Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/AP/File

Former President Donald Trump, flanked by attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, appears at Manhattan criminal court as his criminal hush money trial goes to a jury in New York, May 29, 2024.

President-elect Donald Trump made history on election night. He is not only the second president ever elected to nonsequential terms in the White House but also the first American president ever elected with a felony conviction.

Legal troubles hung over Mr. Trump the entire campaign, but voters did not seem to mind. Besides the felony conviction, he is facing criminal charges in three other cases: two related to his failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election result and one related to his alleged unlawful retention of classified documents after leaving office four years ago.

With his reelection last night, experts say those legal troubles are likely to disappear. Some observers worry that what could emerge in their place is legal trouble for Mr. Trump’s political opponents.

“For all intents and purposes, his criminal prosecutions are over,” says Jeffrey Cohen, a former federal prosecutor and an associate professor at Boston College Law School. “There’s some cleanup to do, but he’s going to effectively avoid any kind of accountability.”

And after a campaign in which Mr. Trump repeatedly claimed that he would pursue retribution against critics and opponents, some observers worry that his administration’s new priorities could have troubling implications for the rule of law.

The Manhattan case

Of the four criminal cases against the former and now future president, only one has gone to trial. In May, a jury in Manhattan convicted Mr. Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to an adult film star during the 2016 presidential campaign.

His sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 26, after being postponed until after the election by New York state Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the case. Mr. Trump’s lawyers are expected to ask for another delay, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The president-elect faces a maximum of four years in jail, but whatever the sentence is, it’s unlikely that Mr. Trump will ever serve it, experts say. He is appealing the Manhattan conviction, and the sentence will be stayed pending those appeals. It’s likely that, once he becomes president in January 2025, the appeals will be stayed until the end of his term.

The Georgia case

Similarly, in Fulton County, Georgia, Mr. Trump is one of nine defendants facing criminal charges over an alleged conspiracy to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election there. The case has been delayed as Georgia courts weigh whether the lead prosecutor, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, should be disqualified due to a conflict of interest.

John Bazemore/AP/File

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis speaks during a news conference, Aug. 14, 2023, in Atlanta. Donald Trump faces criminal charges over an alleged conspiracy to overturn the the 2020 presidential election results there. The case has stalled as Georgia courts weigh whether Ms. Willis should be disqualified due to a conflict of interest.

A hearing on that question is scheduled for December, but if the case proceeds, it’s possible it could continue against the other defendants. Longstanding DOJ policy holds that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted, but Fulton County prosecutors could choose to litigate that issue.

“I’m not sure if states would have [that] right,” says Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor and a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. “If it goes before the U.S. Supreme Court as currently constituted, which seems to have a pretty strong view of executive power, I expect it will come out in [the Trump Justice Department’s] favor.”

The federal cases

What is almost certain, experts say, is that two federal criminal cases against Mr. Trump will be discontinued.

One case being heard in Washington, D.C., involves his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Another, being heard in Florida, involves his alleged unlawful retention of classified documents after his term ended. Both cases are led by Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Trump said he would fire Mr. Smith “within two seconds” of taking office. Reports emerged Wednesday that Department of Justice officials are exploring how to wind down the federal criminal cases against him in light of the policy that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.

Both cases have undergone over a year of pretrial litigation. If those cases were to be ongoing when he enters office, experts say, Mr. Trump wouldn’t be able to end them himself. But he might appoint an attorney general who could.

The Washington case recently returned to district court Judge Tanya Chutkan following the Supreme Court ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution. District court Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified documents case in Florida in July. That decision is under appeal, but the new attorney general could order prosecutors to drop it. (Two weeks ago, ABC News reported that Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, is on a short list of potential attorney general candidates.)

J. Scott Applewhite/AP/File

Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023, at an office of the Department of Justice in Washington.

An incoming president often sets a new course for the Department of Justice, says Professor Cohen.

“The DOJ can change its priorities with a new administration,” he adds. “So the DOJ can absolutely stop prosecuting those cases.”

The Trump 47 Justice Department

Whatever they do, Mr. Trump and his allies have made clear that the Justice Department will be central to much of it.

“When we get in there, we’re going to fire the people responsible for the corruption of our Department of Justice,” said Trump running mate JD Vance at a rally last month.

That includes Mr. Garland, he added, whom he described as “one of the most corrupt AGs we’ve ever had.”

Indeed, at that rally, Senator Vance said the new attorney general would be a more important administration member than him – second only to Mr. Trump.

“You need an attorney general who believes in true equal justice under law,” he said.

But as Mr. Trump has repeatedly claimed that he will go after his critics and political opponents, some observers worry about how equal that justice could be.

He has, for example, called for investigations into the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, and President Joe Biden, as well as former President Barack Obama and former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Republican who campaigned against him this year, according to Reuters.

He has also said he would task his DOJ with investigating progressive prosecutor offices, arrest protesters who engage in vandalism, and jail people who burn the American flag. (The Supreme Court ruled in 1989 that the Constitution protects flag burning.)

“There’s a worry that he could follow through on some of these threats, and he could really shake the foundation of the Department of Justice,” says Professor McQuade. “I hope we have enough checks in the system to prevent that from happening, either through career prosecutors, or juries or courts.”

Evan Vucci/AP

America's allies worldwide are preparing to deal with a hard-nosed Trump administration, less open to policy cooperation and coordination with other countries, and readier to go it alone.

Donald J. Trump’s election triumph signals the most important shift in America’s place in the world since the end of World War II, nearly eight decades ago.

And the policy implications of his return to the White House – on critical issues from wars in Ukraine and the Mideast to world trade and climate change – are just one reason the election result matters so much beyond America’s borders.

For Mr. Trump’s comeback has confirmed a more profound departure from the way the United States has long projected both its hard power, meaning its military and economic muscle, and its soft power: its reputation.

These sea changes will be unsettling for friend and foe alike, but especially for longtime U.S. allies.

For decades, the U.S. has wielded its heft on the world stage through economic, trade, and security partnerships with like-minded countries, especially with its European allies in NATO.

But the pendulum has been swinging in recent years, not for the first time in American history, toward a more inward-looking and protectionist approach. That shift accelerated during Mr. Trump’s first term in office.

On security matters, especially after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden did actively reengage with traditional U.S. allies. On trade and tariffs, however, he broadly followed the Trump 1.0 line, especially with regard to America’s main economic rival, China.

Mr. Trump’s victory will be viewed overseas not just as heralding a return to his first-term protectionism, and his overt disdain for America’s international alliances.

At least to judge by his campaign pronouncements, his win also appears to herald the kind of assertive isolationism espoused by opponents of America’s entry into the world war against Nazi Germany.

The 1930s isolationists’ banner, in fact, has become a Trump rallying cry: “America First.”

The 2024 version seems likely to mean the new administration will focus its political energies on delivering its domestic agenda. Abroad, the emphasis seems set to shift away from consultation and cooperation with allies, to focus instead on unilateral action, and selective deal-making, where Mr. Trump feels U.S. interests are directly at stake, especially in China.

Yet the soft power implications of Mr. Trump’s victory may be even greater.

Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Britain’s newspapers’ front pages report Donald Trump’s election victory. The U.K. is one major U.S. ally fearing that Mr. Trump will pay it little attention.

America’s leading role in the world since the mid-20th century has rested not only on economic strength and military muscle, but on its reputation as the world’s most powerful, resilient, and stable democracy, wedded to the rule of law, open to newcomers, and championing human rights.

Critics, at home and abroad, have rightly pointed out that America has not always met these lofty standards, nor has it always led by example.

Still, the ideal has resonated widely: the notion of America as a “shining city on the hill,” in a phrase used by presidents as dissimilar as John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.

That vision has been eroding in recent years, especially after Mr. Trump refused to acknowledge his 2020 election loss to Mr. Biden and urged on supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol to try to overturn the result.

Even when Mr. Biden was in office, senior political figures abroad, especially in Europe, remained shocked not just by the Capitol violence, but by the tens of millions of Americans who had voted for Mr. Trump after his first term, nearly reelecting him.

The message from this week’s election – and from the angry, at times overtly sexist and authoritarian rhetoric that Mr. Trump used on the campaign trail – is that America is a deeply, angrily, unstably divided country.

The democratic consensus championed by leaders like Presidents Kennedy and Reagan has shattered.

A majority of U.S. voters want a very different kind of leader, wedded to a very different kind of America.

They want Donald Trump.

With only a handful of exceptions, America’s allies – especially those worried about Russia and China – did not want Mr. Trump to win.

But now they are scrambling to recalibrate and adapt, trying to make nice with a president they had hoped to see in their rearview mirror.

Only minutes after Mr. Trump’s win became clear, Britain’s left-of-center prime minister, Kier Starmer, sent him effusive congratulations on his “historic victory.”

From Ukraine, despite fears Mr. Trump will seek a quick deal ratifying Russia’s occupation and annexation of eastern regions of the country, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a statement of congratulations and voiced hope of progress toward a “just peace.”

Another early message came from French President Emmanuel Macron, whose relationship with Mr. Trump grew increasingly fraught over the course of his first term.

The French leader harked back to their initially warm ties. He said that he now hoped to work jointly with a reelected Mr. Trump for “peace and prosperity.”

But a second statement recognized the deep changes in America and its place in the world that the election result seemed to confirm.

After a phone call between President Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the two leaders said they looked forward to forging a “more united, stronger, and more sovereign Europe in the new context.”

This is the fourth article in a series from Sudan that we are publishing this week, highlighting that country’s travails and citizens’ efforts to overcome them. Read the first three articles here, here, and here.

A group of men sits in a semicircle outside El-Frazdug Khalfallah Alian Assoul’s small restaurant, sipping ginger-infused coffee from glass cups. They gossip in Arabic, pausing only to call for another cup of coffee, before continuing their chatter, seemingly impervious to the heat of a cloudless sky.

The ritual carries them home, to Sudan.

Since civil war broke out there in April 2023, more than 11 million people have been forced to flee their homes. Bringing only what they could carry on their backs, tens of thousands have made their way to this refugee settlement in central Uganda.

Here even the simplest daily routines are inflected with loss. Mr. Assoul knows that the men who gather at his restaurant each day would rather be somewhere else. Still, as he serves their meals and mingles beneath a feather-white tarpaulin propped up by reeds, he hopes in a small way to resurrect the home they left behind.

“If you eat alone, you must find someone and tell him to come to share with you. That is the habit of Sudanese people,” Mr. Assoul says. “When we share food, we are sharing our news and emotions.”

Sophie Neiman

El-Frazdug Khalfallah Alian Assoul opened a restaurant in Uganda’s Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement four months ago.

Inherited recipes

Food has long been an important part of Mr. Assoul’s life. When he was growing up in the city of Omdurman, just across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, residents greeted new neighbors with steaming plates of bamia mafrooka, a green okra soup, and kisra, a paper-thin sorghum flatbread.

When he went away to university in Khartoum, his mother taught him to cook over the phone, giving step-by-step instructions for how to soak lentils for soup and fry onions in oil until they were tender.

The first attempt was a disaster. “I put it in the rubbish,” Mr. Assoul says, laughing. But he continued to practice, memorizing his mother’s recipes. His favorite was kawara, a soup made from cow’s feet and vegetables.

He was living in Khartoum with his family when fighting began last April between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces. As water shortages gripped his neighborhood, Mr. Assoul watched as the jasmine and roses that grew in his window withered. Below, he saw smoke from explosions and heard pops of gunfire. Bodies of soldiers lay unclaimed on the street.

After a month, his parents and siblings fled to the southern Sudanese state of White Nile. Mr. Assoul did not join them, instead taking a winding path that eventually led here. “I needed to discover my life,” he says, hoping to make his own fortune and provide for the family.

Four months ago, he established his small restaurant on a dusty slope at the edge of Kiryandongo, where a length of dirty rope divides the settlement from the neighboring town of Bweyale.

Between 600 and 700 Sudanese arrive in Kiryandongo each week, according to local officials. Their first port of call is the settlement’s reception center, where they receive cards confirming their refugee status.

Sophie Neiman

Two women walk past open-air barbershops outside the refugee reception center in Kiryandongo Oct. 16, 2024.

Just outside its doors, a vibrant market hums. Women serve spicy Sudanese tea from rickety stands, and barbers cut hair at their open-air stalls, their services advertised in brightly colored Arabic script.

Mr. Assoul calls it “Little Khartoum,” and his restaurant is here, too. He named it Malik el-Kawara or “King of Kawara,” after the cow foot stew he made from his mother’s recipe.

Over plates of kawara and niaymia – a sauce of stewed tomatoes, dried okra, yogurt, and peanut butter, served with bread and scooped up by hand – his customers talk of family still in Sudan.

“There is a new community of Sudanese people here,” Mr. Assoul says. “We started that through food.”

Sharing love

Invariably, the conversation turns to ongoing war.

When it does, Khalid Hammad Salih, one of Mr. Assoul’s regulars, falls silent.

A pharmacist, he has not seen his family since the third day of clashes between the army and the Rapid Support Forces last year, when he sent his wife, children, and parents away to Egypt. Mr. Salih can no longer remember the last words they said to each other, only the terror he felt for them as he watched them go.

He stayed behind in Sudan, intending to supply medicine amid the fighting. In the meantime, the war taught him to cook. “You need to eat, so you have to learn,” he says bluntly.

Still, more than anything, he longs for his mother’s gurusa, or wholemeal pancakes. Recalling how she always served them alongside chicken soup, Mr. Salih removes his sunglasses and quickly wipes tears from his eyes. He opens his mouth, but no words arrive.

He arrived in Uganda this June, and says he plans to bring his family from Egypt to join him. For now, however, Mr. Salih eats at Mr. Assoul’s restaurant three times a week, arriving mid-morning and staying until the sky begins to darken.

“When we are sharing food, we are also sharing love,” he says, his face finally splitting into a wide grin.

Sophie Neiman

Adam Sulieman Mustafa stands in the window of his bakery in Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement Oct. 15, 2024.

Remembering Sudan

Across a red dirt road from Mr. Assoul’s restaurant is Firdaus or “Paradise,” a bakery operated by Adam Sulieman Mustafa. His sole product is a pitalike bread, prepared using a recipe taught to him by his uncle in Darfur.

When he recalls the fighting there, Mr. Mustafa speaks bluntly and simply, as if listing measurements in a recipe. “We were not able to go out to bring food for our children,” he says. “We just stayed at home.”

He sold his house in Darfur to open his bakery in Uganda, and now rises each morning at 2 a.m. to begin work. Mixing flour, yeast, and salt and tenderly kneading the dough brings him back to a time before war.

“My bread lets people remember Sudan,” he says.

Mr. Mustafa supplies Mr. Assoul, who also finds himself lost in a flood of memories whenever he eats food from home. Most often, the tastes bring him back to the last Ramadan he spent with his family before the war, quietly breaking their fast together.

Sudanese food sometimes tightens the knots of homesickness in his heart, and he cannot eat at all. For the same reason, he often avoids calling his mother.

When they do talk, however, they always speak of food. Last time, she shared her special trick for making kawara. He should add sweet potatoes to it, she said, the next time he cooks his own.

Asim Zurgan contributed reporting and translation from Kiryandongo.

Part 1: A journalist recounts his daughter’s miraculous birth in war-torn Sudan

Part 2: ‘They are our people’: How community kitchens are piecing Sudan back together

Part 3: She fled war in Sudan. Now she grapples with returning.

The corn has been collected, the cabbage gathered, and the pumpkin season is almost done. But on this University of Massachusetts Amherst research farm, there is still one last harvest taking place – a harvest of sunlight.

“Agrivoltaics,” or dual-use solar panels, are placed between or above rows of plants to collect the sun’s energy. Here, they resemble metal versions of the old orchards that dot other hills in this region. Back in the spring, farmers planted corn, cabbage, and other vegetables below their metal canopies.

To Dwayne Breger, director of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Clean Energy Extension team running this research site, this solar array represents the future of farming – a way to collect energy while also using the land productively, and helping farmers at the same time.

Agrivoltaics, he says, can support the solar needs of Massachusetts and “potentially support the agricultural economy and farmers that are facing various different stresses.”

Those stresses include droughts and financial instability – not only here in Massachusetts, but across the United States.

“Small farming is a tough business,” says Keith Hevenor, communications manager at the Boston-based solar company Nexamp. The decades of predictable income that agrivoltaics can offer, he says, “is giving them that certainty to keep forging ahead.”

There are still hurdles to overcome with dual-use solar, Dr. Breger acknowledges. Installation costs can range as high as $1 million, and tapping into an outdated energy grid can be challenging.

But here in western Massachusetts – a region not exactly known for its sunshine or open landscapes – a growing number of projects are showing just how commercially viable it could be.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

River Strong, associate director, clean energy division (at left), and Dwayne Breger, director of Clean Energy Extension at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, stand near solar panels above corn growing at the university's experimental research farm in South Deerfield, Massachusetts, Oct. 2, 2024.

Solar is growing across the U.S.

Over the past decade, the production of solar power in the U.S. has increased eightfold, according to some analyses, with the cost of both solar panels and power dropping precipitously.

Some analysts expect the industry to triple over the next 10 years.

Most states are embracing the technology to help meet carbon emission reduction goals. Massachusetts, for example, calls for at least 27 gigawatts of solar power to meet its goal of going carbon-neutral by 2050, which would require increasing solar power by more than 400% from the state’s current capacity. Larger states like Texas, where solar projects are growing fastest, expect to add 40 gigawatts of solar power over the next five years.

But solar takes up space. In order to meet these goals, panels will need to span massive amounts of land – land that is often prime for agricultural use.

This has sparked growing criticism of solar power. But it has also prompted new efforts to solve the problem.

Massachusetts was the first state to provide incentives for agrivoltaics. The Northeast does not have the huge prairies conducive for wind farms or the easily accessible geothermal energy that exists in parts of the West Coast. That leaves solar as a renewable energy source – and without the large, open spaces one might find further west, Massachusetts has had to improvise.

“There’s three drivers for [solar] markets,” says Jim Hafner, New England Regional Director for American Farmland Trust, a land conservation group. “One is how sunny it is, which we kind of take a hit on, but the other is the energy prices you’re competing with, and we’re good on that one because our energy prices tend to be quite a bit higher than Arizona, for example. And then the third is what local state level incentives are available. And there again, we’ve been offering more incentives than in other states.”

Those incentives originate from the Commonwealth’s SMART solar program, and include tax credits and grants. On the federal level, the Biden administration recently announced a $71 million investment to advance American solar manufacturing, in addition to another $20 million to improve planning, siting, and permitting processes.

With both state and federal aid, many Massachusetts solar companies have turned to the people who have long tried to make use of the rocky, hilly landscape: farmers.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

A cow stands in a field with a solar array in the background at the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s experimental research farm in South Deerfield, Massachusetts.

How do farmers fit into the picture?

Joe Czajkowski is one of the pioneers. His farm in Hadley, Massachusetts, boasts a 2.3 acre array atop his broccoli, large enough to power about 60 homes, he says.

His farm uses refrigeration for both the storage and the delivery of his vegetables. With the solar array, he gets a 15% reduction on his electric bill, he says, “which is more than $5,000 a month” in savings. With this influx of cash, Mr. Czajkowski has been able to expand his solar arrays as well as modernize his vehicles, buying a fully electric delivery van to ship his produce across the state.

When it comes to his crops, Mr. Czajkowski says he’s seen no difference between those under the panels and those elsewhere. Indeed, research from Hasselt University in Belgium shows that the shade provided might actually help the plants combat heat stress and need less water.

And it is not just produce that can be co-utilized with solar farms. Grazing animals between panels has become increasingly popular.

For farmers, owning land and buying food for their animals has historically been an expense to them. But by partnering with companies like Nexamp, “[grazing] becomes a revenue source for them,” the firm’s communications manager, Mr. Hevenor, says. The companies pay farmers to have their animals do “vegetation management” – or, simply, eating.

Other farms are developing pollinator habitats underneath panels.

Lee Walston and Heidi Hartmann, both environmental scientists at the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, a federally funded research center, have spent the last few years pairing pollinator habitats with solar arrays. The effects, they found, have been a boon for the region. In addition to rebuilding lost habitats for insects and other pollinators due to climate change, they also boost agricultural productivity of nearby farms.

Farmers have a long history of supporting the energy industry. Every year, U.S. farmers plant around 140,000 square miles of corn, 30% of which is used to produce ethanol. Not only is dual-use solar better for the environment, supporters say, it also produces upwards of 100 times more energy per acre than ethanol.

“It’s a must do, I think, because we’re going to need a lot more solar,” says Mr. Walston. “Current projections are calling for upwards of 10 million acres of solar by 2050 in order to really combat climate change and meet our nation’s clean energy goals.”

And most farmers are open to the idea. As many as 70% are open to large-scale solar projects on their properties, according to the Solar and Storage Industries Institute, as long as they can continue to grow crops.

That’s not to say there aren’t worries among farmers. Some are concerned that installing solar panels will lead to cutting down too many trees. Others are concerned that devoting too much space to agrovoltaics will make it harder for new farmers, who often start out by renting land.

Dual-use solar still makes up a minuscule amount of the solar business, with only 560 dual-use sites for agrivoltaics across the U.S.

But, those who have adopted agrivoltaics remain optimistic.

“Dual-use solar makes a lot of sense on every farm,” Mr. Czajkowski says. “I think you could do some really wonderful things with this.”

AP

Voters wait in line to cast ballots in Scranton, Pa., Nov. 5.

On Tuesday night, American voters handed Republicans the White House, the Senate, and – it looks likely – the House. That tilt toward one-party rule in Washington hides another political realignment that may be just as consequential. According to Edison Research, the share of Independent voters in this election equaled Republicans and – in a first – surpassed Democrats. The electorate’s changing composition may be why, despite the rancor of campaigning, many people in the country are bending more toward unity and reconciliation.

Pause for a moment in Michigan. The state flipped from blue in 2020 to red in 2024, but for local officials in Manistee County, something else seemed to matter more. “We don’t need to hyphenate being American; we’re all Americans,” a Republican member of the County Board of Commissioners told the Manistee News Advocate. “That’s the vision I wish to see realized – a united America rather than a qualified or divided one.”

Judy Cunningham, treasurer of the local Democratic Party, struck a similar note. “In the end, I was relieved that democracy won last night,” she told the newspaper. “We have the opportunity to put our country together and heal the wounds. It’s not about what party wins. It’s about continuing our democracy.”

In Alaska, the election reshuffled what may be one of the United States’ most novel approaches to state government. Bipartisan majorities will control both chambers of the state legislature. In both the House and the Senate, Republicans, Democrats, and independents will share leadership jobs and set rules together for passing bills. “Alaskans have spoken clearly and we will work together, representing residents of all regions,” incoming Speaker Bryce Edgmon, an independent, vowed in a statement.

A similar experiment in shared governing is underway in Oregon. During the campaign season, Gov. Tina Kotek went on a “listening tour” across all 36 counties and nine sovereign tribal nations. Several lawmakers made similar voyages, including all members of a joint legislative committee on transportation – seven Democrats and five Republicans.

“The next step is for members of the committee... to pull together all the information they learned on the tour and create a series of consensus recommendations” for the next legislative session in the new year,” wrote Senate President Rob Wagner in a newsletter.

One place to look for a reset of consensus-based governing in Washington, D.C., is the Senate. The chamber flipped. For the first time in two decades, the incoming Republican majority will choose a new leader. Yet its outgoing boss, Mitch McConnell, marked that transition with a nod to the chamber’s long-standing norm of protecting the minority’s right to be heard. “The filibuster will stand,” he said. 

In his first comments after the election, President Joe Biden said from the White House Garden Thursday that “You can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t love your neighbor only when you agree.” Halfway across the country in South Dakota, that message found an echo. “As we move away from campaign season and back toward government,” said Dusty Johnson, a Republican member of Congress, “let us never forget that this country was not built on anger and fear, it was built on imagination, courage, optimism and freedom.”

In a national reset, the opportunity for reconciliation hangs in the air.