Welcome to the Beat, everyone. I'm Ari Melbert. It is January 6, 2020, 25. And that's why this is a significant day for the United States.

It has been exactly four years since the January 6th insurrection. Indeed, the date itself has meaning.

People know the term January 6th, the day of the year, even if they don't know that it is

the constitutionally recommended certification date. This is seared into our recent history and

collective political consciousness. Today, people saw what it looks like when there is an

orderly and peaceful transfer of power, as there has been in every election

except for the one that Trump lost. Vice President Harris took on the tradition. And in this case,

because she has dual roles as the outgoing vice president and as the former candidate who lost

the election, she did what you're supposed to do. She sat in the well there and confirmed

what the results obviously showed, which has already been decided, and that is her opponent's

victory. If it sounds at all familiar to those of you who think backaways, this was the position

Vice President Al Gore was in before her.

He also oversaw this process back before January 6th was a date that most people kept track of

and certified his loss to George W. Bush, which was a very close race. Remember, he got more

total votes. Bush came up ahead in Florida, and there was, of course,

a court battle that went all the Supreme Court over that. These are two people doing their jobs as

vice president that you see on your screen. We can also show you as a matter of government news,

the electoral count certificates. That's the actual material. Nowadays, sometimes people call it receipts.

The New York Times describing a typical congressional certification is a ritual considered

ceremonial and uneventful before a mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol in 2021.

And so today, in many ways, reminds people that this is supposed to be, and almost always is,

an uneventful tradition. It is prescribed in the Constitution. It is the sort of last,

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