Congress certified President-elect Donald Trump as the winner of the 2024 election in proceedings that unfolded Monday without violence or mayhem, in stark contrast to the Jan. 6, 2021, proceedings. Lawmakers convened under heavy security and a snowstorm to meet the date required by law to certify the election, but the legacy of Jan. 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 U.S. Capitol complex in a stark reminder of what happened four years ago, when a defeated 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. Vice President Kamala Harris, presiding over proceedings as the role of the office, read the tally. The chamber broke into applause, first Republicans for Trump, then Democrats for Harris. The whole process happened swiftly and without unrest. One by one, the state results were read aloud by the tellers as senators and representatives sat in seats in the House chamber. Vice President-elect JD Vance joined his former colleagues. 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 Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden have no qualms this year after he defeated Harris. And Democrats frustrated by Trump’s 312-226 Electoral College victory nevertheless accept the choice of the American voters. Even the winter snow blanketing the grounds didn’t interfere with Jan. 6, the day set by law to certify the vote. Trump said in a Monday post online that Congress was certifying a “GREAT” election victory and called it “A BIG MOMENT IN HISTORY.” 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 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. Harris presided over the counting, as is the requirement for the vice president, and certify her own defeat — much the way Democrat Al Gore did in 2001 and Republican Richard Nixon in 1961. She stood at the dais where then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi was abruptly rushed to safety last time as the mob closed in and lawmakers fumbled to put on gas masks and flee, and shots rang out as police killed Ashli Babbitt, a Trump supporter trying to climb through a broken glass door toward the chamber. The House chaplain, Margaret Kibben, who delivered a prayer during the mayhem four years ago, gave a simple request as the chamber opened to “shine your light in the darkness.” There are new procedural rules in place in the aftermath of what happened four years ago, when Republicans parroting Trump’s lie that the election was fraudulent challenged the results their own states had certified. Under changes to the Electoral Count Act, it now requires one-fifth […]