Trump’s second administration is not precisely beginning with a whisper. However as Washington prepares for Donald Trump’s encore inauguration on Jan. 20, the temper round city is much much less jittery and traumatized than it was on the eve of Joe Biden’s inauguration 4 years in the past. No election fraud conspiracy from inside the authorities. No vandalism to the Capitol. Thus far, the post-election pre-inauguration interval has been comparatively and blessedly uninteresting.
Members of the 119th Congress took their oaths of workplace on January 3 and settled down quietly. Whereas swearing in senators, as is the responsibility of the vp, Kamala Harris was gracious with the Republicans who so vigorously bashed her on the marketing campaign path. Even when Sen. Deb Fischer’s husband refused to shake her hand, she rolled over with a wry smile and a flash of raised eyebrows. Her snuggling with the daughters of David McCormick, the brand new Republican senator from Pennsylvania, was a pleasant tribute to the peaceable switch of energy.
Issues have been usually quiet on the Home facet as nicely – judging by the curve, in fact. Even the stress over whether or not Republicans would dissolve into arguments over who could be speaker ultimately disappeared. With a bit on the final minute arm twisting of these absent, together with the president-elect, who was tuning in from his golf course in Florida, Mike Johnson made it by the primary vote for Speaker of the Home along with his gavel nonetheless in hand.
For the first timeCongressional election certification was designated as a particular safety occasion, with all the safety shenanigans that entailed. Fences have been erected across the Capitol, streets have been blocked off and extra legislation enforcement officers have been deployed. The lethal terrorist assault in New Orleans on New 12 months’s Eve has put authorities on edge much more. “We’re all on excessive alert,” Thomas Manger, chief of the US Capitol Police, assured the general public just a few days earlier than the certification.
Scheduled to start at 1 p.m., the trial took simply over half an hour and was precisely professional forma as predicted. As President of the Senate, Ms. Harris referred to as the joint session to order; the presentation of the electoral votes is carried out in alphabetical order by nation, with out objection or different incident; Ms. Harris introduced the ultimate tally: 312 for Mr. Trump and 226 for herself; when the session ended, the entire room rose in applause – for the triumph of democracy, if not for the outcomes themselves.
And similar to that, it was executed. Quick and easy, because the founders meant.
Certainly, the best drama of the day was not the work of man. Within the wee hours of January 6, a winter storm rolled in, leaving Washingtonians digging by the heaviest snowfall in a number of years. The federal authorities and colleges are closing. However certification waits for nobody. Staff rushed to clear the snow from the steps of the Capitol. And as lawmakers gathered to bless the election outcomes, with the Capitol grounds wrapped in a thick white blanket, the entire scene was nearly peaceable.
If solely Trump’s upcoming presidency may very well be half as chaotic.
