These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!

But as he went upstairs to the Residence, he seemed, said some of the people talking to him there by phone, at a terrible loss. The monologue slowed and seemed even to cease, with a few people not even sure that this otherwise-unstoppable monologist was still on the line.

At about this time, Scavino told Trump that he had been booted off Twitter—still, a temporary suspension. For more than four years, he’d been told that this was always a possibility, and every time, he’d responded that Twitter needed him more than he needed it.

The doubtless president was, at least for a moment, someone else. “I don’t know what to do here,” he said to one caller not long after 7 p.m., as stark a sense of uncertainty and even crisis as the caller had ever heard the president express.

The notable thing is that he seemed to have finally recognized that the main event, the certification of the electoral votes, was now far from the main event. He may even have realized that after sixty-four days of struggle it was over.

One daily caller noted that this was the first call in weeks in which the president had not rehashed some details of his stolen election.

At 8 p.m., the Capitol was declared secure.

The vice president, McConnell, and the Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were all in agreement that Congress continue that night with the electoral count, that it could not delay the certification of the new president. At about 8:30 p.m., the group spoke to Meadows in the White House—the vice president and congressional leaders relaying their decision to proceed; Meadows, while not advocating a delay, but yet standing between the president and the rest of the world, focused on the security issues and safety concerns.

Minutes later, the vice president reconvened the Senate, returning to where the session had left off, each chamber taking up the challenge to the Arizona vote.

Jason Miller, at home in Arlington, was trying to block it out—the day had already made a hash of his daughter’s birthday.

He was waiting for someone else to deal with it, expecting a call, as he lay stupefied in bed with his wife, watching the video loops of the day over and over again and hoping there was a plan. But no one called. Congress was returning through the chaos. Despite everything, Biden would be declared the president tonight. How would the president respond? Still no one called. Miller considered just trying to shut his eyes and go to sleep.