Congress licensed Donald Trump’s 2024 Electoral Faculty victory in a fast, uneventful ceremony Monday—with out a single objection from members of Congress or riots from supporters of the dropping candidate.
It was a far cry from the scene on Capitol Hill 4 years in the past, when Trump sought to hold out his plan to dam Joe Biden’s win and stay in energy—actions for which he was indicted however will possible by no means face penalties.
On Jan. 6, 2021, 147 Congress Republicans objected to Biden’s Electoral Faculty win throughout the joint session over which then-Vice President Mike Pence was presiding. Their objections have been primarily based on lies that the 2020 election was rife with fraud—allegations Republicans have by no means offered proof to assist.
On the similar time Republicans have been objecting to the Electoral Faculty outcomes, a mob of Trump supporters was violently breaking into the U.S. Capitol to demand Pence to not settle for Biden’s victory, killing 5 folks and injuring greater than 140 legislation enforcement officers within the course of.
One officer died on Jan. 7, 2021, a day after he was attacked whereas defending the Capitol. 4 different officers who responded on Jan. 6 subsequently died by suicide.
Trump and Republican lawmakers’ conduct was so abhorrent and harmful that the Democratic-controlled Congress modified the legislation in 2022 to stop related conditions from unfolding sooner or later. The legislation formally made the vp’s position within the Electoral Faculty certification ceremonial and raised the brink to object to a state’s Electoral Faculty vote.
This yr, not a single Democratic lawmaker objected to Trump’s win. And Vice President Kamala Harris presided with grace and poise over the joint session of Congress to certify her personal defeat.
Pence praised Harris for her conduct.
“The peaceful transfer of power is the hallmark of our democracy and today, members of both parties in the House and Senate along with the vice president certified the election of our new president and vice president without controversy or objection,” Pence wrote on X, including that it was “particularly admirable that Vice President Harris would preside over the certification of a presidential election that she lost.”
In the meantime, different Republicans try to rewrite what occurred on the Capitol 4 years in the past.
Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia described the violent revolt as a vacationer go to. And Trump has stated that he’ll pardon the lots of of his supporters who both pleaded responsible or have been convicted for his or her illegal actions to attempt to maintain Trump in energy.
Greater than a dozen of the Republicans who objected to the Electoral Faculty leads to 2021 have been giddy concerning the certification ceremony at the moment. The one distinction this yr is that their candidate of selection received, in order that they didn’t should lie about voter fraud.
Democratic lawmakers, nonetheless, aren’t going to let Republicans rewrite historical past.
“Four years ago, I was barricaded in an office in the Longworth building during an insurrection. The riot at the Capitol was neither peaceful nor ‘a day of love,’ as President-Elect Trump has continually tried to reframe it,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, Democrat of Pennsylvania, wrote on X after Trump’s certification.
“Today, because Republicans are satisfied with the results of this election, the certification is little more than a perfunctory event—and that’s not only because Republicans are happy with the outcome but because democracy worked,” she added.
Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, warned that Individuals shouldn’t really feel safe as a result of this yr’s certification went off with out a hitch, saying that it was solely peaceable as a result of Democrats aren’t violent sore losers just like the GOP.
“I’m in the Capitol right now to certify the electoral vote. It is quiet,” he wrote on X. “Do not take that for granted. Do not think our democracy is healthy. No, our democracy is in grave peril because one party still believes in using violence to achieve power.”
