to believe the 2020 election was stolen referred to the need to “respect” their audience by telling them otherwise. For these Fox staffers, respecting the audience didn’t mean relaying the truth (a true act of respect). Instead, it meant feeding viewers’ insatiable hunger for confirmation of their conspiracy theories.I saw this phenomenon firsthand early in the Trump era. I was speaking to a small group of Evangelical pastors about how white Evangelicals no longer valued good character in politicians. Compared to other Christian groups and unaffiliated Americans, white Evangelicals went from the group least likely to believe that “an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties” in 2011 to the group most likely to excuse immoral politicians in 2016.In that conversation I discussed the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention Resolution On Moral Character Of Public Officials. Passed during the height of the scandal around Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, it declared a Christian commitment to political integrity in no uncertain terms. “Tolerance of serious wrong by leaders,” it said, “sears the conscience of the culture, spawns unrestrained immorality and lawlessness in the society, and surely results in God’s judgment.”When I reminded the group of that language, a pastor from Alabama raised an objection. “That’s going to sound elitist to lots of folks in my congregation,” he said. I was confused. Here was a Baptist pastor telling me that his congregation would find a recent statement of Baptist belief “elitist.” It became clear that many Baptists believed their own resolution when it applied to Clinton, but not when it applied to Trump.Politicians are always tempted to pander, but rarely do you see such a complete abdication of anything approaching true moral or political leadership as what transpired at the Waco rally. It began with that ridiculous and irrelevant statement about Zelensky (what does his sexual orientation have to do with the rightness of Ukraine’s cause?); continued with MyPillow’s Mike Lindell repeating wildly false election claims; and ended with an angry, albeit boilerplate Trump stump speech that was also littered with falsehoods.And if you think for a moment that there’s any Trumpworld regret over the Jan. 6 insurrection, the rally provided a decisive response. At the beginning of Trump’s speech, he stood — hand over his heart — while he listened to a song called “Justice for All,” which he recorded with something called the “J6 Prison Choir,” a group of men imprisoned for storming the Capitol. The song consists of the choir singing the national anthem while Trump recites the Pledge of Allegiance.It’s common to critique the Trumpist movement as a Donald Trump cult, but that’s not quite right anymore. He’s still immensely influential, but do true cultists boo their leader when he deviates from the approved script? Yet that’s what happened in December 2021, when parts of a Dallas rally crowd booed Trump when he said he’d received a Covid vaccine booster. And does anyone think that Trump is a QAnon aficionado? Yet in 2022 he boosted explicit Q content on Truth Social, his social media platform of choice.There may have been a time when Trump truly commanded his movement. That time is past. His movement now commands him. Fed by conspiracies, it is hungry for confrontation, and rallies like Waco demonstrate its dominance. Like the pirate standing in front of Tom Hanks in the popular 2013 film “Captain Phillips,” the populist right stands in front of the G.O.P., conservative media, and even reluctant rank-and-file Republicans and delivers a single, simple message: “I’m the captain now.”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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      Macron Appears Ready to Tough Out France’s Pension Crisis

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      Amid protests in the streets and in Parliament, the French leader shows no sign of scrapping a law that raises the retirement age.PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron’s re-election program last year was short on detail. His mind seemed elsewhere, chiefly on the war in Ukraine. But on one thing he was clear: He would raise the retirement age in France to 65 from 62.“You will have to work progressively more,” he said during a debate in April 2022 with the extreme-right candidate, Marine Le Pen. She attacked the idea as “an absolutely unbearable injustice” that would condemn French people to retirement “when they are no longer able to enjoy it.”France heard both candidates. Soon after, Mr. Macron was re-elected with 58.55 percent of the vote to Ms. Le Pen’s 41.45 percent. It was a clear victory, and it was clear what Mr. Macron would do on the question of pensions.Yet his ramming the overhaul through Parliament last week without a full vote on the bill itself culminated in turmoil, mayhem on the streets and two failed no-confidence votes against his government on Monday, even as polls have consistently shown about 65 percent of French people are opposed to raising the retirement age.Had they not heard him? Had they changed their minds? Had circumstances changed? Perhaps the answer lies, above all, in the nature of Mr. Macron’s victory, as he himself acknowledged on election night last year.Looking somber, speaking in an uncharacteristically flat monotone, Mr. Macron told a crowd of supporters in Paris: “I also know that a number of our compatriots voted for me today not to support the ideas that I uphold, but to block the extreme right. I want to thank them and say that I am aware that I have obligations toward them in the years to come.”“Those ‘obligations’ could only be a promise to negotiate on major reforms,” Nicole Bacharan, a social scientist, said on Tuesday. “He did not negotiate, even with moderate union leaders. What I see now is Macron’s complete disconnection from the country.”Marine Le Pen, center, of the far-right National Rally party, says the pension plan would condemn French people to retirement “when they are no longer able to enjoy it.”Thomas Samson/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOpposition parties on both the left and the right have vowed to file challenges against the pension law before the Constitutional Council, which reviews legislation to ensure it complies with the French Constitution.“The goal,” said Thomas Ménagé of Ms. Le Pen’s National Rally party, “is to ensure that this text falls into the dustbin of history.”But the chances of that appear remote.After a long silence, Mr. Macron is set to address the turmoil on Wednesday. He will try to conciliate; he will, according to officials close to him, portray the current standoff as a battle between democratic institutions and the chaos of the street, orchestrated by the extreme left and slyly encouraged by the extreme right. He has decided to stick with his current government, led by Élisabeth Borne, the prime minister, and he will not dissolve Parliament or call new elections, they say.In short, it seems Mr. Macron has decided to tough out the crisis, perhaps offering some blandishments on improving vocational high schools and broader on-the-job training. But certainly no apology appears to be forthcoming for using a legal tool, Article 49.3 of the Constitution, to avoid a full parliamentary vote on a change that has split the country. (Only the Senate, the upper house, voted to pass the bill this month.)This approach appears consistent with Mr. Macron’s chosen tactics on the pension overhaul. Since the debate with Ms. Le Pen 11 months ago, inflation has risen, energy prices have gone up, and the pressures, particularly on the poorer sectors of French society, have grown.French lawmakers held up protest placards after the result of the first no-confidence motion against the French government at the National Assembly on Monday.Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersYet, while he has made some concessions, including setting the new retirement age at 64 rather than 65, Mr. Macron has remained remote from the rolling anger. Most conspicuously, and to many inexplicably, after the government consulted extensively with unions in the run-up to January, Mr. Macron has refused to negotiate with the powerful moderate union leader Laurent Berger, who had supported Mr. Macron’s earlier attempt at pension changes in 2019 but opposes him now.“Macron knows the economy better than he knows political psychology,” said Alain Duhamel, a political scientist. “And today, what you have is a generalized fury.”A large number of Macron voters, it is now clear, never wanted the retirement age raised. They heard Mr. Macron during the debate with Ms. Le Pen. They just did not loathe his idea enough to vote for a nationalist, anti-immigrant ideologue whose party was financed in part by Russian loans.Mr. Macron is adept at playing on such contradictions and divisions. Because his presidential term is limited, he is freer to do as he pleases. He knows three things: He will not be a candidate for re-election in 2027 because a third consecutive term is not permitted; the opposition in Parliament is strong but irreconcilably divided between the far left and extreme right; and there is a large, silent slice of French society that supports his pension overhaul.All this gives him room to maneuver even in his current difficult situation.When Mr. Macron opted last week for the 49.3 and the avoidance of a parliamentary vote, he explained his decision this way: “I consider that in the current state of affairs the financial and economic risks are too great.”Protesters in Nantes, in western France, on Tuesday.Loic Venance/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOn the face of it, speaking about risks to financial markets while pushing through an overhaul deeply resented by blue-collar and working-class French people seemed politically gauche. It appeared especially so at a moment when Mr. Macron was turning away from the full parliamentary vote his government had unanimously said it wanted.“Saying what he said about finance at that moment, in that context, was just dynamite,” said Ms. Bacharan.It was also an unmistakable wink to the powerful French private sector — with its world-class companies like LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton — and to the many affluent and middle-class French people who do not like the growing piles of uncollected garbage or the protests in the streets, and who view retirement at 62 as an unsustainable anomaly in a Europe where the retirement age has generally risen to 65 or higher.If Mr. Macron has cards to play, and perhaps broader support than is evident as protesters hurl insults at him day after day, his very disconnection may make it hard for him to judge the country’s mood.Last week, Aurore Bergé, the leader of Mr. Macron’s Renaissance party in Parliament, wrote to Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, to request police protection for lawmakers.“I refuse to see representatives from my group, or any national lawmaker, afraid to express themselves, or to vote freely, because they are afraid of reprisals,” she said.It was a measure of the violent mood in France.“If we have had 15 Constitutions over the past two centuries, that means there have been 14 revolutions of various kinds,” Mr. Duhamel said. “There is an eruptive side to France that one should not ignore.”The National Assembly in Paris. Opposition parties on the left and the right have vowed to file challenges against the pension law. Joel Saget/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAurelien Breeden More

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      Trump Says He Will Be Arrested on Tuesday as Indictment Looms

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      His indictment by a Manhattan grand jury is expected, but its timing is unclear.With former President Donald J. Trump facing indictment by a Manhattan grand jury but the timing of the charges uncertain, he declared on his social media site on Saturday that he would be arrested on Tuesday and demanded that his supporters protest on his behalf.Mr. Trump made the declaration on his site, Truth Social, at 7:26. a.m., in a post that ended with, “THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE AND FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!”Two hours later, a spokesman issued a statement clarifying that Mr. Trump had not written his post with direct knowledge of the timing of any arrest.“President Trump is rightfully highlighting his innocence and the weaponization of our injustice system,” the statement said.The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment.Although prosecutors working for the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, have signaled that an indictment of Mr. Trump could be imminent, they have not told Mr. Trump’s lawyers when charges would be sought or when an arrest would be made, people with knowledge of the matter said. At least one more witness is expected to testify in front of the grand jury, which could slightly delay any indictment, the people said.And one of the people said that even if the grand jury were to vote to indict the former president on Monday, a Tuesday surrender was unlikely given the need to arrange timing, travel and other logistics.The statement from Mr. Trump’s spokesman did not explain how he landed on Tuesday as the arrest date, but one of the people with knowledge of the matter said that his advisers’ best guess was that it could happen around then, and that someone may have relayed that to the former president.Mr. Trump, who faced his first criminal investigation in the late 1970s, has been deeply anxious about the prospect of arrest, which is expected to include being fingerprinted, one of the people said. When the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, was arrested in 2021, Mr. Trump watched in horror as television news showed Mr. Weisselberg flanked by officers in the courthouse and said he couldn’t believe what was being done to him.Mr. Trump’s post urging his supporters to “PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!” carried unmistakable echoes of the incendiary messages he posted online in the weeks before the attack on the U.S. Capitol. In the most notorious of those messages, he announced on Twitter that he would hold a rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. “Be there,” he told his millions of followers. “Will be wild.”At that rally, at the Ellipse near the White House, Mr. Trump told supporters to march to the Capitol, where the certification of the 2020 presidential election was taking place. He is under investigation by federal prosecutors for his activities in the lead-up to the attack.Investigators later determined that far-right extremist groups as well as ordinary Trump supporters had read that tweet — posted on Dec. 19, 2020 — as a clear-cut invitation and almost immediately sprung into action, acquiring protective gear, setting up encrypted communications channels and, in one case, preparing heavily armed “quick reaction forces” to be staged outside of Washington for the event.Leaders of groups like the Proud Boys and the Three Percenter militia movement also started to whip up their members with bellicose language as their private messaging channels were increasingly filled with plans to rush to Mr. Trump’s aid.On Friday evening, Mr. Trump’s campaign announced what could be his first rally after an indictment: an event in Waco, Texas, where deadly clashes between federal officials and extremists occurred 30 years ago around this time..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.New York officials have been discussing security arrangements in and around the Manhattan Criminal Court in case of an indictment of Mr. Trump, according to people with knowledge of the planning, which was first reported by NBC News. He is expected to be charged in connection with a hush money payment his former fixer and lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, made to an adult-film actress who claimed to have had an affair with Mr. Trump.Mr. Cohen made the $130,000 payment to the actress, Stormy Daniels, to bury her story of the affair.The payment came in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, and Mr. Trump subsequently reimbursed Mr. Cohen. Prosecutors are expected to accuse Mr. Trump of overseeing the false recording of the reimbursements in his company’s internal records. The records falsely stated that the payments to Mr. Cohen were for “legal expenses.”There have been several signals that charges may be imminent: The prosecutors gave Mr. Trump an opportunity to testify, a right afforded to people who will soon face indictment, and have questioned nearly every major player in the hush money saga in front of the grand jury.Mr. Trump has denied all wrongdoing, as well as having had an affair with Ms. Daniels.Early on Saturday morning, there was little evidence that Mr. Trump’s new demand for protests had been embraced by extremist groups.But Ali Alexander, a prominent organizer of the “Stop the Steal” rallies following the 2020 election, reposted a message on his Telegram channel on Saturday suggesting that he supported a mass protest to protect Mr. Trump.“Previously, I had said if Trump was arrested or under the threat of a perp walk, 100,000 patriots should shut down all routes to Mar-a-Lago,” Mr. Alexander wrote. “Now I’m retired. I’ll pray for him though!”Without the platform provided by the White House or the machinery of a large political campaign, it is unclear how many people Mr. Trump is able to reach, let alone mobilize, via Truth Social.And it remained unclear if he would repeat his call for action or increase the stakes with more aggressive language. But his political allies made plain this week that they were preparing for a political war on Mr. Bragg.For months Mr. Trump has been attacking Mr. Bragg, who is Black, as “racist.” Mr. Bragg won a conviction for tax fraud against the Trump Organization last year, though he did not charge Mr. Trump personally.Some of Mr. Trump’s supporters responded of their own accord with violence after F.B.I. agents, acting on a search warrant, descended on Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, in August and carted away boxes of documents in an investigation into the former president’s handling of classified material.Days after the search, an armed Ohio man who had posted online about his outrage over what happened at Mar-a-Lago tried to breach the F.B.I.’s field office outside Cincinnati. He was later killed in a standoff with local officers.The unexpected Saturday morning salvo from the former president provided a preview of the kind of chaos that Mr. Bragg is likely to face if he moves forward with an indictment in the near future.Mr. Bragg, a former federal prosecutor and deputy New York attorney general, has some history of prosecuting public officials. But he is unaccustomed to dealing with a figure as high-profile, erratic and pugilistic as the former president, and it is unclear how his office will deal with future outbursts from Mr. Trump. More

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      Macron Faces an Angry France Alone

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      President Emmanuel Macron saw his decision to push through a change in the retirement age as necessary, but the price may be high.PARIS — “We have a president who makes use of a permanent coup d’état.” That was the verdict of Olivier Faure, the leader of the French Socialist Party, after President Emmanuel Macron rammed through a bill raising the retirement age in France to 64 from 62 without a full parliamentary vote this past week.In fact, Mr. Macron’s use of the “nuclear option,” as the France 24 TV network described it, was entirely legal under the French Constitution, crafted in 1958 for Charles de Gaulle and reflecting the general’s strong view that power should be centered in the president’s office, not among feuding lawmakers.But legality is one thing and legitimacy another. Mr. Macron may see his decision as necessary to cement his legacy as the leader who left France prepared to face the rest of the 21st century. But to many French people it looked like presidential diktat, a blot on his reputation and a blow to French democracy.Parliament has responded with two motions of no confidence in Mr. Macron’s government. They are unlikely to be upheld when the lawmakers vote on them next week because of political divisions in the opposition, but are the expression of a deep anger.Six years into his presidency, surrounded by brilliant technocrats, Mr. Macron cuts a lonely figure, his lofty silence conspicuous at this moment of turmoil.“He has managed to antagonize everyone by occupying the whole of the center,” said Jacques Rupnik, a political scientist. “Macron’s attitude seems to be: After me, the deluge.”This isolation was evident as two months of protests and strikes that left Paris strewn with garbage culminated on Thursday in the sudden panic of a government that had believed the pension vote was a slam dunk. Suddenly, the emperor’s doubts were exposed.Mr. Macron thought he could count on the center-right Republicans to vote for his plan in the National Assembly, Parliament’s lower house. Two of the most powerful members of his government — Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin — came from that party. The Republicans had advocated retirement even later, at 65.Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, bottom left, with lawmakers at the National Assembly on Thursday. If the government falls in a no-confidence vote, she will no longer be prime minister.Alain Jocard/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesYet out of some mixture of political calculation in light of the waves of protest and spite toward the man who had undermined their party by building a new movement of the center, they began to desert Mr. Macron.Having his retirement overhaul fail was one risk that even Macron the risk taker could not take. He opted for a measure, known as the 49.3 after the relevant article of the Constitution, that allows certain bills to be passed without a vote. France’s retirement age will rise to 64, more in line with its European partners, unless the no-confidence motion passes.But what would have looked like a defining victory for Mr. Macron, even if the parliamentary vote in favor had been narrow, now looks like a Pyrrhic victory.Four more years in power stretch ahead of Mr. Macron, with “Mr. 49.3” stamped on his forehead. He made the French dream when he was elected at age 39 in 2017; how he can do so again is unclear.“The idea that we are not in a democracy has grown. It’s out there all the time on social media, part conspiracy theory, part expression of a deep anxiety,” said Nicolas Tenzer, an author who teaches political science at Sciences Po university. “And, of course, what Macron just did feeds that.”The government’s spokesman is Olivier Véran, who is also minister delegate for democratic renewal. There is a reason for that august title: a widespread belief that over the six years of the Macron presidency, French democracy has eroded.After the Yellow Vest protest movement erupted in 2018 over an increase in gas prices but also an elitism that Mr. Macron seemed to personify, the president went on a “listening tour.” It was an attempt to get closer to working people of whom he had seemed dismissive.Now, almost one year into his second term, that outreach seems distant. Mr. Macron scarcely laid the groundwork for his pension measure even though he knew well that it would touch a deep French nerve at a time of economic hardship. His push for later retirement was top-down, expedited at every turn and, in the end, ruthless.Outside the National Assembly, French Parliament’s lower house, on Friday. Mr. Macron thought he could count on center-right Republicans there to vote for his plan, but they began to desert him.Geoffroy Van Der Hasselt/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe case for the overhaul was strong. It was not only to Mr. Macron that retirement at 62 looked untenable as lives grew longer. The math, over the longer term at least, simply does not add up in a system where the ratio of active workers to the retirees they are supporting through their payroll taxes keeps dropping.But in an anxious France, with many people struggling to pay their bills and unsure of their futures, Mr. Macron could not make the argument. In fact, he hardly seemed to try.Of course, the French attitude to a mighty presidency is notoriously ambiguous. On the one hand, the near-monarchical office seems to satisfy some French yearning for an all-powerful state — it was a French king, Louis XIV, who is said to have declared that the state was none other than himself. On the other, the presidency is resented for the extent of its authority.Mr. Macron seemed to capture this when he told his cabinet on Thursday, “Among you, I am not the one who risks his place or his seat.” If the government does fall in a vote of censure, Élisabeth Borne will no longer be prime minister, but Mr. Macron will still be president until 2027.“A permanent coup d’état,” Mr. Faure’s phrase, was also the title of a book that François Mitterrand wrote to describe the presidency of de Gaulle. That was before Mr. Mitterrand became president himself and in time came to enjoy all the pomp and power of his office. Mr. Macron has proved no more impervious to the temptations of the presidency than his predecessors.Protesters at a train station in Bordeaux, France, on Friday. Demonstrations and strikes over the pension bill have gone on for two months and continued after Mr. Macron’s decision to avoid a full vote.Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut times change, social hierarchies fall, and Mr. Macron’s exercise of his authority has stirred a strong resentment in a flatter French society at a moment of war-induced tension in Europe.“There is a rejection of the person,” Mr. Tenzer said. The daily newspaper Le Monde noted in an editorial that Mr. Macron ran the risk of “fostering a persistent bitterness, or even igniting sparks of violence.”In a way, Mr. Macron is the victim of his own remarkable success. Such are his political gifts that he has been elected to two terms in office — no French president had done this in two decades — and effectively destroyed the two political pillars of postwar France: the Socialist Party and the Gaullists.So he is resented by the center left and center right, even as he is loathed by the far left and the far right.Now in his final term, he must walk a lonely road. He has no obvious successor, and his Renaissance party is little more than a vehicle for his talents. This is the “deluge” of which Mr. Rupnik spoke: a vast political void looming in 2027.If Marine Le Pen of the far right is not to fill it, Mr. Macron the reformist must deliver the resilient, vibrant France for which he believes his much-contested reform was an essential foundation.A protester shot a firework at police officers in Paris on Friday.Julien De Rosa/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAurelien Breeden More

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      What’s Next for Opponents of Macron’s Retirement Plan?

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      Angry protesters lit small fires and clashed with police clad in riot gear at the Place de la Concorde in central Paris on Thursday after President Emmanuel Macron pushed his pension reform bill through Parliament without a vote.Several thousand people had spontaneously gathered there earlier in the day, after the government’s decision was announced, to demonstrate across the Seine River from the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament.While the gathering was mostly peaceful throughout the afternoon, the situation took a more violent turn as night fell over the French capital and the police moved in to clear out the Place de la Concorde, a major square in Paris with a famed obelisk in the middle, not far from luxury hotels, the Tuileries gardens and the U.S. Embassy.Protesters with covered faces threw cobblestones torn from the pavement at the police, who responded with tear gas and water cannons as they slowly pushed the diminishing crowds into surrounding streets. Some protesters set fire to wood construction fencing and heaps of trash, which has gone uncollected in many parts of Paris over the past week because of an ongoing strike by garbage workers.Protesters with covered faces throwing objects at the police on Place de la Concorde in Paris, on Thursday.Alain Jocard/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFrench police officers responding to clashes that erupted at Place de la Concorde.Yoan Valat/EPA, via ShutterstockThe scene at the Place de la Concorde earlier in the day was much more jovial, but also seemed to embody how fuzzy the next stage of the battle may be for opponents of President Emmanuel Macron’s pension overhaul.Thousands of protesters, along with some leftist legislators, gathered on the plaza, in the center of a giant traffic circle in the heart of the French capital. But the crowd was disorganized: Some people tried to generate momentum for a march on the nearby National Assembly, to no avail, while others chanted slogans or just stood by.Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the prominent leftist politician, arrived and then quickly disappeared.Hours after Mr. Macron’s decision to push through his plan to raise the retirement age without putting it to a vote in the National Assembly, many in the crowd expressed anger and vowed to continue fighting a measure that they say erodes a cherished part of France’s social safety net.“We will do spontaneous protests across France,” said Isabelle Mollaret, 47, a children’s librarian who held a sign that read, “Macron, you aren’t the boss. We will fight him!”Catherine Porter/The New York TimesThe protest on the Place de la Concorde already has all the hallmarks of a French demonstration. Union flags and balloons are up. Loudspeakers are blaring music. And, yes, a union truck is selling jambon-beurre sandwiches.Constant Meheut/The New York TimesUnion leaders said earlier on Thursday that they would soon call for more demonstrations, trying to extend what have already been eight nationwide mobilizations against the pension plan in the last two months.With an absence of clear organization, it was unclear whether the protests would grow into the kind of unbridled social unrest that France has sometimes experienced — such as the Yellow Vest movement in 2018 and 2019 — or would fizzle.But anger among opponents of the pension plan was growing. In the plaza, where union flags and balloons flew and music blared from loudspeakers, many people said they were committed to continue protesting against the plan — and against a government they see as having shown contempt for them.“We will do spontaneous protests across France,” said Isabelle Mollaret, 47, a children’s librarian who held a sign that read, “Macron, you aren’t the boss.” She added, “We will fight him!”Students protesting against the government’s plan to raise the retirement age to 64, in Paris, on Thursday.Lewis Joly/Associated PressA group of students chanted against Mr. Macron, calling him “president of the business bosses.” If students become deeply involved in the protest movement, that could be a bad sign for Mr. Macron’s government. In 2006, widespread student protests against a law introducing a youth jobs contract forced the government to backtrack and repeal the law — exactly what protesters are aiming for now.Still, the feeling on the plaza was one of a festival, not an angry protest. A woman handed out chocolate. Students sang. A group of women from Attac, a French anti-globalization movement, known as the Rosies, changed the lyrics of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” to reflect an anti-Macron sentiment and led the crowd in a choreographed dance.“We are relieved because we know the fight will continue,” said Lou Chesne, 36, an energy-efficiency researcher and one of the dancers.He noted that the government hadn’t been able to collect enough votes in the Legislative Assembly to pass their law, and instead had to shoehorn it through with a special constitutional tool.“They are isolated,” Mr. Chesne said. More

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      Dutch Pro-Farmer Party Sweeps Elections, Upsetting the Status Quo

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      The surprise victory is widely seen as a protest vote against Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s government and some of his policies, including a goal to slash nitrogen emissions, which many say will imperil farming operations.A small pro-farmers party has swept provincial elections in the Netherlands to become the biggest in the Senate by channeling wide dissatisfaction with the Dutch government, in a sharp challenge to Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s administration.The results put the party, the Farmer Citizen Movement, which has fewer than 11,000 members, according to its website, on track to become a major player in a government body that approves or rejects legislation that comes out of the House of Representatives.Some Dutch voters said they viewed the party’s success as a victory against the country’s elites as well as the government. They said it showed support for the preservation of rural life in the Netherlands and the farming economy, in particular, though voters from all parts of the country, including suburban areas, supported the party.But the victory could make it difficult for Mr. Rutte’s government to pass a strict law to cut nitrogen emissions in the Netherlands by 50 percent by 2030, to fight climate change and place it in line with European Union requirements to preserve nature reserves. The prime minister’s party, which does not have a majority in the Senate or the House, needs a coalition vote to pass laws.The pro-farmers party, known by its Dutch acronym BBB, opposes the plan, saying it could imperil farmers’ operations in a country renowned for its agricultural industry. To reach the government’s emission-reduction goals, thousands of farmers would have to significantly reduce the number of their livestock and the size of their operations, farmers and their supporters say. If they cannot help meet the government’s target, they may have to close down their operations altogether, they say.Mr. Rutte, who is not up for election for a few more years and is one of Europe’s longest-serving leaders, having been elected in 2010, called the results a “scream at politics,” according to the Dutch wire service ANP.Caroline van der Plas, the co-founder and leader of BBB, said after the vote: “They already couldn’t ignore us. But now, they definitely can’t.”Ben Apeldoorn, a dairy farmer in the Utrecht Province who voted for the pro-farmers party, said the win felt like “a victory of the common man over the elite.”“I’m pleasantly surprised,” he said. “As farmers, we felt abandoned by the political society.”The Farmer Citizen Movement did not exist until four years ago. The party, which had zero seats going into the election, won at least 16 in the 75-seat Senate, according to exit polls and projections. A bloc formed by left-of-center Labor and Green parties had 15 seats, local news reports said. (BBB holds one seat in the 150-member House of Representatives.)Now, BBB, which presents itself as a party of the countryside, appears to be on track to become the largest party in all but one province, according to the Dutch public broadcaster NOS. Vote counting was still wrapping up late Thursday night.Prime Minister Mark Rutte in Den Bosch, the Netherlands, on Wednesday, called the election results a “scream at politics.”Robin Van Lonkhuijsen/EPA, via ShutterstockIn Dutch provincial elections, held every four years, voters choose the lawmakers for the country’s 12 provinces, who then pick members of the Senate, which will be done in May. With BBB’s victory, the fate of the government’s plan to drastically cut nitrogen emissions is in question.Bart Kemp, the chairman of Agractie, a farmers interest group founded in 2019, says the party’s victory means “the Netherlands has taken a big step toward being more reasonable.” He added, “The government has unrealistic plans.”Research from 2019 shows that the Netherlands produces, on average, four times as much nitrogen as other European countries. The agricultural industry is responsible for the largest share of nitrogen emissions in the country, much of it from the waste produced by the estimated 1.6 million cows that provide the milk used to make the country’s famed cheeses, like Gouda and Edam.Scientists have long sounded the alarm about the urgent global need to reduce harmful emissions. Too much nitrogen acidifies the ground, which reduces the amount of nutrients for plants and trees. That, in turn, means that fewer kinds of plants can grow together. Nitrogen emissions also cause less fungus in the ground, which makes it more vulnerable to extreme weather such as drought or rain.Excess nitrogen in the ocean can also help create conditions in which vital organisms cannot survive.The nitrogen-reduction plan led to nationwide protests last year, with people burning manure and hay bales and hanging upside-down flags along highways.Police officers used a water cannon on environmental activists protesting against tax breaks for fossil fuel use in The Hague this month.Piroschka Van De Wouw/ReutersChristianne van der Wal, the minister for nature and nitrogen in Mr. Rutte’s government and a member of his People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, acknowledged that many Dutch residents were against the government’s nitrogen emissions plan.“We’ve known that for a long time,” she said, calling it a complicated issue that would have a major effect on people’s lives. But, she added, “at the same time, there’s no choice.”Farmers say they have always followed the rules, trying to find innovative and more sustainable ways of producing and ensuring safe and high-quality food. They say the government’s plan, which includes the possibility of forced buyouts, made them feel unwanted.“Everyone in the Netherlands cares about nature, including farmers,” said Ms. van der Plas, who occupies BBB’s only seat in the House. The Netherlands simply has to follow European rules for preserving its nature preserves, she added, even though the bloc has not stipulated how exactly to do so.A Dutch dairy farmer in Oldetrijne, in the Friesland Province, on Wednesday. Farmers say they may have to reduce their livestock under the government’s emissions-reduction plan.Piroschka Van De Wouw/ReutersWhether the government’s proposal will come up for a vote in its current form in the Senate is unclear.Ms. van der Wal, the nitrogen minister, said it was up to the provinces to find policies to prepare for the reduction of nitrogen emissions.“All parties, left or right, pro- or anti- the nitrogen approach, have plans for their provinces: the building of houses or energy transition,” she said through a spokesperson.“But without the reduction of nitrogen emissions,” she said, “that simply won’t be possible.” More

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      France’s Battle Over Retirement

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      Will Reid, Mooj Zadie and Paige Cowett and Diane Wong and Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThis episode contains strong languageMillions of people have taken to the streets in France to protest a government effort to raise the retirement age to 64, from 62, bringing the country more in line with its European neighbors.Today, as Parliament holds a key vote on the proposal, we look into why the issue has hit such a nerve in French society.On today’s episodeRoger Cohen, the Paris bureau chief for The New York Times.A rally in Paris against the government’s plans. The main banner in front translates as “Retirement reform: No to working longer!”Yoan Valat/EPA, via ShutterstockBackground readingAfter large protests, all eyes were on the French Parliament on Thursday as it prepared to vote on the measure to increase the retirement age by two years.Here are some of the reasons so many people in France are protesting the proposals.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.Roger Cohen More