The second Trump administration isn’t beginning with a whisper, precisely. However as Washington gears up for Donald Trump’s encore inauguration on Jan. 20, the vibe round city has been far much less twitchy and traumatized than within the run-up to Joe Biden’s swearing-in 4 years in the past. No election-fraud conspiracy-mongering from contained in the halls of presidency. No vandalizing of the Capitol. To date, the post-election, pre-inaugural stretch has been comparatively, and blessedly, boring.
Members of the 119th Congress took their oaths on Jan. 3 and settled in quietly. Whereas swearing within the senators, as is the vice chairman’s obligation, Kamala Harris performed good with the Republican members who had so vigorously trashed her on the marketing campaign path. Even when Senator Deb Fischer’s husband refused to shake her hand, she rolled proper on with a wry smile and a flash of raised eyebrows. Her huddling up with the daughters of David McCormick, the brand new Republican senator from Pennsylvania, was an cute tribute to the peaceable switch of energy.
Issues have been typically calm on the Home facet as properly — grading on a curve, after all. Even the strain over whether or not Republicans would dissolve into squabbling over who needs to be the speaker finally fizzled. With some last-minute arm-twisting of the holdouts, together with the president-elect chiming in from his golf course in Florida, Mr. Johnson squeaked by way of on the primary poll, gavel nonetheless in hand.
For the first time, Congress’s certification of the election was designated a particular safety occasion, with all of the precautionary hoopla that entails. Fencing went up across the Capitol, streets have been blocked off, and further legislation enforcement officers have been placed on obligation. The lethal terrorist assault in New Orleans on New 12 months’s Day had the authorities much more on edge. “All of us are on excessive alert,” Thomas Manger, the pinnacle of the U.S. Capitol Police, assured the general public a number of days earlier than the certification.
Scheduled to start at 1 p.m., the method took a bit over half an hour and was exactly as professional forma as supposed. As president of the Senate, Ms. Harris gaveled the joint session to order; the presentation of electoral votes proceeded alphabetically by state, with out objection or different incident; Ms. Harris introduced the ultimate tally: 312 for Mr. Trump and 226 for herself; because the session got here to an in depth, the entire chamber rose in applause — for the triumph of democracy if not for the outcomes themselves.
And identical to that, it was accomplished. Swift and clean, because the founders supposed.
Certainly, the largest drama of the day was not man-made. Within the wee hours of Jan. 6, a winter storm had rolled in, leaving Washingtonians digging out from the largest snowfall in a few years. The federal authorities and faculties shut down. However certification waits for nobody. Staff rushed to clear the snow from the Capitol steps. And as lawmakers convened to bless the election outcomes, with the Capitol grounds wrapped in a thick blanket of white, the entire scene was virtually serene.
If solely the approaching Trump presidency may very well be half so chaos-free.
