Bad day for the GOP

January 6, 2021.  Feast  of the Epiphany.  What a day!  Packed with action and drama, but maybe no real epiphanies.

I got up around 6:30 a.m., eager to find out whether Ossoff had finally drawn ahead of Perdue in the Georgia Senate race.  I went to bed about 1 a.m., after Mike Pence had declared Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election.

In the hours in between, I -- who rarely turn on the television except to watch a football game -- was rarely away from my TV screen.  The drama of the unexpected capture of the Senate majority by the Democrats, after a dismal down-ballot performance nationally in November.  The scary harangue by an increasingly unhinged Donald Trump, listened to by an equally scary -- and enraptured -- mob of true believers.  The ceremonial start to the counting of the electoral ballots in the House of Representatives chamber.

And then -- total chaos.  

I guess I still hold the charmingly naïve image of Republicans as the nice, elderly couple next door who greet you every morning.  Who offer you a plate of fresh-baked cookies, and then begin chatting about that wonderful Christian, Mr. Trump, who is making America great again.  Instead, Trump's crowd yesterday looked like scruffy leftovers from a 1960s image of so-called left-wing protesters, an image that I had supposed was the antithesis of Mr. Trump's Orwellian presidency.

Even so, when Trump urged the crowd to join him in moving to the Capitol, I expected no more than a lot of shouting, demands that Congress reverse the election.  (Mr. Trump -- rather than leading the charge -- reportedly retired to the White House by vehicle, to watch in comfort his supporters on TV.  He may have suffered a bone spur flare-up.)

The Nation and the World watched the rest on their own televisions.  It could have been worse, of course.  They might have seized and/or destroyed the electors' ballots.  But the chaos and the property damage were bad enough, together with our psychological injury from seeing the first "incursion" of the Capitol since those damn Brits were there in 1814.

In the early evening (Seattle time), the counting of the ballots began again.  Challenges requiring debate and voting were successful only against the ballots of Arizona and Pennsylvania.  Those ballots were sustained overwhelmingly in the Senate, where many Republicans as well as Democrats had seen enough.  The more volatile House Republicans were more persistent, and a majority of that party's members voted to uphold both challenges, which were opposed by all Democrats.  

My reaction to the repetitive five-minute speeches by House members -- of both parties -- was the unremarkable conclusion that politicians just like hearing themselves talk.  Talking is their métier, like playing music is to a musician.  I was also impressed by the lack of haste in tabulating votes in the House.  It's all done electronically, with House members nominally given a generous fifteen minutes to cast their votes.  But the timer counts down to zero long before the Speaker returns to her post and pounds her gavel.  

This wouldn't have bothered me, except that I was sitting in front of my TV at midnight, during the debate and voting on the Pennsylvania challenge, when I ordinarily would be peacefully asleep.  And it was 3 a.m. back in the nation's capital.

Throughout the counting, the Vice President repeated 51 times the baroque phrases acknowledging that the ballots appeared to be in order.  I might say, "repeated robotically."  It occurred to me that a robot could have performed his function quite easily, and it also occurred to me that Mr. Pence is by appearance and disposition highly qualified for that function.  But I was thankful that he made the ceremony merely ceremonial, and refused to inject the excitement into his performance that Mr. Trump was demanding.  

Mr. Pence's face almost broke into a smile at only one point -- when a few Congressmen clapped after he announced Indiana's votes for him as Vice President.  It was a bad day for Mr. Pence, as he now has joined the president's extensive roster of Enemies of the People.

When Mr. Pence announced the unsurprising final figures, indicating that Biden and Kamala had won the election, I glanced at my watch.  It was 12:41 a.m. my time, and 3:41 a.m. in Washington, D.C.  My cats had begun fretting at about 10 a.m. that it was time for me to be off to bed, and were now draped about the room in exhausted resignation.  

It had been a big day for politics fans, and especially us Democrats.  And a bad day for dedicated Republicans.  It may well have ended the hopes of Mr. Trump to win the nomination in 2024 -- most of the GOP senators seemed disgusted with his actions.  But four years is a long time, and memories are short.

He may be back.  But for now, he's on his way back to whichever of his gilded properties he chooses as a residence.  Don't slam the door on the way out, Donald.