Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the certification of her defeat to Donald Trump on Monday, four years after he tried to stop the very process that will now return him to the White House.
Proceedings unfolded without violence or mayhem, in stark contrast to January 6 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
Politicians convened under heavy security and a snowstorm to meet the date required by law to certify the election, but the legacy of January 6 leaves an extraordinary fact: The candidate who tried to overturn the previous election won this time and is legitimately returning to power.
Layers of tall black fencing flank the US Capitol complex in a stark reminder of what happened four years ago when a defeated Mr Trump sent his mob to “fight like hell” in what became the most gruesome attack on the seat of American democracy in 200 years. It is the tightest national security level possible.
Ms Harris’s task was ceremonial and her remarks perfunctory. Standing on the dais, she passed copies of each state’s election results to officials and she stood silently with her hands clasped in front of her while they were read out loud.
When the process was finished, Ms Harris announced Mr Trump’s victory.
She smiled tightly as Republicans gave the next president a standing ovation.
“The chair declares this joint session resolved,” Ms Harris said at the end. “Thank you.”
Vice President-elect JD Vance joined his former colleagues and within half an hour, the process was done.
No violence, protests or even procedural objections in Congress this time.
Republicans who challenged the 2020 election results when Mr Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden have no qualms this year after he defeated Ms Harris.
And Democrats frustrated by Mr Trump’s 312-226 Electoral College victory nevertheless accepted the choice of the American voters.
Even the winter snow blanketing the grounds didn’t interfere with January 6, the day set by law to certify the vote.
Mr Trump said in a post online that Congress was certifying a “GREAT” election victory and called it “A BIG MOMENT IN HISTORY”.
The day’s return to a US tradition that launches the peaceful transfer of presidential power comes with an asterisk as Mr Trump prepares to take office in two weeks with a revived sense of authority.
He denies that he lost four years ago, muses about staying beyond the Constitution’s two-term White House limit and promises to pardon some of the more than 1,250 people who have pleaded guilty or were convicted of crimes for the Capitol siege.
Mr Biden, speaking at events at the White House on Sunday, said: “We’ve got to get back to the basic, normal transfer of power.”
What Trump did last time, Mr Biden said, “was a genuine threat to democracy. I’m hopeful we’re beyond that now”.
Still, American democracy has proven to be resilient, and Congress, the branch of government closest to the people, was coming together to affirm the choice of Americans.
With pomp and tradition, the day unfolded as it has countless times before, with the arrival of ceremonial mahogany boxes filled with the electoral certificates from the states — boxes that staff were frantically grabbing and protecting as Mr Trump’s mob stormed the building last time.
Senators walked across the Capitol — which four years ago had filled with roaming rioters, some defecating and menacingly calling out for leaders, others engaging in hand-to-hand combat with police — to the House to begin certifying the vote.
Ms Harris presided over the counting, as is the requirement for the vice president, and certified her own defeat — much the way Democrat Al Gore did in 2001 and Republican Richard Nixon in 1961.
