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This afternoon, after Kamala Harris certified Donald Trump’s 2024 electoral victory, the vice president had a curious choice of words: “Today, America’s democracy stood.” Although such a statement is meant to portray the durability of institutions, in reality, it showcased how volatile and fragile the American experiment has become.
This time around, no one is arguing over who won. Trump finished with 312 Electoral College votes, well over the 270 threshold needed to become president. (And unlike in 2016, he also triumphed in the popular vote.) Thus, today, amid a snowstorm, Harris and other officials entered the Capitol and carried out their constitutional duty, affirming those results and initiating the peaceful transfer of power. Like former Vice President Al Gore did 24 years ago, Harris personally confirmed the victory of the man who’d defeated her. For a moment, Congress was operating under a shared reality, one in which vote totals mattered, free and fair elections mattered, facts mattered.
In the weeks, months, and years after January 6, 2021, though, none of the above has mattered—not enough. You may recall that, after trying to overthrow the government, Trump was impeached in the House but acquitted in the Senate, which allowed for the possibility of his return. He embarked on a vengeance tour, vanquishing his GOP rivals in primaries and silencing virtually all dissenters into submission (or retirement). Democracy stood, as Harris put it, because democracy is a series of systems, and all systems can be shaped, bent, and exploited by human beings.
Trump had help with his attempt to illegitimately stay in power last time around. In 2021, 147 members of the GOP voted to overturn the recent presidential-election results. But after nightfall on January 6, Senator Mitch McConnell could theoretically have whipped his fellow Republicans into an anti-Trump bloc that might have persisted from that day forward. He didn’t. Senator Lindsey Graham, who, hours after the mob seized the Capitol, declared “Enough is enough,” has likewise decided that, in fact, he hasn’t had enough, and is among the many erstwhile Trump critics who have fallen back in line. J. D. Vance, who in an essay for this magazine once called Trump “cultural heroin,” will resign his Senate seat in order to serve as Trump’s vice president.
Trump’s historic comeback can be attributed to many things—inflation, immigration, the economy, grievance politics, his own charisma, his weak Democratic opponent(s)—but perhaps nothing has mattered more than his keen understanding of the nebulous nature of rules.
Decades ago, people in Trump’s orbit, such as Roy Cohn and Roger Stone, taught him that rules are malleable, that winning is all that matters. Democrats, however, are by and large a party of rule followers. Despite being forced out of the race by his own party, President Joe Biden is still an institutionalist. There he was, smiling next to Trump, the man whom he had characterized as an “existential threat.” Biden’s courtesies, his adherence to norms, extend all the way down. Susie Wiles, Trump’s former co–campaign manager, said that Biden’s chief of staff, Jeff Zients, has been “very helpful” to her, and that he has gone so far as to host a dinner for her and others at his home.
Opposition party this is not. The Democrats are playing one game, and Trump is playing another. Trump is winning.
“Today, I did what I have done my entire career, which is take seriously the oath that I have taken many times to support and defend the Constitution of the United States,” Harris said this afternoon. As was the case with Mike Pence four years ago, there’s no compelling argument for why she should have done otherwise. She had a job to do, and she did it.
Harris and everyone else in the Capitol today were supporting and defending a system that Trump has bent to his will—and all but broken. Trump takes his own oath two weeks from today. In his second term, he’s poised to remake the existing systems in his own image. Nobody quite knows what comes after that.
Related:
First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:
Today’s News
- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that he will resign as both prime minister and Liberal Party head once the country selects a new leader.
- At least six people have died as Winter Storm Blair has hit several states across the United States.
- President Joe Biden announced an executive action that will ban future offshore oil and gas drilling in more than 625 million acres of U.S. coastal waters.
Dispatches
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More From The Atlantic
Evening Read
Americans Need to Party More
By Ellen Cushing
What if there were a way to smush all your friends together in one place—maybe one with drinks and snacks and chairs? What if you could see your work friends and your childhood friends and the people you’ve chatted amiably with at school drop-off all at once instead of scheduling several different dates? What if you could introduce your pals and set them loose to flirt with one another, no apps required? What if you could create your own Elks Lodge, even for just a night?
I’m being annoying, obviously—there is a way! It’s parties, and we need more of them.
Culture Break
Watch. Nikki Glaser hosted the Golden Globes last night (streaming on Paramount+)—and the roastmaster came prepared, Shirley Li writes.
Debate. Why don’t men text other men back? Maybe they’d have more friends if they did, Matthew Schnipper writes.
Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.
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