Shortly before one o’clock in the afternoon on Wednesday, January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence led a silent, regal procession of 100 U.S. senators across the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol towards the House of Representatives. The men and women of that elite body all wore masks and their footsteps echoed in the marble corridor. It was the ceremonial fulfillment of a rite in our democratic system: the official counting of electoral votes to formalize the November election of America’s president. Ordinarily it’s a pro forma affair, meant to pass unnoticed. Despite objections to the process that Republicans had been telegraphing for days, there was every reason to believe that the usual traditions would ultimately play out by the