WASHINGTON (AP) — Such are the fractures in the country, between the political parties and inside the Republican Party itself, that one time-honored specialty of Washington — memorializing and coming together over national trauma — isn’t what it used to be.
Friday’s moment of silence at the Capitol to contemplate the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on it was expected to draw mostly Democrats.
At the White House, few Republicans were expected for a ceremony at which President Joe Biden will award Presidential Citizens Medals to a dozen state and local officials, election workers and police officers for their “exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens” in upholding the results of the 2020 election and fighting back the Capitol mob.
It’s all a far cry from Sept. 11, 2001, when lawmakers who had frantically evacuated the Capitol during the terrorist attack gathered there later in the day in a moment of silence and broke out in “God Bless America,” Republicans and Democrats shoulder to shoulder.
“They stood shaken and tearful on the steps of the Capitol, their love of nation and all that it symbolizes plain for the world to see,” an Australian newspaper reported in a passage reflected now in the House’s official history.
Today, the world sees a different picture, one of turmoil in American democracy coming from within the institution that insurrectionists overran two years ago.
The nation’s legislative branch is again paralyzed — not by violence this time but...
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