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      A Daunting Task for Democrats

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      More from our inbox:A Loyalty Oath for Federal Workers?Principled Republicans Mark Peterson/ReduxTo the Editor:In “The Democrats’ Problems Are Bigger Than You Think” (column, June 6), David Brooks challenges the Democrats to do two things: define the central problem of our time and come up with a new grand national narrative.The first is easy: The central problem of our time is the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which removed longstanding campaign finance regulations. There is no way our government can become a government of the people when wealthy elites can buy representation.And the Democrats can ignore the second suggestion. No political party needs to create a new grand narrative. What it needs to do is to listen to the people and encourage and help those people voice their concerns and needs. Then the party needs to figure out how to best meet and pay for those concerns and needs.If money’s role in our elections can be addressed quickly, then a centrist and realistic narrative can be forged — and it should include an equitable tax policy. We are more in need of a reform of brackets and deductions in our tax system than we are of a new grand narrative.Elizabeth BjorkmanLexington, Mass.To the Editor:I agree with the view articulated by David Brooks that nothing short of a revolution in consciousness will allow us to wrest control of our future from the MAGA movement. What we need right now is a vision of the future that doesn’t involve just dismantling structures and undoing what’s been done (much of which is good), but also creating new belief systems.This will involve coming to terms with the fact that capitalism has failed the world in very serious and fundamental ways, producing a planet that is being torn apart by migration caused by civil war, climate disaster, inequality and starvation. These problems cannot be rejiggered from what already exists, because the system itself no longer recognizes the needs of the vast majority of its inhabitants.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Like School Shootings, Political Violence Is Becoming Almost Routine

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      Threats and violent acts have become part of the political landscape, still shocking but somehow not so surprising.The statements of shock and condolences streamed in eerily one after another on Saturday after the assassination of a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband, and the attempted murder of another lawmaker and his wife.“Horrible news,” said Representative Steve Scalise, who was shot at a baseball game in 2017. “Paul and I are heartbroken,” said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose husband was bludgeoned with a hammer in 2022. “My family and I know the horror of a targeted shooting all too well,” said former Representative Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head in 2011.Still more came from Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania (arson, 2025), Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan (kidnapping plot, 2020) and President Trump (two assassination attempts, 2024).“Such horrific violence will not be tolerated in the United States of America,” the president said.And yet the expanding club of survivors of political violence seemed to stand as evidence to the contrary.Bullet holes in the door of State Senator John Hoffman’s home in Chaplin, Minn., on Saturday.Tim Gruber for The New York TimesIn the past three months alone, a man set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s residence while Mr. Shapiro and his family were asleep inside; another man gunned down a pair of workers from the Israeli Embassy outside an event in Washington; protesters calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colo., were set on fire; and the Republican Party headquarters in New Mexico and a Tesla dealership near Albuquerque were firebombed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Takeaways from Trump’s Military Parade in Washington

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      The events in the capital were overshadowed by an assassination in Minnesota and turmoil in the Middle East.On his 79th birthday, President Trump spent more than three hours on Saturday taking in the scene at a military parade commemorating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army.The event, which was officially billed as a tribute to service and a showcase of American military history, was hailed by the president’s supporters as a show of strength and a savvy recruitment tactic.But his critics argued that the event was a further politicization of the military, especially after of a tense week in which Mr. Trump deployed the Marines in Los Angeles to quell protests.Here are key takeaways from the day and the parade:The day’s events were overshadowed by political violence and war.News on Saturday was dominated by a manhunt after the assassination of a Democratic state legislator in Minnesota and the attempted assassination of another.For most of the day, speculation raged about the killing of State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and the shooting of State Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, who were both injured.At the same time, warfare escalated between Israel and Iran, with growing concerns about the possibility of a wider, regional war that could draw in the United States and other major powers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Inside Trump’s Extraordinary Turnaround on Immigration Raids

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      President Trump’s decision to pause most raids targeting farms and hospitality workers took many inside the White House by surprise. It came after intensive lobbying by his agriculture secretary.On Wednesday morning, President Trump took a call from Brooke Rollins, his secretary of agriculture, who relayed a growing sense of alarm from the heartland.Farmers and agriculture groups, she said, were increasingly uneasy about his immigration crackdown. Federal agents had begun to aggressively target work sites in recent weeks, with the goal of sharply bolstering the number of arrests and deportations of undocumented immigrants.Farmers rely on immigrants to work long hours, Ms. Rollins said. She told the president that farm groups had been warning her that their employees would stop showing up to work out of fear, potentially crippling the agricultural industry.She wasn’t the first person to try to get this message through to the president, nor was it the first time she had spoken to him about it. But the president was persuaded.The next morning, he posted a message on his social media platform, Truth Social, that took an uncharacteristically softer tone toward the very immigrants he has spent much of his political career demonizing. Immigrants in the farming and hospitality industries are “very good, long time workers,” he said. “Changes are coming.”Some influential Trump donors who learned about the post began reaching out to people in the White House, urging Mr. Trump to include the restaurant sector in any directive to spare undocumented workers from enforcement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Melania Trump Suits Up for the Military Parade

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      The first lady’s outfit was fully in line with the controlled and contained public image she had been crafting since the end of her husband’s first term.It wasn’t exactly dress whites, but it was dressy and white, with thin blue pinstripes and shiny silver buttons. And while it may not have had epaulets, it did have shoulder pads.As Melania Trump took her place next to her husband in the presidential viewing stand to watch the Army’s 250th anniversary parade, her suit suggested that if he was the commander in chief, she was his general. As he has his own uniform of Pavlovian patriotism (navy suit, white shirt and red tie), she has hers. Regalia takes all forms.As such, the suit was something of a riposte to those who would still see her as a reluctant political spouse: Whether or not she spends all her time in the White House, she’s there, and appropriately costumed for key scenes like this one.And it was fully in line with the almost militantly controlled and contained public image Mrs. Trump had been crafting since the end of her husband’s first term, when she wore an army green Alexander McQueen skirt suit to give her speech at the Republican National Convention in 2020. She even wore a trench coat, a garment originally made for British soldiers in World War I, to the White House Easter Egg Roll in April.Politics is a battlefield, she has always seemed to be saying, and you have to armor yourself accordingly. Even if only in a buttoned-up skirt suit, with stilettos on your feet instead of in your pockets.If this particular skirt suit — a double-breasted cotton twill blazer with a matching high-waisted pencil skirt — was a little more navy (or country club navy) than army, it still had an awfully regimental vibe.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Photos and Maps: ‘No Kings’ Day Protests Across the United States

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      Large crowds across the country have gathered to protest the Trump administration — in major cities like Philadelphia, Atlanta, New York and Chicago and in smaller, rural communities as well. The “No Kings” rallies, as the demonstrations were known, were planned for the same day as a military parade in Washington, D.C., that President Trump scheduled for the Army’s 250th anniversary, which also coincides with his 79th birthday.In Minnesota, where a gunman shot and killed a state lawmaker and her husband, and wounded a state senator and his wife overnight on Saturday, demonstrators came out to protest even though the events were officially canceled. Several protesters noted that it was important to show courage on a frightening day.The demonstrations follow more than a week of large-scale protests in Los Angeles against Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown and his decision to deploy the military there. More

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      Minnesota Gunman May Have Planned to Target ‘No Kings’ Protests, Police Say

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      Organizers of the protests said that all of the planned events in the state were canceled after a recommendation from Gov. Tim Walz.The man believed to have shot two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, one fatally, had papers in his car that indicated he may have been planning to target one of the “No Kings” protests taking place in cities across the country on Saturday.Minnesota state police posted a photograph of papers in the suspect’s car that had “NO KINGS” written on them. That’s the slogan for protests taking place in hundreds of cities that were organized by liberal groups to protest President Trump and his administration.Organizers of the protests said that they were canceling all of the planned events in Minnesota after a recommendation to do so from Gov. Tim Walz and other officials.Several thousand people had gathered outside of the State Capitol in St. Paul by early Saturday afternoon, about 25 miles from the shootings.Governor Walz said that people should “not attend any political rallies” in the state until the suspect was taken into custody.The police said that the suspect had a list of targets and that both of the state lawmakers who were shot were on the list.The gunman impersonated a police officer, the authorities said, and killed State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their home before going to the home of State Senator John A. Hoffman and shooting him and his wife, Yvette. The Hoffmans are being treated at a hospital.Bernard Mokam More

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      Trump Shifts Deportation Focus, Pausing Raids on Farms, Hotels and Eateries

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      The abrupt pivot on an issue at the heart of Mr. Trump’s presidency suggested his broad immigration crackdown was hurting industries and constituencies he does not want to lose.The Trump administration has abruptly shifted the focus of its mass deportation campaign, telling Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to largely pause raids and arrests in the agricultural industry, hotels and restaurants, according to an internal email and three U.S. officials with knowledge of the guidance.The decision suggested that the scale of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign — an issue that is at the heart of his presidency — is hurting industries and constituencies that he does not want to lose.The new guidance comes after protests in Los Angeles against the Trump administration’s immigration raids, including at farms and businesses. It also came as Mr. Trump made a rare concession this week that his crackdown was hurting American farmers and hospitality businesses.The guidance was sent on Thursday in an email by a senior ICE official, Tatum King, to regional leaders of the ICE department that generally carries out criminal investigations, including work site operations, known as Homeland Security Investigations.“Effective today, please hold on all work site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packing plants), restaurants and operating hotels,” he wrote in the message.The email explained that investigations involving “human trafficking, money laundering, drug smuggling into these industries are OK.” But it said — crucially — that agents were not to make arrests of “non criminal collaterals,” a reference to people who are undocumented but who are not known to have committed any other crime.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More