The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.
Bloomberg
The second anniversary of the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol arrives with the building again in turmoil, this time as House Republicans quarrel over a speaker to lead the chamber.
The chaos unfolding on the House floor threatens to tarnish the new GOP majority, which voters put back in power less than two years after a mob instigated by Donald Trump fought through police lines to ransack the building and try to stop certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.
Lawmakers allied with Trump who have publicly sympathised with the rioters are at the centre of the fiasco over speaker, repeatedly blocking Representative Kevin McCarthy’s bid for the position.
Biden was expected to seize on the anniversary and the drama in the House to draw a contrast between his party and Republicans, holding a White House ceremony to recognise police officers who defended the Capitol and state election officials who endured harassment by Trump supporters in certifying Biden’s 2020 victory.
Biden and the Democratic Party outperformed in the 2022 midterms in part by warning that democracy remains at risk from extremist Republicans, and he and his aides are banking that they can keep that concern at the forefront of voters’ minds headed into his 2024 re-election bid.
“Pray to God it never happens again,†Biden said of January 6 on during a Cabinet meeting.
Biden has repeatedly blamed Trump directly for the violence at the Capitol two years ago, and urged voters to reject Republican candidates beholden to the former president as a threat to the country’s democratic institutions. In scores of battleground states and districts, including Arizona, Michigan and Georgia, voters did just that.
The president has already drawn a link between the January 6 attack and the dysfunction in the early days of the GOP-controlled House, where lawmakers have voted 11 times for speaker without any candidate winning a majority. It’s been a century since a speaker’s election required more than one vote.
Democrats are using the moment to showcase unity within their own ranks. In the House, the minority party seamlessly selected their own leaders and unanimously supported Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York in each of the speaker votes.
In the White House ceremony, Biden was expected to mark two years since the riot at the Capitol by honoring a dozen people with the Presidential Citizens Medal, the White House’s second-highest civilian award after the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Last year on the anniversary, Biden condemned Trump for trying to prevent a peaceful transfer of power and called January 6 among the country’s “darkest days.†Biden’s warnings about the former president’s threats to democracy are sure to remain a staple of his stump speeches, with Trump again running for president.