You’d think that, by now, Donald Trump’s fans would be tired of all this. The long lines and the self-indulgent speeches and the relentless blasting of Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” as they stand outside exposed to the elements. But they aren’t. Not at all.

After six years, the former president’s rallies still have summer-camp vibes—at least at first. At last night’s event in Waco, Texas—the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign—Trump’s thousands of supporters seemed delighted simply to be together at the Waco airport hangar, wearing their ULTRA MAGA T-shirts and drinking lemonade in the hot sun. Sure, the vendors ran out of water at one point, and there was no shade to speak of, but nobody really complained. They were too busy singing along to the Village People and bonding with new friends over their shared interests (justice, freedom, theories about a ruling Deep State cabal).

But the sunny mood of Trump’s supporters contrasted with his 2024 campaign message, which is different this time around—darker, more vengeful, and, if such a thing is possible, even more self-absorbed. “The abuses of power that we are witnessing at all levels of government will go down as among the most shameful, corrupt, and depraved chapters” in history, Trump told the crowd in a clear reference to a potential indictment he’s facing related to hush-money payments to the porn actor Stormy Daniels—and probably also to the three other main legal cases against him. He spent 30 minutes soliloquizing about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the corrupt “thugs” in America’s justice system, and the apparent threat to his attorney-client privilege. Behind Trump, supporters held up WITCH HUNT signs that had been given out by the campaign.

[David A. Graham: The most disturbing part of Trump’s latest rant]

At his rallies in 2016, Trump used to tell his supporters, “I am your voice.” Last night, he offered something more sinister. “I am your warrior. I am your justice,” he told them. “For those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

Choosing Waco for his first campaign rally of the season was a little on the nose even for Trump, a man who has always relished a chance to say the quiet part out loud. In the spring of 1993, federal law-enforcement agents laid siege to the Branch Davidian compound, where a leader had bound his followers to him with apocalyptic warnings. Thirty years later, here was Trump, whipping up his own supporters with claims of similar law-enforcement overreach—which, in Trump’s case, may mean being charged with crimes related to his dealings with a star of Porking With Pride 2.

At times over the past week, Trump has seemed almost giddy at the prospect of an indictment, reportedly musing with aides about how he might behave during a potential perp walk. The past few days have also been anxious ones for Trump, according to the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, but also according to anyone reading Trump’s frantic social-media posts. On Truth Social, in between site ads for mole and skin-tag removal, the former president has been Truthing and Retruthing with the all-caps enthusiasm of a middle schooler hopped up on Pixy Stix. “EVERYBODY KNOWS I’M 100% INNOCENT,” he wrote last week. “OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED, AS THEY TELL US TO BE PEACEFUL!” Trump predicted an imminent arrest, and urged Americans to “PROTEST, PROTEST, PROTEST!!!” On Thursday, presumably while pacing the gilded halls of Mar-a-Lago, Trump amped up his rhetoric by warning—or maybe, threatening—about the “death & destruction” that could occur if he is eventually charged.

[Tim Naftali: Indicting a former president should always have been fair game]

Trump was not indicted last week, but it could happen this week—as early as tomorrow, when the grand jury is due to reconvene. If Trump is arrested, he might be booked the same as any other suspect. Americans may get to see his mug shot. We may also see the kind of turbulent protests that he’s clearly agitating for. His supporters, predictably, think the whole Stormy Daniels situation is hogwash. “We laugh at it all, because the liberal side is just trying to throw everything at the wall to see if something sticks,” Ron Weldon, a helicopter pilot from Keller, told me at Waco. Texan rally goers I spoke with forecast that, if Trump is indicted, there will be protests, but they will be peaceful, and nothing major. They’d really like to avoid another January 6 situation, which, they reminded me, was caused by FBI plants. An indictment, they said, will only make them love Trump more. “If they do that, they might as well seal their fate: He’s gonna win,” Janet Larson, a retiree from Temple, told me.

Last night, though, no one acted as if their leader was about to be indicted. People sucked on Bomb Pops and danced and got sunburned. They carried around their tiny dogs and booed the press at all the right times. When Trump’s jet landed, an hour later than scheduled, a vendor abandoned her ice-cream truck to take a video. Zany conspiracy theories ran rampant: A woman named Stephanie Tatar wearing a hot-pink pantsuit told me that she’s starting a business that allows people to fax her handwritten letters to Trump; she’ll deliver them personally to Mar-a-Lago, to avoid censorship by the postal service. Priscilla Patterson, a 50-something woman from Waco, said that she wasn’t worried about Trump winning in 2024, because he’d be installed as the rightful president well before then. Her husband, Ricky Patterson, suggested that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is currently Trump’s main presumptive rival in the Republican primary race, was himself a puppet of the elite ruling cabal.

[Brian Klaas: Rule by law in Florida]

Recent stories about Trump’s supporters have suggested that they’re bored with him, or flirting with the idea of switching candidates. But the fans still showing up at his rallies—at least the estimated 10,000 of them last night in Waco—seem more bullish than ever. Maybe it was a good thing, they said, that Trump had been away for a couple of years—America got to see what it was missing: low gas prices, no wars in Europe. And they are not considering other candidates: DeSantis is too establishment, too fake, not ready for prime time. It’s Trump, all the way, baby. No one else even comes close.

Trump and his supporters have been through a lot together since 2020: the stolen election; the FBI inside job on January 6, 2021; the long list of legal persecutions. These trials have served only to cement their devotion. So, for them, seeing Trump back on the campaign trail was like witnessing the long-awaited return of an exiled leader. That’s why, they told me, this cycle’s campaign will be different. “The other ones were ‘Let’s make America great! Let’s clean it up, let’s do things right!’” a Waco man named Brian, who declined to share his last name, told me. But he prefers to use Trump’s word to describe this next iteration. “To me, this is retribution. We’ve got to get our country back, because it’s been stolen from us.” What would that retribution promised by Trump look like? I asked. “People who have done fraud and illegal stuff, they’ve gotta be perp walked. They need to face justice,” he said. “There’s a two-tier level of justice in this country.”

The legal system is corrupt, the political system is rigged, and Joe Biden was never elected president, Ricky Patterson told me. Trump’s campaign is a crusade for “redemption.” Trump is a “new-age Moses,” April Rickman, from Midland, Texas, told me. “He delivered the people from Egypt.”

The prophet himself—after ranting about Bragg and corruption, and getting off a few good DeSantis barbs—offered a few moments of hope for such deliverance. To round after round of applause, he promised to close the border, unleash ICE, and deport gang members “with tattoos on their faces.” He vowed to “settle” the war in Ukraine in just 24 hours, to keep trans girls out of girls’ sports, and to prevent World War III. The crowd around me screamed its approval.

[Adam Serwer: Don’t cut corners on indicting Trump]

But the high didn’t last long. Suddenly, a somber string melody was playing through the loudspeakers, and Trump was speaking over it. An American flag rippled on the jumbotrons behind him. “We are a nation in decline. We are a failing nation,” he said to an audience that, hours before, had been beaming in the sun with Mountain Dew and stuffed pretzels. “We are a nation that in many ways has become a joke. And we are a nation that is hostile to liberty, freedom, and faith.”

Then it was all over, and Trump’s plane pulled out onto the runway to take him back to Florida. The hardcore fans who’d stuck around to watch his departure lined up along the fence to wave goodbye. As the plane sped down the tarmac, April Rickman held her hands up to the sky.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) says that he has been briefed by the FBI about possible threats that could occur if former President Donald Trump is indicted in New York. Trump is under investigation for an alleged hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, but Trump has not yet been charged in the case.

The Hollywood star was arrested by police in New York after a woman alleged she was assaulted.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

Good morning, and welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer reveals what’s keeping them entertained.

Today’s special guest is Amy Weiss-Meyer, an Atlantic senior editor and frequent contributor. Most recently, Amy profiled the legendary children’s author Judy Blume for the April issue of the magazine and, in November, co-authored an article on the teenage Holocaust victim Marion Ehrlich, whose name is depicted in a plaque on the cover of the December 2022 issue. She is looking forward to watching Season 4 of Succession, enjoyed two recent museum exhibitions of artists named Alex, and was taken aback by last year’s stunning memoir by the writer Hua Hsu.

First, here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic:

Life is worse for older people now. The Trump AI deepfakes had an unintended side effect. Marriage isn’t hard work; it’s serious play. The Culture Survey: Amy Weiss-Meyer

The upcoming event I’m most looking forward to: I didn’t love Season 3 of Succession as much as I loved 1 and 2, but I will absolutely be watching the premiere of the fourth and final season today. After that crazy Season 3 finale, I’d be lying if I said I’m not excited to see what happens! Plus, it’s been long enough since last winter that I’m once again ready for a weekly dose of Roy family drama. [Related: A perfect—and cyclical—Succession finale]

An author I will read anything by: Lauren Groff is the only author who could get me to read a book about medieval nuns; her writing is so beautiful, so human, so surprising and moving no matter the subject. She can also be wickedly funny. Her Atlantic essay from last year skewering luxury beach resorts—complete with a loving roast of her in-laws’ vacationing style—is simply delicious. [Related: Beware the luxury beach resort.]

The last thing that made me cry: Hua Hsu’s memoir, Stay True, was such a poignant portrayal of college friendship and loss. I knew exactly what was going to happen (it’s written on the book jacket) and still felt totally unprepared for the emotional force of it. [Related: Six memoirs that go beyond memories]

The last museum or gallery show that I loved: It’s hard to pick just one! I loved the Alex Katz exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum when I saw it last fall. The scale of the individual paintings—many of them portraits—and of the show itself (which spans an eight-decade career) was breathtaking but somehow not overwhelming. I left feeling much better acquainted with an artist whose work I only vaguely knew before.

Another incredibly immersive solo show that I loved last year, by an artist also named Alex, was an Alex Da Corte exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, outside Copenhagen. All the rooms were completely transformed into a kind of neon-lit fantasyland that served as the backdrop for his playful yet serious work. The museum’s promo materials described the vibe as “like stepping into a parallel reality” and “pop-art on acid.” I’m still not convinced that Da Corte’s video of himself dressed up as Mister Rogers wasn’t a dream.

Something I recently rewatched, reread, or otherwise revisited: When I interviewed Judy Blume in Key West late last year, we discussed our mutual love for Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy books. They first came out in the ’40s and ’50s, when Blume was young, and were reissued again in 2000, when I was in grade school. In the airport on the way home, I downloaded the third book in the series, Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, on my iPad (I chose that one in part because Blume had written an introduction to the newer edition). It was so charming and fun and honest about the experience of being a kid (one of the major plot points is Betsy’s ambivalence about turning 10), and featured a secondary story line I had completely forgotten, about the perils of xenophobia and the importance of showing kindness to immigrants—even (or especially) if you don’t understand their language or customs. [Related: Judy Blume goes all the way.]

A piece of journalism that recently changed my perspective on a topic: Elizabeth Weil’s recent profile of the computational linguist Emily M. Bender, in New York magazine, helped me understand the possibilities and pitfalls of artificial intelligence (specifically large language models) in a way that no other piece of journalism has. If you, like me, are kind of avoiding the whole AI thing, if you know this is something you should care about but aren’t quite sure where to start, I can’t recommend this article enough.

My favorite way of wasting time on my phone: I spend far too much time on Instagram, sometimes to keep up with friends and family and restaurants I like, and sometimes (more shamefully) going down extremely weird algorithm-generated rabbit holes or following links from freakishly well-targeted ads. I’m not especially crafty, but lately, for whatever reason, the algorithm has been serving me very crafty content—how to mend a hole in a garment in a cute way that looks like a ladybug, or pretty ceramics, or stop-motion wool animations, which are quite soothing to watch. [Related: The strange brands in your Instagram feed (from 2018)]

I’m also in two active word-game group chats with extended family members: one for Spelling Bee and one for Wordle. I don’t play either consistently at this point, but I like getting pings on my phone from people I wouldn’t otherwise be in touch with on a daily basis, and seeing how others are scoring. My mom and my uncle have become real Spelling Bee snobs—they both get to Queen Bee almost every day now, which is annoying. [Related: I figured out Wordle’s secret.]

A poem, or line of poetry, that I return to: Nikki Giovanni’s “Just a New York Poem” is a gorgeous celebration of the city and of a certain kind of love. [Related: Nikki Giovanni on Martin Luther King Jr. (from 2018)]

Read past editions of the Culture Survey with Jerusalem Demsas, Kaitlyn Tiffany, Bhumi Tharoor, Amanda Mull, Megan Garber, Helen Lewis, Jane Yong Kim, Clint Smith, John Hendrickson, Gal Beckerman, Kate Lindsay, Xochitl Gonzalez, Spencer Kornhaber, Jenisha Watts, David French, Shirley Li, David Sims, Lenika Cruz, Jordan Calhoun, Hannah Giorgis, and Sophie Gilbert.

The Week Ahead Succession, the aforementioned HBO drama about the diabolical Roy clan, launches its fourth and final season (premieres tonight at 9 p.m. ET on HBO) Above Ground, the second poetry collection, and third book, by the author and Atlantic staff writer Clint Smith (on sale Tuesday) Rye Lane, the buzzy British rom-com that charmed audiences at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (begins streaming in the U.S. on Friday on Hulu) Essay Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Girl With a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer / Mauritshuis; Girl With a Red Hat, Johannes Vermeer / National Gallery of Art.

Vermeer’s Daughter

By Lawrence Weschler

Fifteen years ago, a distinguished academic publisher brought out a densely argued, lavishly illustrated, wildly erudite monograph that seemed to completely reconceive the study of Johannes Vermeer. The author, an art historian named Benjamin Binstock, said that he had discerned the existence of an entirely new artist—Vermeer’s daughter Maria, the young woman Binstock had also identified as the likely model for Girl With a Pearl Earring—to whom he attributed seven of the 35 or so paintings then conventionally ascribed to Vermeer. To hear Binstock tell it, Maria’s paintings include one of the most popular: Girl With a Red Hat, at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C. He believes that painting and another at the National Gallery are self-portraits by Maria, and that she is also the artist behind two out of the three Vermeers at the Frick, in New York; two out of the five at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, also in New York; and one in the private Leiden Collection.

I happened upon Binstock’s book, Vermeer’s Family Secrets, not long after it was published, in 2008; at the time, I was picking up pretty much anything about Vermeer (and writing about Vermeer myself). I found the author’s argument by turns absorbing, perplexing, and confounding, but also curiously plausible and certainly worth entertaining. I was struck by how Binstock’s account helped explain the smattering of “misfit paintings”—those strangely uncharacteristic efforts, especially toward the end of Vermeer’s career, whose attributions were regularly being contested (or defended) by experts. So I was eager to see how the wider community of scholars and curators was going to respond.

The establishment did not respond at all. There was not a single academic review—not then and not ever.

Read the full article.

More in Culture My friend Jules Feiffer Tetris doesn’t stack up. Why kids aren’t falling in love with reading Procrastinating ourselves to death Eight books that will take you somewhere new This novelist is pushing all the buttons at the same time. Learn your family’s history. Catch Up on The Atlantic Donald Trump is on the wrong side of the religious right. Nobody likes Mike Pence. Click here if you want to be sad. Photo Album A volunteer prepares iftar food for Muslim devotees breaking their fast at the Data Darbar shrine on the first day of the holy month of Ramadan, in Lahore, Pakistan, on March 23, 2023. (Arif Ali / AFP / Getty)

Cherry blossoms bloom, a reveler greets the vernal equinox, and Muslims around the world observe Ramadan in our editor’s photo selections of the week.

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Actor Jonathan Majors, who has recently starred in "Creed III" and "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," was arrested Saturday morning in an alleged domestic dispute, New York police say.