Bryan Woolston/AP

Several members of the New York Police Department enter Trump Tower on March 31, 2023, in New York. Former President Donald Trump was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury Thursday.

By indicting a former president of the United States on criminal charges a Manhattan grand jury may have raised the curtain on the third and climactic act of the tumultuous political career of real estate developer, reality television star, and ex-White House occupant Donald John Trump.

The grand jury voted Thursday to indict Mr. Trump on charges related to his role in paying hush money to a porn star prior to the 2016 election. A conviction in the case is far from certain, but the indictment alone is a historic event, marking the first time a former or current president of the United States has faced serious criminal prosecution.

In a way, the indictment seems to open the next stage in a narrative arc devoted to the rise, fall, and possible redemption of a president who was particularly focused on the performative and symbolic aspects of the nation’s highest office.

He won the office in 2016 against the wishes of his party’s establishment and despite the scoffing of much legacy media. Then he lost his bid for reelection and railed, falsely, against what he claimed was a fraudulent vote.

Now he is running again for president while facing the likelihood of unprecedented criminal trials and perhaps prison, in multiple jurisdictions. Besides the hush money case, he could also be indicted in Fulton County, Georgia, on charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 vote in that state. In addition, federal special counsel Jack Smith is investigating Mr. Trump’s alleged role in sparking the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, as well as the possible illegal retention of classified documents and other presidential records following his 2020 loss.

One way or another, the legal drama Mr. Trump is entering will resolve key questions about his and the nation’s future. Will he best his enemies and triumph in court? Will voters return him to the Oval Office despite indictments or even convictions? Or will he be called to account for past actions?

Mr. Trump, at his rally in Waco, Texas, last weekend, said his “enemies are desperate to stop us,” and that “2024 is the final battle – it’s going to be the big one.”

Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Trump supporters carry flags as they protest the news that former President Donald Trump has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury, March 30, 2023, near his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

Such apocalyptic language may be overly dramatic, even demagogic. But the former president’s oncoming legal struggle is new territory for American democracy and likely a major turning point for the nation’s politics.

“Historians are trained to avoid the word ‘unprecedented’ like the plague, and yet Donald Trump has forced us, since he started running in 2015, to use what’s basically a bad word in our field,” says Jeffrey A. Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University.

An unusual first case

The specific charges against Mr. Trump aren’t yet known. News reports indicate he faces more than 24 counts related to the payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 presidential vote.

Ms. Daniels alleges she had a brief affair with Mr. Trump, which he denies. A $130,000 payment, routed through Mr. Trump’s then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, kept Ms. Daniels from going public with her story at a time the GOP presidential candidate had already faced harsh public criticism for the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, which showed him using demeaning and dismissive language toward women.

Mr. Trump is expected to be arraigned in Manhattan on Tuesday. At that time, the charges against him are likely to be formally revealed.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his attorneys have spent months piecing together a case that centers on allegations that Mr. Trump falsified business records connected to the payments to Ms. Daniels. They believe these false records also constituted a campaign finance violation, as they were in essence an illegal contribution to the Trump 2016 campaign intended to bolster his electoral chances.

This two-pronged approach makes Mr. Trump’s alleged actions a felony. The Manhattan DA’s office has used the tactic before. Business-records charges by themselves are common.

But some experts believe it is overall an untried and novel approach, particularly since it represents such a historic legal step.

“You would hope that there is more than what meets the eye,” said David Shapiro, a financial crimes specialist and former FBI agent who teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in an interview last week.

At the same time, other serious legal cases dealing with Mr. Trump appear to be moving forward. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has said charges are “imminent” in her election interference case. A federal judge has ordered former Vice President Mike Pence to comply with a subpoena and testify in front of a grand jury empaneled by Mr. Smith about the Jan. 6 riot.

In that context, the Manhattan case may be just the beginning of a period of increasing legal peril for Mr. Trump.

The hush money case may be the least consequential of Mr. Trump’s legal worries. Potential penalties are relatively minor compared with those in the other investigations proceeding against him.

Innocent until proven guilty

It is important to remember that in America, Mr. Trump is innocent until proven guilty, says Mr. Engel. And the alleged conduct for which he has been indicted in New York happened prior to his 2016 victory.

“It’s notable that we have for the first time in history a former president indicted, but we have yet to have a former president indicted for something they did in office,” Mr. Engel says.

Other experts say the indictment remains a step forward for legal accountability. Presidents may be immune from prosecution while in office, per a ruling of the Department of Justice. But that does not mean that they are immune from prosecution, period.

“It is a good reminder that no one is above the law, even a former president. We always say that, but I guess it’s gratifying to see that it’s true,” says Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan who is now a law professor at the University of Michigan.

Yet the first prosecution of a former president also could lead the nation into more troubling territory. It establishes the precedent that presidents are not above the law – and also the precedent that state and local prosecutors can bring charges against them.

There are many such prosecutors across America, many of them elected partisans, and the potential for them to pursue former presidents and other officials for minor offenses could be great, says George Edwards III, distinguished professor emeritus of political science at Texas A&M University.

“I’m very concerned about that, and I’d much rather that the former president [be] facing charges coming from trying to overturn an election, either in the United States in general or in Georgia in particular. That would have been a much more serious matter that people could understand easily,” says Professor Edwards.

Staff writer Story Hinckley contributed to this article.

Editor’s note: This developing story has been expanded.

From workers on the loading docks of Savannah, Georgia, to scholars and strategists watching from Texas, the indictment of former President Donald Trump rippled across a deeply divided nation today. 

For some, the news brought hope, though for different reasons. For others, it sparked fear or outrage. For nearly all, it was sobering. 

At the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, which commemorates the president who urged a fratricidal nation to go forward “with malice toward none, with charity toward all,” the Olipa family debated what’s happened to leadership in America.

“I wonder – do we not have leaders with the strength of Lincoln? Or do they have the strength, but we tear them down?” asks Andrew Olipa, one of two adult sons, who is visiting from Salt Lake City. 

“Today, there is no common moral code,” says his mother, Mary Masters Olipa of Phoenix, whose grandfathers each served in both world wars and instilled in her a strong sense of patriotism.  

Across the country, many people had questions about what would happen next to Mr. Trump, who shattered political norms throughout his unorthodox rise and volatile four years in power – including a last-ditch effort to keep it on Jan. 6, 2021.

Would he once again springboard off this seeming setback to reach greater political heights, even the White House again? Or is this the beginning of the end for his political career?

Behind those uncertainties loomed the larger questions the Olipas were pondering on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking down the National Mall toward the U.S. Capitol. What does this all mean for the country – its founding vision, legal underpinnings, and political and social cohesion?

Sophie Hills/The Christian Science Monitor

Andrew, Donald, and Ryan Olipa (left to right) stand in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, March 31, 2023. American leadership today is hard to compare to President Lincoln's era, says Donald, who believes leaders should elevate the values driving their cause, not their own personality.

“We’re in uncharted territory here,” says H.W. Brands, a historian at the University of Texas at Austin. “To me, the broader question is whether Trump is a unique individual – a unicorn. Or is he a model for the future?”

A weak case?

New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg has pursued a case against Mr. Trump involving $130,000 that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016, allegedly so she would keep quiet about an affair she said she and Mr. Trump briefly had. Mr. Trump has denied having an affair with her. 

The grand jury delivered an indictment Thursday evening. For some Trump critics, it was cause for celebration after the former president had evaded so many other attempts to prove misdeeds. But others cautioned that the bar for an indictment is significantly lower than for a conviction, though prosecutors generally bear that in mind.

“They only bring something to the grand jury if they think they can prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt,” says Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney appointed by President Barack Obama now teaching at the University of Michigan Law School. “Alvin Bragg knows Donald Trump is going to come at this with everything he’s got.”

John Feehery, a GOP strategist who worked for former Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, who was prosecuted for campaign finance violations and later indicted, says such charges “degrade politics.” He calls the hush money case “the weakest case that the Democrats could possibly make against Trump,” and predicts it will backfire politically. 

“Democrats are obsessed with Trump, but they are ignoring crime in their backyard. And that’s what’s happening where I live in D.C. Crime is all over the place,” Mr. Feehery says. “That message resonates: Instead of paying attention to things that matter, the Democrats are involved in political witch hunts.”

Democrats have witnessed before how effectively Mr. Trump can use charges against him as an opportunity to not only play the victim but also encourage his supporters to see it as an attack against them as well. 

“President Trump embodies the American people – our psyche from id to super-ego – as does no other figure,” wrote the New York Young Republican Club in a March 30 statement condemning the indictment. “He is our total and indisputable champion.”

George Edwards III, an emeritus professor of political science at Texas A&M University, says Mr. Trump’s attitude – that a man of his stature should not be indicted – is “offensive and dangerous.” But on the other hand, he says, the crime in question is normally considered a misdemeanor.

“That worries me a lot, because it does open the prosecution to the charge of weaponization of the judicial system,” says Professor Edwards.

Indeed, many Republicans have voiced such concern, including Mr. Trump’s presumptive 2024 GOP rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, as well as members of Congress and groups around the country. 

“If you believe the entire system is rigged, as Trump has frequently argued, maybe a grand jury indictment doesn’t mean all that much to you,” says Jeffrey Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “But for a president of the United States, who is bound by the Constitution to ensure that the laws of the nation are faithfully upheld ... I would hope that he would have more faith in the laws of his country, including those of a grand jury.”

“It rips open a scab” 

Taking a lunch break from loading and unloading ships in Savannah, James Lucas says in a phone conversation that the New York indictment seemed like a last-ditch effort after years of failed attempts to get the man he credits with lower taxes, cheaper gas, and more business at the port.  

“Honestly, I just think it’s going to make Trump’s following even bigger,” says Mr. Lucas, a local union member and former Democratic voter who says he started taking notice of Mr. Trump when both Democrats and Republicans went after him in the 2016 campaign with such gusto. “It made me think, this guy must really have something on these people.”

He doesn’t plan to join any protests, however, despite Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s declaration that she would travel to New York on Tuesday, when Mr. Trump is expected to be arraigned. 

Suzzanne Monk, a Trump supporter who as chair of the Patriot Action PAC has been active in protesting the conditions of the Washington jail where Jan. 6 defendants have been held, also doesn’t plan to protest the indictment in person.

“There’s just no point,” says Ms. Monk in a text message, describing the charges against Mr. Trump – still yet to be fully revealed – as “old stories rehashed by desperate lawyers.”

Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist based in Washington, D.C., acknowledges the criticism that the New York case may not be the most serious of all the possible charges Mr. Trump is facing. But it needs to be seen in the context of the closely fought 2016 contest between him and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“I think people are underplaying the significance of the Stormy Daniels payment,” says Mr. Payne. “I don’t think it’s small potatoes when you think about how it might have influenced the 2016 election.”

And even if Mr. Trump now plays the victim card for political gain, he adds, the former president needs to be held accountable. “I think it’s important for us to keep the attention on the bad behavior and not on the downstream political effects.”  

Indeed, the timing might have been a boon for Mr. Trump’s campaign fundraising, coming just before the end of the first quarter. It will likely add to the momentum he’s gained in recent weeks over Governor DeSantis. 

Still, Matt Mackowiak, a GOP strategist in Austin, Texas, says that while the indictment could help Mr. Trump in the short- to medium-term, it may hurt him in the long term. 

“This indictment increases the odds that he’s the [GOP] nominee,” says Mr. Mackowiak. But he says swing voters – the ones Mr. Trump would have to woo back to win in 2024 – will likely be turned off by more drama. “I don’t think it increases the odds that he wins the White House.”

As for its impact on the country, he is concerned that the indictment could plunge the country into a period of upheaval similar to the late 1960s.

“I think it rips open a scab that’s been developing since the 2020 election,” says Mr. Mackowiak. “I hope we can settle this through the election.”

Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune/AP

Democrats Brandon Johnson (left) and Paul Vallas, the two candidates in Chicago's mayoral runoff, shake hands before a debate at ABC7 studios in downtown Chicago, March 16, 2023.

The two Democrats vying to become Chicago’s next mayor are in many ways a study in contrasts. Brandon Johnson is a 47-year-old county commissioner and Black progressive whose campaign has been largely bankrolled by Chicago’s teachers union. Paul Vallas is a 69-year-old former education administrator and consultant, a white moderate who has been endorsed by Chicago’s police union.

One thing the two men have in common is past careers in public education – a fraught and combustible issue that looms large in Chicago politics. Mr. Johnson taught middle school and then worked for the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) as an organizer. Mr. Vallas was the CEO of Chicago Public Schools under Mayor Richard M. Daley in the 1990s and later helped oversee New Orleans’ charter-led school reforms after Hurricane Katrina.

Those experiences, however, have guided the candidates to radically different conclusions about how to fix public schools in Chicago, from where to invest resources and how to assess school performance to the role of charters and parental choice.

After a decade in which the city’s public school enrollment declined by nearly a fifth to 322,000 students – and with schools still reeling from pandemic disruptions – analysts say education poses a looming challenge for the next mayor. It also may be a harbinger for national politics, on a critical issue where Democrats have long held an advantage, but where Republicans have lately been gaining ground. Which candidate’s vision for education reform prevails in next Tuesday’s runoff – particularly among Chicago’s Black and Latino voters, many of whom did not vote for either of the two candidates in the first round of balloting – may send a signal about the Democratic Party’s direction.

In the Black community, education is “right behind public safety” as an issue, says Delmarie Cobb, a Democratic strategist in Chicago. “What the pandemic uncovered is the disinvestment [in communities] and inequity.”

The race is tight: While Mr. Vallas led in the first round of balloting, in which violent crime and how to reduce it was a dominant theme, a recent poll by IZQ Strategies put him at 44%, narrowly behind Mr. Johnson at 48%, with 10% still undecided. Another poll has Mr. Vallas ahead by 5 points.

Mr. Johnson’s campaign has emphasized support for neighborhood schools that can also deliver social services. But how voters respond to his message may hinge on their view of the powerful union that wants to elect him. The CTU led citywide strikes in 2012 and 2019, and repeatedly blocked a return to in-person pandemic schooling, forcing parents to scramble to find child care, particularly those who couldn’t work remotely. To its critics, the CTU has become an interest group that blocks reform and holds back students; Mr. Johnson and his fellow activists insist that they are defending public schools and the communities that rely on them.

The union has generally won this argument among parents. A poll taken in January 2019 found the CTU had a 62% favorable opinion among likely voters. But the union’s inflexibility toward the reopening of schools during the pandemic hurt its reputation, particularly among white and Latino residents, says Peter Giangreco, another Democratic strategist based here.

“The popularity of the teachers’ union has taken a hit,” says Mr. Giangreco, who said he’s not seen such negative views of the CTU in 30 years of working on local campaigns. “There’s a real concern that Brandon Johnson is way too beholden to that union.”

In the IZQ Strategies poll, just 48% of respondents had a favorable opinion of the CTU. That’s better, however, than the 38% favorability rating for the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, which has endorsed Mr. Vallas and his pledge to ramp up hiring of cops.

While the two candidates are at odds over what ails Chicago’s schools, their disagreements have little overlap with the education-related issues that fire up Republican voters. In this deep-blue city, neither campaign is talking about books with LGBTQ+ themes in schools or which bathrooms transgender students should use, issues that are now center stage in GOP-run statehouses and conservative media.

“This is not a cultural battle over schools like you see in Florida. It’s an old-fashioned political battle. It’s about money. It’s about power,” says Frank Calabrese, an independent political analyst in Chicago.

That power to run schools will be diluted during the next mayor’s term as Chicago prepares to transition to a 21-member school board in 2025, which will include mayoral appointees. By 2027 the board will be fully elected, which means the battle over education will shift to board elections.

But a brewing crisis over funding for half-empty schools, which has been eased by pandemic relief money, won’t wait that long, says Mr. Calabrese. “The reality is you’re going to have to consolidate more schools and that’s going to cause more angst among the teachers union.”

Nam Y. Huh/AP

Democratic mayoral candidate Paul Vallas speaks at an election night event in Chicago, Feb. 28, 2023. Mr. Vallas finished first in that election, advancing to an April 4 runoff with Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, also a Democrat.

Two views at Chopin Elementary

On a recent morning, cars and school buses pulled up at the Frederic Chopin Elementary School on Chicago’s West Side. The four-story, redbrick building has white Ionic columns and occupies a city block. But it only enrolls 311 students, down from 423 in 2018.

Christina Williams’ first grade son isn’t among them. She brings him here to catch a bus to a public magnet school, which she praises. Her view of the teachers union is more jaundiced after seeing how long it waited to bring students back during the pandemic. “I’m pro-union, but I don’t like the CTU,” says Ms. Williams, a therapist who asked for her maiden name to be used so as not to get into a public fight. “They operate like a mob.”

Ashton Dean, a home health care worker who used to work for the school district, disagrees. She says the teachers at Chopin Elementary, where her daughter attends pre-K, are looking out for their students and that the CTU does the same when it advocates for a better education for all. “We expect these people to watch over our kids for eight hours a day. The least we can do is to give them the resources they need,” she says.

Mr. Vallas argues that his record running schools in Chicago and cities like Philadelphia and New Orleans makes him the right candidate to fix K-12 education. He wants to see school buildings stay open in evenings and on weekends for community-run programs and favors an expansion of alternative schools for adults who left school without graduating.

But he has faced criticism over funding shortfalls in teacher pensions in Chicago after he left and whether the resulting squeeze on budgets led to the closing of 50 schools under Mayor Rahm Emanuel in the 2010s. That period saw an upsurge in organizing by the CTU, which staged its first strike in decades to oppose Mr. Emanuel’s reforms. In 2019, it staged a walkout under Mayor Lori Lightfoot – who lost her reelection bid this year. That strike, primarily over pay, benefits, and conditions, got national attention: Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren visited a picket line, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders called the union “the conscience of the United States of America.”

“It took a while, but the political class in the state and the city really brought an activist union into existence,” says Robert Bruno, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who has studied the CTU.

He says whoever wins the April 4 runoff, the union will remain a political force in Chicago. “The CTU’s perspective is broader than just bargaining contracts. They really do feel like they have a responsibility to influence the way the city is governed,” he says.

A new teachers’ contract must be agreed to next year, which raises the possibility that the CTU will be negotiating with one of its own, Mr. Johnson. The union has given more than $1 million to his campaign, along with national and state teachers unions. In a televised debate, Mr. Johnson couldn’t name one issue where he disagreed with the union.

This lack of independence could push voters toward his rival, argues Mr. Giangreco. “There’s a lot of people willing to hold their nose and vote for Vallas despite [the fact that] he’s more conservative than Chicago voters,” he says.

Paul Beaty/AP

Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson waves to supporters, Feb. 28, 2023, in Chicago.

Challenge of shrinking enrollment

Mr. Vallas has lauded school choice, which is popular with many Republicans and was recently adopted as a statewide policy in neighboring Iowa. But he has avoided any talk about school consolidation, which in Chicago remains a highly charged issue that intersects with the racial politics of a highly segregated city.

A decadeslong exodus of Black families from the city means fewer school-age children to enroll in local schools that were already below capacity. That makes any further consolidation in Black neighborhoods politically sensitive, given historic underinvestment in those communities and lingering resentment over the last round of closures. By contrast, Chicago’s Latino population, which is roughly on par with the Black population, skews younger and is the largest bloc in the public schools.  

Chicago isn’t alone in facing a crisis of falling enrollment. Smaller cohorts of U.S.-born children and a slowdown in legal immigration over the last decade have left many urban school districts with too many classrooms and not enough students. The pandemic also led more families to move out of cities, while others enrolled kids in private schools that were quicker to resume in-person classes. 

Burke Elementary School on Chicago’s South Side, a short drive from the Hyde Park neighborhood where Barack Obama began his career in Democratic politics, has seen better days. Its hulking century-old brick building has a new playground outside, but its K-8 student body of 293 has fallen by nearly one-third in five years. Only 1% of students are considered proficient in math, down from almost 4% pre-pandemic. (The school district has also seen a decline, though not as precipitous.)

Among parents waiting to collect their children there was little talk of the mayoral race. Most were focused on their daily grind and, when asked, unsure about voting at all. Some expressed surprise that Ms. Lightfoot was out of the race. 

In the first round, Ms. Lightfoot won virtually all of Chicago’s Black-majority wards, including the neighborhood that Burke Elementary serves. To beat Mr. Vallas, say analysts, Mr. Johnson will need to win a clear majority of Black voters while holding the mostly white wards on the North Side where his progressive policies are popular.

His defense of neighborhood schools goes down well in progressive circles. But his opposition to school choice isn’t necessarily a winning argument with Black parents who are frustrated by their local schools, says a Democrat who requested anonymity to discuss the candidates. Some may also worry about the taxes Mr. Johnson wants to raise, this Democrat adds. “The Black community is not as liberal as Brandon is.”

Many people have probably never heard of Shahzad Ismaily. But for a number of high-profile songwriters, the veteran musician and producer has become what pop star Feist calls “a secret weapon.” 

In a recording studio, Mr. Ismaily is renowned for being able to play just about any instrument in any number of genres. He is in demand as a collaborator, and is a member of a cross-genre experimental jazz trio with a well-reviewed new release. Even so, perhaps his rarest gift is teaching artists how to reach a higher plane of creativity. As Mr. Ismaily puts it, he’s a music doula.

“He’s the most remarkable musician I think I’ve ever come in contact with in that sense that it’s like he’s communing with the spirit of music,” says Leslie Feist, who records under her last name. 

Mr. Ismaily is also a consummate networker. Not out of careerism – he hadn’t even heard Feist’s 2007 hit “1234” when they first met at a festival in Berlin – but out of innate curiosity. “I saw that she was reading a recent translation of ‘The Odyssey’ by Emily Wilson, which is, I think, the first time it was translated by a woman,” he says.

He invited Feist, who likened “Odyssey” passages to lyrics, to bring the book to a rehearsal room for a jam session. He recalls that his proposal to her was: “We improvise. You open the book, grab a sentence, and deliver it however you want to – melody, no melody, spoken, sung. You just drop it into the sound.”

Mr. Ismaily’s session with the songwriter (more on that later) exemplifies how he generates musical ideas. When the Monitor recently visited his Brooklyn recording studio, he explained that when you’re immersed in the channel of flowing improvisation, “things are taking place so quickly, so coincidentally, so unnervingly right that you start to think that the choices that are coming to you to make are not yours. They’re of an ‘other’ side.”  

The New York studio is designed to be a cocoon for creativity. Its paneled walls, made from reclaimed wood, glow with the warmth of a sunset. Guitars and basses hang on pegs. Next to an upright piano, its innards exposed to reveal felt hammers and strings, sits a slightly bruised drum kit. Mr. Ismaily provides a hypothetical example of how, if he’s playing a rhythm in response to a guitar part, he tries to visualize what the music evokes. 

“I decide, ‘Okay, the song is about the ocean,’” says Mr. Ismaily. “I’m now going to specifically think about oceanic sounds. But from the drum set point of view. And then all of a sudden, something rich and more textured is happening. And then the songwriter, who has up until that point worked with many drummers for more standard viewpoints, is excited.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Shahzad Ismaily, a multi-instrumentalist, is part of a successful jazz trio and has worked with artists ranging from Feist to Yoko Ono.

Songwriter Cass McCombs says in an interview that “a lot of rock music relies on these set rules and structural things that people have already established years and years ago.” By contrast, when Mr. McCombs recruited Mr. Ismaily to play on his 2022 album “Heartmind,” he witnessed the form “being created, like, right in front of your face.” 

Mr. Ismaily’s quest is to always ask himself, “What is the most unusual choice I can make right now?” That left-field sensibility stems from a lesson he learned during his childhood. As the son of Pakistani immigrants in a small Philadelphia town, he realized he could either buy into the narrative of others – that he didn’t belong and that there was something wrong with him – or he could choose his own story. “Your unusualness is also your empowered space,” says Mr. Ismaily, sitting at a control room recording console. “It’s also your beauty.” 

He spent years playing nightly gigs in New York with anyone who’d have him. That led to opportunities to work with veteran musicians such as Damien Rice and Yoko Ono, and, more recently, English folk and electronica artist Beth Orton and American singer-songwriter Laura Veirs. Lately, his reputation has attained critical mass among a younger cohort of adventurous indie songwriters.

Grammy Award-winning artist Arooj Aftab sought him out for her breakout 2021 solo album, “Vulture Prince.” The two musicians with a shared Pakistani heritage later formed a trio with jazz pianist and MacArthur “genius grant” recipient Vijay Iyer. Mr. Ismaily recalls that after his first gig with Ms. Aftab, she said he should come over to her place sometime and have a meal. The way she expressed the invitation left an impression on him.

“She was saying, ‘To play music together is not simply to walk into a room and play a gig and then walk out of the room,’” says the lanky musician. “It is to be in community with one another. It is to care about each other’s lives outside the momentary sphere of that sound.”

In the trio, Mr. Ismaily’s primary role is playing bass. The group’s meditative soundscapes, a series of exploratory journeys into inner space, showcase Ms. Aftab’s plaintive vocals in Urdu. Their well-reviewed debut album “Love in Exile,” released in March, consists of spontaneous live performances. 

Mr. Ismaily compares improvising music to witnessing how a doula assisted the birth of his young daughter, whom he co-parents with a former girlfriend. By making the space that you’re in feel breathable, comfortable, and safe, one can more easily express one’s vulnerabilities through song. In an email sent via her publicist, Ms. Aftab expresses wonder at how Mr. Ismaily is able to “channel the purest parts of a cruel world and make it into a self-restoring kind of story through music.”

Mr. Ismaily describes being a music doula this way: “If I sit next to you and I’m purely nonjudgmental of what you say and what you do, and I hold you with a kind of unconditional love and acceptance, does that allow you to go one layer further toward the parts of yourself that you’ve held at arm’s length?”

Which isn’t to imply that Mr. Ismaily’s oeuvre is somber. When Feist first jammed with him ahead of the 2018 People Festival in Germany, she connected with his playfulness. It tempered the intimidation she felt about improvising songs via selecting random “Odyssey” pages. 

“In the end, it became such a powerful experience. I felt like a 15-year-old again, just at the very beginning of music, but on a whole other level,” says the Canadian. “He kind of helped me turn a corner and arrive somewhere in my own relationship with what I’ve done for so long.”  

On her new album, “Multitudes,” out this month, Feist invited Mr. Ismaily and bass player Gabe Noel to freely express themselves on top of the song structures she’d created. It resulted in songs that were more loosely knit and less confined than anything she’d previously created. Mr. Ismaily’s contributions include a melancholy synth on the album closer, “Song for Sad Friends.” It complemented Feist’s lyric about how transformation often occurs after one hits rock bottom. “His pathos is really evident on how he played on that song,” she says.

Mr. Ismaily is hoping to be a guest performer at a show on Feist’s spring tour. Each time he first takes to the stage, the musician begins teasing out interesting chord patterns. He compares it to a prayer that’s inviting the music in. 

“What moves me is the idea that improvisers practice, and what they practice is the ability to let your guard down, either alone or with a group,” he says. “[It’s] the ability to move your ego to the right and listen beyond it for something that is eternal and that is eternally present.”

Reuters

Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen speaks with members of the Taiwanese community in New York City, March 30.

The president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, made a rare visit to the United States on Thursday and delivered this message in a speech: Her island nation’s democratic values are in peril from authoritarian “belligerence.” China, in other words, is challenging Taiwan from within – using disinformation and misinformation to undercut values such as freedom and rule of law – even more than by threatening a military invasion.

Her words were timely. At this week’s second Summit for Democracy of some 120 countries, much of the discussion was on ways to counter what Ms. Tsai calls “cognitive warfare” on the internet. The first summit was held in 2021 before Russia’s war in Ukraine. Since then, that war has shown how the resiliency of Ukrainians in rebutting Russian digital propaganda with transparency and accurate information can help their war effort. As U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the summit, democracies must deal with disinformation and misinformation in a way “that brings truth to bear.”

Taiwan, which holds a presidential election early next year, feels some urgency to improve its democratic shield against China. A year ago, the Chinese military issued a new doctrine that said warfare “depends mainly on information to subdue an enemy.” Ms. Tsai has set up a ministry for digital affairs as well as a national institute of cybersecurity. She also plans to set up low-Earth-orbit satellite internet service in case China cuts undersea cables.

Yet Taiwan’s real strength against Chinese propaganda lies in its citizen-led fact-checking groups, such as MyGoPen, Cofacts, and Taiwan FactCheck Center, that correct false information online or in the news media.

“These organizations form a collaborative safety net to shield Taiwan’s unique information space and vulnerable democracy,” write scholars Chiaoning Su and Wei-Ping Li in Taiwan Insight. “Taiwan’s fact-checking practices offer a timely and fitting lesson as China becomes increasingly bold in its cyber intrusions.”

In addition, Taiwan uses Polis, an online discussion platform, to allow its citizens to weigh in on public topics. “The idea is that if everyone is talking in a reasonable way, according to transparent rules of online debate, then conspiracy theories don’t spread so quickly,” reports The Atlantic magazine.

The nation’s digital minister, Audrey Tang, describes the strategy as “official resilience for all.” The power of collective intelligence at work in digital public spaces helps reinforce cohesion and collaboration.

“We can empower the voices reaching across ideological divides and uncover our shared values in plain sight,” she said in a video at the summit. For Taiwan, those values may mean less peril from a belligerent foe across the Taiwan Strait.