Congress approved President-elect Donald Trump as winner of the 2024 elections at the end of a process which took place on Monday without violence or chaos, in striking contrast with the January 6, 2021, violence as his mob of supporters stormed the Capitol.
Lawmakers met amid heavy security and snowstorm respect the date required by law to certify the elections, but the legacy of January 6 There remains an extraordinary fact: the candidate who tried to overturn the previous elections won this time and legitimately returns to power.
Layers of tall black fencing flank the U.S. Capitol complex, a stark reminder of what happened four years agowhen the defeated Trump sent his crowd to “fight like hell” in what has become the most horrible attack about the seat of American democracy 200 years from now. This is the strictest level of national security possible.
Vice President Kamala Harris, presiding over the proceedings in the office, read the tally.
The room applauded, first the Republicans for Trump, then the Democrats for Harris.
The whole process went quickly and smoothly. One by one, the state’s results were read aloud by the poll workers as senators and representatives sat in the House chamber. Vice President-elect JD Vance joined his former colleagues. In half an hour the process was complete.
No violence, protests or even procedural objections in Congress this time. Republicans who contested 2020 election results when Trump lost to the Democrats Joe Biden to have no qualms this year after he conqueredHarris.
And Democrats frustrated by Trump’s policies 312-226 Electoral College victory nevertheless accept the choice of American voters. Even winter snow the fact of covering the ground did not interfere with January 6, the day fixed by law for certifying the vote.
Trump said in an online post Monday that Congress was certifying a “GREAT” election victory and called it a “GREAT MOMENT IN HISTORY.”
Today’s return to an American tradition that kicks off the peaceful transfer of presidential power comes with an asterisk as Trump prepares to take office in two weeks with a revived sense of authority. He denies losing four years ago, plans to stay beyond the constitutional two-term limit in the White House and promises to forgive some of the more than 1,250 people who pleaded guilty or were convicted of crimes related to the Capitol siege.
What is unclear is whether January 6, 2021, was the anomaly, the year Americans violently attacked their own government, or whether this year’s expected calm becomes the outlier. The United States is struggling to come to terms with its political and cultural differences at a time when democracy around the world is under threat. Trump calls January 6, 2021 “the day of love.”
“We must not allow ourselves to be lulled into complacency,” said Ian Bassin, executive director of the interideological nonprofit Protect Democracy.
He and others warned that returning to power an emboldened leader who has demonstrated reluctance to give up his post “is an unprecedentedly dangerous decision that a free country can make voluntarily.”
Biden, speaking at White House events on Sunday, said: “We need to get back to the basic, normal transfer of power,” the president said. What Trump did last time, Biden said, “was a real threat to democracy. I hope we’re past that now.
Yet American democracy proved resilient, and Congress, the branch of government closest to the people, came together to affirm the American people’s choice.
With pomp and tradition, the day unfolded as it has countless times before, with the arrival of ceremonial mahogany boxes filled with state election certificates – boxes that staff frantically grabbed and was protecting when Trump’s mob stormed the building last time.
The senators marched through the Capitol — which four years ago was filled with roaming rioters, some defecating and calling menacingly at leaders, others engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police — until ‘to the House to begin certifying the vote.
Harris presided over the counting, as is the case for the vice president, and certified his own defeat – much like Democrat Al Gore did in 2001 and Republican Richard Nixon in 1961.
She stood on the dais where then-President Nancy Pelosi was abruptly moved to safety last time as crowds closed in and lawmakers tried to put on gas masks and run away, and gunshots rang out as police killed Ashli Babbitta Trump supporter trying to climb through a broken glass door toward the bedroom.
House chaplain Margaret Kibben, who delivered a prayer during the chaos four years ago, made a simple request at the chamber’s opening: “Shine your light into the darkness.”
