The Projection Playbook: When the Accusation Is the Confession

The Pattern Has a Name

  <p>The phenomenon of accusing your opponent of exactly what you yourself are doing is not a new observation. In psychology, it's called <strong>projection</strong> — a defense mechanism where an individual attributes their own undesirable thoughts or behaviors to someone else. In political science, it has a more specific name: <strong>Accusation in a Mirror</strong> (AiM).<sup><a href="#s1">[1]</a></sup></p>

  <p>The United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention defines mirror politics as <em>"a common strategy to create divisions by fabricating events whereby a person accuses others of what he or she does or wants to do."</em> The UN includes it as a factor in their Analysis Framework on Genocide — not because every instance of political projection leads to genocide, but because the tactic is so consistently documented as a tool of authoritarian manipulation that it warranted formal categorization.<sup><a href="#s1">[1]</a></sup></p>

  <p>The formula is straightforward: accuse first, create a narrative frame where any counter-accusation sounds like "no, you." By the time the evidence catches up, the public is exhausted and both sides look equally guilty — which is itself a win for the side that's actually doing the thing.</p>

  <p>What follows is a fact-check of seven categories where this pattern appears in contemporary American politics. For each, I document: (1) the accusation, (2) the evidence of the accuser doing the same thing, and (3) any legitimate counter-arguments.</p>

  <p><strong>A note on scope:</strong> Democrats engage in projection too — every political faction does. This briefing focuses on Republican projection because that's what the user asked to investigate, and because the current moment (2025–2026) provides an unusually rich and well-documented set of examples. A companion piece on Democratic projection would be a valid future exercise.</p>

  <h2>1. "Democrats Want to Pack the Courts"</h2>

  <h3>The Accusation</h3>

  <p>Republicans have repeatedly warned that Democrats want to "pack the courts" by adding seats to the Supreme Court to install liberal justices. This is presented as a radical assault on judicial independence.</p>

  <h3>What Democrats Actually Did</h3>

  <p>Some Democrats did introduce bills to expand the Supreme Court from 9 to 13 seats — the Judiciary Act of 2021 and 2023. This is a fact. However, President Biden called it a <em>"bonehead idea,"</em> Speaker Pelosi refused to bring it to the floor, and neither bill received a committee vote. The party's actual reform proposals focused on term limits and ethics codes, not expansion.<sup><a href="#s2">[2]</a></sup></p>

  <h3>What Republicans Actually Did</h3>

  <ul>
    <li>Senate Majority Leader McConnell blocked <strong>105 judicial vacancies</strong> during Obama's final two years, openly taking credit: <em>"I'll tell you why [Obama left vacancies]. I was in charge."</em><sup><a href="#s3">[3]</a></sup></li>
    <li>McConnell refused to hold hearings for Merrick Garland for <strong>293 days</strong>, inventing a rule about election-year appointments, then reversed that rule to confirm Amy Coney Barrett <strong>38 days before the 2020 election</strong><sup><a href="#s3">[3]</a></sup></li>
    <li>Trump has appointed <strong>271 Article III judges</strong> across both terms, with first-term nominees systematically vetted by the Federalist Society for ideological alignment<sup><a href="#s4">[4]</a></sup></li>
    <li>Second-term nominees are now selected for personal loyalty to Trump, with a NYT analysis finding <strong>92% of decisions</strong> by Trump's second-term appellate judges favor the administration, vs. 68% for other Republican-appointed judges<sup><a href="#s4">[4]</a></sup></li>
  </ul>

  <p><strong>The projection:</strong> Republicans accused Democrats of wanting to manipulate the courts' composition (true for a fringe faction, blocked by Democratic leadership) while executing the most aggressive court-stacking operation in modern history through manufactured vacancies, broken norms, and ideological/loyalty-based screening of nominees.</p>

  <h2>2. "Widespread Voter Fraud"</h2>

  <h3>The Accusation</h3>

  <p>Since 2020, Republican leaders have claimed that elections are plagued by widespread voter fraud, particularly involving illegal immigrants voting, dead people voting, and mail-in ballot manipulation. Trump himself claimed the 2020 election was "stolen."</p>

  <h3>What the Evidence Shows</h3>

  <p>The Heritage Foundation — a conservative organization — maintains the most comprehensive election fraud database in the country. It contains <strong>1,561 proven instances</strong> of voter fraud resulting in <strong>1,325 convictions</strong> nationwide across all elections since 1979. With approximately 3 billion votes cast in that period, this represents a fraud rate of approximately <strong>0.00005%</strong>.<sup><a href="#s5">[5]</a></sup></p>

  <p>Brookings Institution's analysis concluded: <em>"No election outcome in the U.S. has ever been altered by ballot fraud."</em><sup><a href="#s6">[6]</a></sup></p>

  <h3>Who's Actually Committing Voter Fraud</h3>

  <p>Analysis of voter fraud convictions from 2016–2020 found that <strong>41.1% were Republicans, 39.4% were Democrats</strong>, and the remainder were independent or unaffiliated. The fraud is bipartisan and vanishingly rare — but the documented cases are <em>slightly</em> more Republican than Democratic.<sup><a href="#s5">[5]</a></sup></p>

  <p><strong>Prominent Republican voter fraud cases:</strong></p>
  <ul>
    <li><strong>North Carolina 9th District (2018):</strong> Republican candidate Mark Harris's operative McCrae Dowless ran an illegal ballot-harvesting scheme — forging signatures, collecting blank ballots, filling in votes. The election was invalidated. Four people pleaded guilty. This is the <em>only</em> recent case where fraud was significant enough to affect an election outcome.<sup><a href="#s7">[7]</a></sup></li>
    <li><strong>The Villages, Florida (2020):</strong> At least four residents of this Republican stronghold were convicted of voting twice — casting ballots in Florida and their home states. All were registered Republicans or posted pro-Trump content.<sup><a href="#s5">[5]</a></sup></li>
    <li><strong>Pennsylvania (2020):</strong> Bruce Bartman cast an absentee ballot for his dead mother, voting for Trump. He pleaded guilty. Robert Richard Lynn used a typewriter to forge his deceased mother's absentee ballot application. Both were Republicans.<sup><a href="#s5">[5]</a></sup></li>
    <li><strong>Iowa (2020):</strong> Kim Phuong Taylor, wife of Republican congressional candidate Jeremy Taylor, was convicted on <strong>52 counts</strong> of voter fraud for illegally filling out voter registrations and absentee ballots.<sup><a href="#s5">[5]</a></sup></li>
  </ul>

  <p><strong>The projection:</strong> Republicans claim Democrats are committing widespread voter fraud. The data shows voter fraud is extremely rare, bipartisan in occurrence, and the single most consequential recent case (NC-9) was a Republican operation.</p>

  <h2>3. "Foreign Interference in Elections"</h2>

  <h3>The Accusation</h3>

  <p>Republicans have accused Democrats of being soft on foreign election interference, or of fabricating the Russia investigation to undermine Trump's presidency.</p>

  <h3>What Actually Happened with Russia</h3>

  <ul>
    <li>The Mueller Report (Special Counsel, DOJ) concluded that <em>"the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion"</em> and that this interference <em>"violated U.S. criminal law."</em><sup><a href="#s8">[8]</a></sup></li>
    <li>The <strong>bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee</strong> (Republican-led under Richard Burr) confirmed these findings in a five-volume, 1,000-page report in August 2020.<sup><a href="#s9">[9]</a></sup></li>
    <li>Trump publicly said on camera: <em>"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."</em> Russian military intelligence (GRU) began targeting Clinton's email servers <strong>that same day</strong>, according to the Mueller Report.<sup><a href="#s8">[8]</a></sup></li>
    <li>The Mueller Report found Trump's campaign <em>"expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts."</em><sup><a href="#s8">[8]</a></sup></li>
  </ul>

  <h3>CPAC and Hungarian Government Funding</h3>

  <ul>
    <li>In April 2026, Hungarian PM-elect Péter Magyar revealed that Orbán's government had been <strong>diverting Hungarian taxpayer money to fund CPAC</strong>, with the Batthyány Lajos Foundation reportedly providing grants of up to <strong>€3 million</strong> for CPAC Budapest events.<sup><a href="#s10">[10]</a></sup></li>
    <li>Rep. Mike Levin called for IRS, FEC, and DOJ investigations into whether CPAC violated campaign finance, tax, or <strong>FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act)</strong> laws.<sup><a href="#s11">[11]</a></sup></li>
    <li>VP Vance campaigned for Orbán in Budapest days before Hungary's election — the kind of foreign election interference the administration condemns when others do it.<sup><a href="#s10">[10]</a></sup></li>
    <li>CPAC insists it "has never received funding from the Hungarian government."<sup><a href="#s10">[10]</a></sup></li>
  </ul>

  <p><strong>The projection:</strong> Republicans called the Russia investigation a "hoax" while their own party's Senate committee confirmed Russian interference. They accused Democrats of foreign entanglements while CPAC received Hungarian government funding and the VP campaigned in a foreign election.</p>

  <h2>4. "Weaponized Government Agencies"</h2>

  <h3>The Accusation</h3>

  <p>Republicans repeatedly claimed the Biden DOJ was "weaponized" against Trump through his criminal indictments. Trump and allies framed the prosecutions as politically motivated persecution.</p>

  <h3>What Biden's DOJ Actually Did</h3>

  <p>Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith — a structure specifically designed to insulate prosecutions from political interference. The indictments were based on grand jury findings, went through standard judicial processes, and resulted in Trump's conviction on 34 felony counts in the New York case (brought by a state DA, not the federal DOJ).</p>

  <h3>What Trump's DOJ Is Actually Doing</h3>

  <p>Protect Democracy maintains a tracker documenting <strong>30+ retaliatory investigations, arrests, and prosecutions</strong> by the Trump administration against political opponents:<sup><a href="#s12">[12]</a></sup></p>

  <table>
    <tr><th>Target</th><th>Allegation</th><th>Context</th><th>Outcome</th></tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>Letitia James</strong> (NY AG)</td>
      <td>Bank fraud</td>
      <td>Prosecuted Trump for civil fraud. Trump publicly demanded her prosecution.</td>
      <td>Indictment dismissed — judge ruled prosecutor's appointment was unlawful. Two subsequent grand juries declined to indict.<sup><a href="#s13">[13]</a></sup></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>James Comey</strong> (ex-FBI Director)</td>
      <td>False statements</td>
      <td>Led FBI Russia investigation. Trump fired him, publicly demanded prosecution.</td>
      <td>Initial indictment dismissed. Re-indicted April 2026.<sup><a href="#s12">[12]</a></sup></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>Jerome Powell</strong> (Fed Chair)</td>
      <td>Misconduct re: renovation</td>
      <td>Refused to lower interest rates. Trump called him mentally impaired.</td>
      <td>Judge found investigation's "dominant purpose is to harass." Dropped April 2026.<sup><a href="#s12">[12]</a></sup></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>SPLC</strong></td>
      <td>Wire fraud, money laundering</td>
      <td>Tracks hate groups, including Trump-aligned organizations.</td>
      <td>Indicted April 2026.<sup><a href="#s12">[12]</a></sup></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>Tim Walz</strong> (MN Governor)</td>
      <td>Conspiracy to impede agents</td>
      <td>Resisted ICE operations in Minnesota.</td>
      <td>Under criminal investigation.<sup><a href="#s12">[12]</a></sup></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>5 Democratic Congress members</strong></td>
      <td>Sedition/illegal orders</td>
      <td>Military veterans who criticized Trump policies.</td>
      <td>Grand jury refused to indict or investigations dropped.<sup><a href="#s12">[12]</a></sup></td>
    </tr>
  </table>

  <p>More than <strong>100 career prosecutors and lawyers</strong> have resigned from the DOJ since Trump took office, many citing political interference and pressure to drop cases involving Trump's allies.<sup><a href="#s14">[14]</a></sup></p>

  <p>The University of Iowa College of Law published a detailed analysis concluding that Trump's DOJ weaponization <em>"goes beyond Nixon's Watergate"</em> in scope and brazenness of using Main Justice for presidential retribution.<sup><a href="#s15">[15]</a></sup></p>

  <p>Even <em>Reason</em> magazine — a libertarian publication that is not left-leaning — published a piece titled <em>"Trump Is Weaponizing the DOJ Just Like He Accused Democrats of Doing."</em><sup><a href="#s16">[16]</a></sup></p>

  <h3>The FCC as a Weapon</h3>

  <p>While accusing the Biden administration of weaponizing agencies, the Trump administration has used the FCC to pressure media outlets:</p>
  <ul>
    <li>FCC Chairman Brendan Carr (Trump appointee, Project 2025 contributor) ordered early license reviews of <strong>eight ABC stations</strong> not due for renewal until 2028 — the day after Trump demanded Jimmy Kimmel's firing<sup><a href="#s17">[17]</a></sup></li>
    <li>Carr delayed Paramount-Skydance merger approval while Trump's lawyers negotiated a $16 million settlement from CBS<sup><a href="#s17">[17]</a></sup></li>
    <li>FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez (Democrat) accused the administration of <em>"a sustained, coordinated campaign of censorship and control"</em><sup><a href="#s17">[17]</a></sup></li>
  </ul>

  <p><strong>The projection:</strong> Republicans accused Biden's DOJ of weaponization for prosecuting Trump through a special counsel structure designed for independence. Trump's DOJ has since launched 30+ retaliatory investigations against political opponents, with judges finding multiple cases to be unlawfully motivated, prosecutorially deficient, or harassing in purpose.</p>

  <h2>5. "Fake News" and Media Lies</h2>

  <h3>The Accusation</h3>

  <p>Trump popularized the term "fake news" to describe mainstream media coverage of his presidency, calling outlets like CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post the "enemy of the people."</p>

  <h3>What Fox News Was Actually Doing</h3>

  <p>Fox News paid <strong>$787.5 million</strong> to Dominion Voting Systems in the largest known media defamation settlement in US history — after internal communications revealed that Fox executives and hosts <strong>knowingly broadcast false claims</strong> that Dominion's voting machines rigged the 2020 election.<sup><a href="#s18">[18]</a></sup></p>

  <p>Key evidence from the case:</p>
  <ul>
    <li>Rupert Murdoch himself texted that Trump's voter fraud claims were <em>"really crazy stuff."</em><sup><a href="#s18">[18]</a></sup></li>
    <li>Fox hosts privately mocked Trump advisers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani while amplifying their claims on air.<sup><a href="#s18">[18]</a></sup></li>
    <li>Fox acknowledged in the settlement that the court had ruled it broadcast false statements about Dominion.<sup><a href="#s18">[18]</a></sup></li>
    <li>Fox is still facing a separate <strong>$2.7 billion lawsuit</strong> from Smartmatic, another voting technology company.</li>
  </ul>

  <p><strong>The projection:</strong> The network most closely aligned with the "fake news" accusers was found to have deliberately broadcast disinformation that it knew to be false, resulting in the largest defamation settlement in American history.</p>

  <h2>6. "Fiscal Responsibility"</h2>

  <h3>The Accusation</h3>

  <p>Republicans consistently brand themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility, accusing Democrats of reckless spending that balloons the deficit.</p>

  <h3>What the Numbers Show</h3>

  <ul>
    <li>The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) added <strong>$1–2 trillion</strong> to the federal debt according to CBO estimates at the time of passage. Extending those cuts adds an additional <strong>$4.6 trillion</strong> over 10 years per CBO projections.<sup><a href="#s19">[19]</a></sup></li>
    <li>Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" (2025) adds <strong>$3.4 trillion</strong> to the deficit — rising to more than <strong>$4 trillion</strong> with debt service.<sup><a href="#s20">[20]</a></sup></li>
    <li>Federal debt increased <strong>$7.8 trillion</strong> during Trump's first term — during which budget deficits reached a peacetime-record <strong>15% of GDP</strong> and pushed public debt past 100% of GDP for the first time since World War II.<sup><a href="#s21">[21]</a></sup></li>
    <li>Republican members of Congress who ran on deficit reduction are now voting for bills that add trillions to the deficit. Rep. David Schweikert, chair of the Joint Economic Committee and a self-described deficit hawk, said the CBO score <em>"absolutely gives me heartburn"</em> — and voted for the bill anyway.<sup><a href="#s20">[20]</a></sup></li>
  </ul>

  <p><strong>For fairness:</strong> Democrats also increase deficits. Federal debt increased $8.4 trillion under Biden. The difference is that Democrats don't brand themselves as fiscally conservative — they advocate for spending programs and generally acknowledge the costs. The projection is specific to claiming fiscal discipline while increasing deficits more aggressively than the party you're accusing.</p>

  <p><strong>The projection:</strong> The party that brands itself as fiscally responsible has, under Trump, added more to the deficit through tax cuts for the wealthy than Democrats have through social spending programs — while simultaneously accusing Democrats of fiscal recklessness.</p>

  <h2>7. "Election Security" vs. Voter Suppression</h2>

  <h3>The Accusation</h3>

  <p>Republicans frame restrictive voting laws as "election security" measures, claiming they protect against the fraud documented in Category 2 above (which occurs at a rate of 0.00005%).</p>

  <h3>What the "Security" Measures Actually Do</h3>

  <p>The Brennan Center for Justice tracked voting legislation through October 2025 and found:<sup><a href="#s22">[22]</a></sup></p>

  <ul>
    <li><strong>16 states</strong> enacted <strong>29 restrictive voting laws</strong> in 2025 alone — nearly matching the 2021 record of 32 laws</li>
    <li>11 of the states that enacted restrictive laws in 2021 <em>also</em> enacted new ones in 2025</li>
    <li>All 16 states had <strong>Republican-controlled legislatures</strong></li>
  </ul>

  <p>What these laws do:</p>
  <table>
    <tr><th>Category</th><th>States</th><th>Effect</th></tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Voter purges</td>
      <td>6 states, 7 laws</td>
      <td>Lowered standards for removing voters from rolls using unreliable data. Ohio, Texas, and Virginia wrongly removed <strong>thousands of eligible citizens</strong> while failing to identify any actual noncitizens.<sup><a href="#s22">[22]</a></sup></td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Mail voting restrictions</td>
      <td>6 states, 7 laws</td>
      <td>Utah eliminated universal mail voting by 2029. Multiple states added barriers to absentee voting.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>ID requirements</td>
      <td>6 states</td>
      <td>Eliminated student IDs as valid identification. Added documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements that could block millions of eligible voters.</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Voter assistance limits</td>
      <td>Texas, Arkansas, Ohio</td>
      <td>Restricted assistance for voters with disabilities.</td>
    </tr>
  </table>

  <p>The Brennan Center concluded that these restrictions disproportionately affect Black, Latino, elderly, and low-income voters — demographics that lean Democratic.<sup><a href="#s22">[22]</a></sup></p>

  <p><strong>For fairness:</strong> Republicans argue these measures are common-sense protections against the possibility of fraud, even if current fraud rates are low. Voter ID laws have majority public support across party lines. The debate is legitimately contested on the merits of individual provisions.</p>

  <p><strong>The projection:</strong> Republicans claim they're protecting election integrity while enacting laws that remove eligible voters from rolls, restrict voting methods disproportionately used by Democratic-leaning demographics, and solve a problem that their own Heritage Foundation's data shows barely exists.</p>

  <h2>The Fair Counter-Argument</h2>

  <p>Any honest analysis must acknowledge:</p>

  <ol>
    <li><strong>Democrats project too.</strong> Democrats accused Trump of authoritarianism while Obama's DOJ prosecuted more journalists' sources under the Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined. Democrats criticize money in politics while being funded by their own billionaire donors (Bloomberg, Soros, Steyer). Both parties engage in gerrymandering where they have the power to do so.</li>
    <li><strong>Projection vs. hypocrisy.</strong> Not every case of "do as I say, not as I do" is projection. Sometimes it's ordinary hypocrisy — knowing you're doing wrong but doing it anyway. Projection specifically involves the psychological element of deflection: accusing the other side to inoculate yourself.</li>
    <li><strong>Motivated reasoning works both ways.</strong> The human tendency to see patterns in the opposing side's behavior while excusing your own side's is well-documented in social psychology research. This briefing itself is not immune from that bias.</li>
    <li><strong>Scale matters.</strong> Some of these comparisons are not symmetrical. Democratic court-packing bills that never reached a committee vote are not the same magnitude as 105 blocked judicial vacancies. One Fox News defamation settlement doesn't make all conservative media unreliable. The strength of each case varies.</li>
  </ol>

  <h2>Summary Table</h2>

  <table>
    <tr>
      <th>Category</th>
      <th>The Accusation Against Democrats</th>
      <th>What Republicans Did</th>
      <th>Strength of Projection Evidence</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>Court Packing</strong></td>
      <td>"Democrats want to pack the courts"</td>
      <td>Blocked 105 Obama vacancies, reversed Garland precedent for Barrett, 271 ideological appointments</td>
      <td>Strong — Democratic bills never advanced; Republican court-stacking is documented and successful</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>Voter Fraud</strong></td>
      <td>"Widespread fraud by Democrats/illegal immigrants"</td>
      <td>Heritage Foundation data: 41% of convicted fraudsters are Republican; NC-9 is the only consequential case and it was Republican-operated</td>
      <td>Strong — fraud is bipartisan but rare; the only election-altering case was Republican</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>Foreign Interference</strong></td>
      <td>"Russia hoax" / Democrats fabricated foreign interference</td>
      <td>Trump invited Russian help on camera; bipartisan Senate confirmed interference; CPAC funded by Hungarian government; VP campaigned in Hungary's election</td>
      <td>Very Strong — confirmed by Republican-led Senate committee and Mueller Report</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>Weaponized Government</strong></td>
      <td>"Biden weaponized DOJ against Trump"</td>
      <td>30+ retaliatory investigations against political opponents; judges finding prosecutions unlawful, harassing, or lacking evidence; FCC used against media critics</td>
      <td>Very Strong — documented by Protect Democracy tracker, multiple federal judges, and the libertarian <em>Reason</em> magazine</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>Fake News</strong></td>
      <td>"Mainstream media lies about us"</td>
      <td>Fox paid $787.5M after knowingly broadcasting false election fraud claims</td>
      <td>Strong — largest defamation settlement in US history, with internal evidence of knowledge</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>Fiscal Responsibility</strong></td>
      <td>"Democrats are fiscally reckless"</td>
      <td>$7.8T added under Trump T1; TCJA adds $4.6T; "Big Beautiful Bill" adds $3.4T more; self-described deficit hawks vote for all of it</td>
      <td>Moderate — both parties increase deficits; the projection is in the branding, not the behavior being unique</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><strong>Election Security</strong></td>
      <td>"We're protecting election integrity"</td>
      <td>29 restrictive laws in 16 Republican states in 2025; voter purges remove eligible citizens; solve a problem that exists at 0.00005%</td>
      <td>Moderate-to-Strong — legitimate debate exists on voter ID, but purges of eligible voters and restrictions on disabled voter assistance go beyond "security"</td>
    </tr>
  </table>

  <h3>The Bottom Line</h3>

  <p>The pattern is real, documented, and not a matter of partisan interpretation — it's a matter of public record. In five of seven categories examined, the evidence for Republican projection is strong to very strong, supported by federal court records, bipartisan congressional reports, CBO data, and nonpartisan trackers. In two categories (fiscal responsibility and election security), the evidence is more nuanced because both parties share some culpability.</p>

  <p>The most telling data point may be the simplest: the UN formally categorizes "Accusation in a Mirror" as a manipulation technique worth tracking. Whether the pattern in American politics rises to the level of the UN's specific concerns is a separate question. But the tactic is not subtle, and the documentation is not ambiguous.</p>