OP-ED: The March on the Capitol — The Day America Marched Into History

Maxime Marquette

2026-06-24 13:08:11

A Nearly Partisan Calculation

The result of the vote to send the bill to the Senate—228 in favor, 193 against—was not the result of an unexpected calculation. It reflects, with near-mathematical precision, the political divide in the United States at the dawn of the 2020 election year. Nearly all Democrats voted in favor; nearly all Republicans voted against. Only one Democrat, Collin Peterson of Minnesota, crossed party lines to vote with the Republicans. Polarization was not merely a backdrop; it was the vote itself.

This vote tally, lower than that of the initial impeachment vote on December 18, 2019—which had seen the article on abuse of power pass 230–197 and the article on obstruction of Congress pass 229–198—illustrates just how much the transmission of the articles was a distinct act from the impeachment itself. To transmit is to set the process in motion; to vote on impeachment is to symbolically condemn. On January 15, the constitutional machinery was simply set in motion. Nothing more, nothing less—and that was already significant.

The Two Articles of Impeachment: Abuse of Power and Obstruction

The two articles brought before the Senate were based on facts established during weeks of hearings. The first—abuse of power—accused Trump of using his office and military aid funds to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rival Joe Biden, in exchange for a meeting at the White House and the release of the aid. The second—obstruction of Congress—accused him of ordering his aides to refuse to testify and to hand over documents to the House investigative committees.

These two charges had a common thread: the belief that Trump had exploited the powers of the federal government for personal and electoral gain, thereby betraying his oath of office. For Democrats, this was not about partisan politics but about defending republican institutions. For Republicans, it was a witch hunt orchestrated by an opposition unable to accept its 2016 defeat. The truth, meanwhile, lay somewhere in the documents that staff members were silently carrying through the Rotunda.

Trump is, I say this without hesitation, a necessary evil for the West on certain fronts—his firm stance toward China and his refusal to be naive toward Putin in his rhetoric have sometimes yielded results. But exploiting U.S. foreign policy for personal gain—withholding military aid to Ukraine to force an investigation into a rival—is precisely the kind of institutional abuse that cannot, and must not, go unanswered.

The Enrichment Ceremony: The Pen as a Symbolic Weapon

The Rayburn Room and Its Thirty-Two Pens

Before the procession itself, Pelosi presided over what is known in American history as the “engrossment ceremony”—the ceremony to officially formalize the articles of impeachment. It took place in the Rayburn Room of the Capitol, the same room where Pelosi had unveiled the articles a month earlier, under the gaze of a portrait of George Washington. The Speaker signed the resolution and each of the two articles of impeachment with thirty-two different pens, which she then distributed to the managers and committee chairs involved in the investigation.

This gesture—distributing the pens as relics of a historic moment—was immediately criticized by Republicans. Kevin McCarthy denounced what he called an “indecent theatrical pose,” suggesting that the Speaker was reveling in a moment she should have found tragic. Pelosi, for her part, brushed off the criticism: “It was my duty to sign these articles,” she said before putting her signature to them. American ceremonies have always had this dual nature—a solemn rite and a political spectacle—and that evening was no exception.

The Portrait of Washington as a Silent Witness

There was something deliberately symbolic about the choice of the Rayburn Room for this ceremony. The portrait of George Washington, the first president and architect of the American constitutional system, overlooked the scene. Pelosi had consciously placed herself within a historical continuum—that of the Founding Fathers, who had specifically designed impeachment as a bulwark against the abuse of executive power. This was no coincidence; it was a carefully orchestrated scene, intended to anchor the moment in the long history of the Republic.

One of the representatives present, when asked what Washington would have thought of the scene, replied with humor: “Give me the pen; I’ll sign it.” The joke circulated around the room. But behind the witticism, a serious question remained: Were the institutions designed by the Founding Fathers still up to the challenges of the 21st century? The ceremony suggested that they were. Current politics showed that this was far from obvious.

These ceremonies involving multiple pens, these carefully staged gestures—I have long been torn between admiration for the symbolic weight they carry and a certain unease at their theatrical nature. But I must acknowledge this: in a country where institutions are regularly under attack, the rituals that physically embody them have a value that we Europeans underestimate. Symbols hold structures together.

The Procession Through the Capitol: A Geography of History

Statuary Hall, the Rotunda, the Ohio Clock

At 5:34 p.m., the procession set off. Leading the way were Paul Irving, the Sergeant at Arms of the House, and Cheryl Johnson, the Clerk of the House, carrying the articles in their blue sleeves. Behind them were the seven managers in dark suits, moving forward at a slow and deliberate pace. They crossed Statuary Hall—the former chamber of the House, where statues of prominent figures from each of the fifty states stand—then passed beneath the great dome of the Rotunda, that symbol of national unity, before walking past the Ohio Clock, the imposing mahogany timepiece that marks the entrance to the Senate chamber.

The journey was short—a few hundred meters—but each step echoed off the marble in a silence that the journalists crowded behind the red velvet ropes dared not break. Cameras clicked. Shoes clacked on the polished floor. It is reported that even the most seasoned congressional correspondents, accustomed to the spectacles of the Capitol, remained silent as the procession passed. There was something in the air that cannot be manufactured: the weight of history in the making.

Arrival at the Senate: The Message and the Response

In the Senate, Republican Secretary Laura Dove welcomed the procession and directed the managers to a corner of the chamber. More than twenty Democrats watched from their desks. Only two Republicans were present: Majority Leader McConnell and Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. Senator Chuck Grassley, President pro tempore of the Senate, presided from the wooden rostrum.

Johnson read the resolution adopting the two articles and naming the seven managers. A Senate official collected the documents. Grassley replied, “The message is received.” McConnell stood to acknowledge the message and propose a series of resolutions outlining the schedule for the coming days. The invitation for the managers to return at noon on Thursday to formally present the articles—that is, to read them aloud before the Senate—was issued. Congress’s judicial machinery was officially in motion.

This detail struck me: only two Republicans were in the chamber to receive the articles of an impeachment trial that would dominate the coming weeks. This deliberate absence on the Republican side was not a matter of indifference—it was a political message. McConnell knew exactly what he was doing by ensuring that the chamber was half-empty. In the war of signals, absence is sometimes more powerful than presence.

The Seven Managers: Portraits of a Historic Prosecution

Schiff and Nadler: The Leading Figures in the Case

Adam Schiff, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, and Jerry Nadler, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, were the two natural leaders of the prosecution. Schiff, a lawyer by training, had conducted the public hearings in October and November with relentless precision. Nadler had chaired the committee that formally drafted the articles of impeachment. Together, they embodied the two pillars of the case: the facts related to Ukraine on one hand, and the infringements on Congress’s oversight authority on the other.

Pelosi had been explicit about her selection criteria: she was looking for litigators—people with direct courtroom experience who were comfortable with the rigorous legal argumentation that the Senate trial would require. Schiff had been a federal prosecutor. Nadler had been a lawyer since the 1970s. Their partnership was not merely symbolic—it was functional, deliberately crafted to prevail on the merits of the case, even in a setting where the political outcome was already largely predictable.

The Diversity of the Group as a Political Message

The five other managers—Zoe Lofgren, Hakeem Jeffries, Val Demings, Jason Crow, and Sylvia Garcia—formed a deliberately representative group. Lofgren was the only member of Congress to have participated in all three major modern impeachment proceedings: Nixon, Clinton, and now Trump. Demings, a former Orlando police chief, brought credibility on public safety issues to the case. Crow, a veteran of the Army Rangers in Afghanistan, embodied a patriotism that made it harder for the right to label the entire process as “leftist.”

Garcia, the first Hispanic woman elected to the Texas State Legislature, and Jeffries, one of the rising leaders of the Democratic caucus and future Speaker of the House, rounded out the lineup. Pelosi had said she wanted to field a team that reflected the real America—diverse, multifaceted, and competent. It was a tacit response to the Republican caricatures that reduced the impeachment to a vendetta by the coastal elites. Substantively, the prosecution was solid. In terms of presentation, it was calculated.

Hakeem Jeffries in that procession—I hadn’t paid it much attention at the time. Four years later, this man would be the House Minority Leader, perhaps the most prominent face of the Democratic resistance to Trump 2.0. History loves such ironies: the funeral processions of one era foreshadowing the triumphal procession of another.

McConnell and the Reaper's Game

The "Flash Trial" Strategy

Mitch McConnell had never claimed to be impartial. He had publicly stated that he was coordinating the defense strategy with the White House, which in itself constituted a break with the tradition of the supposedly independent senator-juror. His statement that the trial would conclude with “only one possible outcome”—acquittal—had chilled those who still hoped for a semblance of procedural fairness. When he received the articles of impeachment on the evening of January 15, McConnell proposed that the trial not truly begin until after the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, on Tuesday, January 21.

This calculated timing followed a cold political logic: to give the House as little time as possible to build its case before the Senate, to prevent additional witnesses from being called, and to wrap things up as quickly as possible. The Republican leader held the majority—53 Republicans to 47 Democrats—and intended to use it. He had described the case as “constitutionally incoherent,” born of a “fit of partisan rage.” His conclusion was a foregone conclusion.

The Rules of the Trial and the Battle Over Witnesses

The major issue that would dominate the first few days of the trial was that of the witnesses. The Democrats demanded that key figures be called to testify: Mick Mulvaney, acting White House chief of staff, and John Bolton, former national security adviser, who had refused to testify during the House hearings. McConnell wanted to first hear arguments from both sides, then vote on the issue of witnesses—a strategy designed to make summoning them as difficult as possible.

Nadler had warned in no uncertain terms: “If the Senate does not allow new testimony, it is conducting a cover-up.” The statement was strong. It was also accurate. A trial without witnesses or new documents resembled less a judicial proceeding than a staged performance with a predetermined verdict. What the U.S. Constitution had intended as a final safeguard against presidential abuse was being transformed, under McConnell’s leadership, into a constitutional formality rushed through at breakneck speed. The West was watching, and what it saw was not reassuring.

I want to be honest about this: I don’t know if a trial with witnesses would have changed the final outcome at all, given the Senate’s political arithmetic. But there is a fundamental difference between an acquittal following a full adversarial debate and an acquittal achieved by suppressing evidence. The latter does not exonerate—it tarnishes the institution that resorts to it.

The Constitutional Significance of the Ritual

A two-century-old mechanism

The physical procession of the articles of impeachment from the House to the Senate is not merely a decorative formality. It is enshrined in the Senate’s rules of procedure for impeachment trials, inherited from the precedent set by Andrew Johnson in 1868. These rules stipulate that the House managers must physically appear before the Senate, that the Sergeant at Arms must call for silence—“All are ordered to be silent on pain of imprisonment”—and that the articles must be read aloud before the senators.

This formality is not mere folklore. It reflects a conception of institutions in which form gives rise to substance: the act of physically presenting the charges, reading them aloud, and crossing the space between the two chambers makes it clear that we are no longer in the realm of ordinary politics but in that of ultimate constitutional responsibility. It is a distinction that our European parliamentary democracies have often overlooked, at the risk of trivializing what should never be trivialized.

Third time in two hundred and thirty years

That evening, Trump became the third U.S. president to face impeachment proceedings referred to the Senate—after Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Richard Nixon, it should be recalled, had resigned before the House voted. This rarity was not merely anecdotal: it meant that the process had been conceived as a last resort, not as a routine political tool. And it was precisely this rarity that gave it its symbolic weight.

Zoe Lofgren, who had participated in the Nixon impeachment hearings as an intern and in the Clinton hearings as a representative, was the only person in that procession to have walked down that same hallway twice before under comparable circumstances. She carried history in her bones, and she knew it. The Guardian reporter noted that footsteps echoed differently in an almost deserted hallway, that every click of a sole on the marble seemed to carry meaning. Perhaps that was the best definition of what a historic moment is: a physical sensation that something is shifting.

One must resist the temptation to resort to easy hyperbole when writing about these moments. But at the same time, there are moments when refusing to acknowledge the gravity of the situation would be a lie by omission. The third procession in two hundred and thirty years—that’s no small matter. It’s proof that the system works, even if imperfectly. And in a world where Putin imprisons his opponents and Xi Jinping makes them disappear, an imperfect system that holds together remains a privilege worth defending.

The Staging of the Upcoming Trial

Chief Justice Roberts and the Senators’ Oath

The next day, Thursday, January 16, at noon, the seven managers returned to the Senate—a second procession through the same hallways—this time to formally present the articles, that is, to read them aloud before the senators. Adam Schiff, standing at a lectern in the well of the chamber—a space normally reserved for senators alone—read the nine pages of the articles of impeachment. He began: “House Resolution 755, impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors.”

At 2:00 p.m., Chief Justice John Roberts walked from the Supreme Court across the street to take his seat in the Senate. He was sworn in by Grassley, then administered the oath himself to the 100 senators, who thereby became, in legal terms, jurors bound to render “impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws.” The senators replied in unison, “I do,” before proceeding in groups of four to the podium to sign the oath book. America had just transformed its parliament into a court of law.

A Trial in the Most Tense Election Year

This trial would be the first presidential impeachment trial to take place during an election year. The Iowa caucus, the first Democratic primary, was scheduled for February 3, 2020. Several of the senators serving as jurors were themselves candidates for the Democratic nomination—Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar. They would have to juggle their roles as jurors with their presidential campaigns, staying away from Iowa while their rivals Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg were on the campaign trail.

This scheduling coincidence was no accident. It helped color the trial with the hues of the rawest electoral politics, giving Republicans the argument that impeachment was merely a Democratic ploy to weaken Trump before the election. The reality was more complex: the evidence was solid, the facts were documented, the testimony was damning—but American politics in 2020 no longer operated on the logic of facts. It operated on the logic of tribes. And in this tribal game, the Senate’s outcome was already a foregone conclusion.

Let’s be frank: Pelosi knew the Senate would acquit Trump. She had known it from day one. So why push ahead? Because not pushing ahead would have meant that a president’s documented actions could go unchallenged by the institutions. And that capitulation would have been far more dangerous for American democracy than the acquittal itself.

Solemnity as a Form of Political Expression

Silence as an Act of Resistance

What struck all the observers present that evening was the silence of the procession. The executives weren’t talking to each other. They weren’t looking at the cameras. They were just walking. This deliberate restraint stood in stark contrast to the usual frenzy of Washington politics, where every trip becomes a press conference and every press conference becomes a performance. The procession was a nonverbal statement: what we’re doing tonight isn’t part of partisan theater. It’s part of our constitutional duty.

The journalists, themselves surprised by the atmosphere, reported that the clacking of shoes on the marble had an almost ritualistic quality. One correspondent wrote that the ceremony “seemed out of place in an era dominated by emails, text messages, and tweets.” That was precisely its appeal. In a political ecosystem that thrives on noise, the silence had a disruptive power that no one had anticipated. The message got through, precisely because it was conveyed without words.

The Press and the Red Velvet

Dozens of journalists and photographers had been positioned behind ropes strung between posts covered in red velvet, lined up in the halls of the Capitol. The setup—worthy of a movie premiere or a state reception—gave the event an atmosphere that was both formal and strange. Every footstep triggered a barrage of camera shutters. The images that circulated in the days that followed—the dark silhouettes of the managers beneath the dome of the Rotunda—became iconic representations of that moment.

The international press, which had been following the event for weeks, was struck by the contrast between the aggressive modernity of American political debate and the almost medieval solemnity of the ritual. European correspondents wrote that the procession resembled a state ceremony more than a legislative act. It was both at the same time. And that may explain why, five years later, the images from that evening remain etched in people’s memories even as the legal arguments have faded.

There is something I want to note here, at the risk of sounding nostalgic: these images of the procession came at a time when liberal democracy was under attack on all fronts—by Putin in the East, by Xi in the Western Pacific, and by populist movements within Western nations themselves. Seeing seven elected representatives march in silence to hold their president accountable was, for those watching from the outside, a rare breath of fresh air.

Republican Criticism and the Disinformation Campaign

McCarthy and the Rhetoric of Denial

Kevin McCarthy, then the Republican minority leader in the House, did not miss the opportunity. He called the impeachment “the fastest, thinnest, and weakest in American history” and denounced what he called a “national saga” and a “nightmare.” His rhetorical strategy was well-honed: downplay the seriousness of the charges by attacking the procedure, turn the legal debate into a tribal-electoral showdown, and above all, avoid discussing the substance—that is, the documented facts regarding Ukraine—at all costs.

This rhetoric was relayed and amplified by a well-oiled partisan media machine. 24-hour news channels aligned with the Republican camp turned the ceremony into a spectacle orchestrated by an opportunistic prosecutor. The pens distributed by Pelosi became a symbol of a Democratic elite relishing the opportunity to undermine the president. The solemn procession was portrayed as a political spectacle. In a fragmented media landscape, each side saw what it wanted to see—and the country sank a little deeper into its divide.

Trump and the Conspiracy Theory

Trump himself had reacted to the vote to refer the case by calling it “another scam” orchestrated by the Democratic opposition. He had labeled the entire process a “witch hunt”—an expression he would systematically use for any judicial or congressional proceeding targeting him. From the White House, his advisers indicated that they expected a swift acquittal, with the trial set to last no more than two weeks, according to sources close to the administration.

This display of confidence was no bluff. It was based on a simple mathematical reality: to convict Trump, 67 votes—two-thirds of the Senate—would have been required. That would have meant at least twenty Republicans crossing party lines. In the Senate of 2020, locked in extreme polarization, this was practically impossible. Trump could display his confidence because the partisan mechanics guaranteed him the outcome. That did not, however, render the trial pointless—it served as a record, an archive, and a message to history.

“Scam” and “witch hunt”—these words recur so often in Trump’s vocabulary that they have ultimately lost all meaning for his supporters. That is precisely their function: rhetorical inflation numbs perception. When everything is a scam, nothing is scandalous anymore. It is a disinformation technique whose sophistication is matched only by its effectiveness on an electorate that has been carefully disoriented.

Impeachment in the History of American Democracy

Johnson, Clinton, Trump: Three Moments, One Question

Each of the three impeachment cases referred to the Senate in American history has raised the same fundamental question: Where is the line of presidential abuse that justifies removal from office? Andrew Johnson, in 1868, defied Congress by violating the Tenure of Office Act. Bill Clinton, in 1998, lied under oath in a personal matter. Donald Trump, in 2020, used government resources to harm a political rival. Three presidents, three forms of abuse, three final acquittals—but three defining moments in American constitutional jurisprudence.

The difference between these three cases is instructive. The Johnson case involved a law that many considered unconstitutional. The Clinton case was based on personal conduct with no direct connection to the exercise of power. The Trump case struck at the heart of the presidential office: the use of diplomacy and foreign aid as instruments of personal domestic policy. From this perspective, the 2020 impeachment was perhaps the one that, in substance, most directly concerned the democratic safeguards that the Constitution is meant to protect.

What the Process Says About the State of Democracy

Twenty years later—or even five years later—there is a temptation to view this episode as a footnote in history: Trump was acquitted, he lost the 2020 election, he was impeached a second time in 2021, acquitted again, and then reelected in 2024. In this light, the procession of January 15, 2020, appears as just one episode among many in a never-ending saga. But that would be missing the point.

The essential point is that the system worked. That elected officials had the courage to initiate the proceedings. That time-honored institutions absorbed the shock without breaking. That the press was there, in the hallway, documenting every step. In a world where Putin’s Russia assassinates its opponents, where Xi Jinping’s China deports entire minorities, and where fragile democracies are sliding into authoritarianism, the procession on January 15, 2020, remains proof that the West—imperfect and shaken as it is—continues to do something that most of the world’s ruling regimes are incapable of doing: holding its leaders accountable, even partially, even without immediate results.

As I write these lines, I realize just how much this event in January 2020 affected me differently than I had anticipated. I had initially been skeptical—too theatrical, too predictable in its outcome. But looking back, I see something else: the tenacity of those who chose not to give up, even knowing they would lose. There is a form of political dignity in this institutional stubbornness that deserves to be recognized.

The Consequences and the Precedent Set in January 2020

The Trial, the Acquittal, and What Remains

The trial began in earnest on January 21, 2020. It lasted less than three weeks. The Senate refused to call additional witnesses by a vote of 51 to 49, with two Republicans—Susan Collins and Mitt Romney—joining the Democrats but failing to secure a sufficient majority. On February 5, 2020, Trump was acquitted on both articles of impeachment. Romney was the only Republican to vote guilty—on the abuse of power article alone—becoming the first senator in U.S. history to vote to convict a president from his own party during an impeachment trial.

Romney’s vote will go down in history. But the overall acquittal did not mean the proceedings had been in vain. They had documented the facts. They had forced the White House to defend itself. They had set a procedural precedent that the House would invoke again in January 2021, following the storming of the Capitol. Above all, it had demonstrated that the mechanisms of American democracy could still be activated in the face of a president willing to do anything to stay in power. The machine wasn’t broken. It was jammed—which is not the same thing.

A Model for Other Democracies

Outside the United States, the events of January 15, 2020, were watched with particular attention by democracies facing their own governance crises. In Europe, where mechanisms for removing executives from office are often less formalized, the American combination of rigorous parliamentary procedure, full public transparency, and solemn institutional ritual seemed, to many, a model worth considering. European constitutional scholars have cited this trial in debates on reforming mechanisms for executive oversight in France, Poland, and Hungary.

The West is not monolithic. Its democracies function differently, with distinct constitutional traditions. But on one point, they converge: a leader who abuses his power must be held accountable by his institutions. What the march on January 15, 2020, told the rest of the world is that the United States still believed in this principle—enough to walk through its own marble hallways, in silence, wearing midnight-blue shirts, to prove it. It is little. It is much. It is all we have.

European liberal democracies have often viewed American procedures with a mix of fascination and irony. Too spectacular, too political, too American. I understand this reservation. But I keep in mind that while we were debating the theatricality of the procession, Lukashenko’s Belarus was imprisoning its journalists and Putin’s Russia was preparing for war. In this context, democratic theater seems to me infinitely preferable to authoritarian silence.

Pelosi, Legacy, and Institutional Memory

"He will be impeached forever"

Nancy Pelosi had coined a phrase that would go down in history: “He has been impeached forever—they can never erase that.” This statement, made in the days following the vote, revealed something essential about Pelosi’s view of the process: not as a means of removal from office—she knew the Senate was a lost cause—but as an act of historical record, a permanent entry in the annals of history. Impeachment as a verdict of posterity, if not as an immediate judicial verdict.

She was right in substance. History remembers the impeachment. It remembers the acquittal less—or at least, it contextualizes it differently than as an exoneration. When historians write about the Trump presidency, the 2020 impeachment will feature prominently, not as a Democratic defeat, but as an activation of the system of checks and balances that the Founding Fathers had built into the Constitution precisely for situations like this one. That the Senate chose not to act on it is a political fact. That the House did its duty is a constitutional fact. The two coexist.

The Long Shadow of That January Evening

In 2021, when Trump was impeached a second time—this time for incitement of insurrection following the January 6 assault on the Capitol—the process of transmitting the charges to the Senate was repeated. The managers, though different, once again walked through the same hallways. The ritual was reenacted. Institutional memory was activated. And this is perhaps the most profound lesson of the procession on January 15, 2020: democratic rituals do not serve only the present moment. They create precedents, traces, and routines that allow institutions to remember themselves.

Pelosi stepped down as Speaker of the House in 2023. Schiff became a senator from California. Nadler retired in 2025. Jeffries now leads the Democratic minority in the House. The seven leaders from January 2020 are scattered across various segments of American political life. But what they did that evening—silently walking down a marble hallway with two men in blue shirts—remains etched in the annals of American democracy. Like a mark that no one, not even Trump, will ever be able to erase.

I’ll conclude this post with a conviction that has grown stronger as I’ve written it: democracies don’t always die through spectacular coups. They often wither away through an accumulation of small acts of institutional cowardice—shoddy trials, dismissed witnesses, and postponed votes of conscience. What happened in the Senate in February 2020 was an act of cowardice of this nature. But what happened in the halls of the Capitol on January 15 was the exact opposite. And history knows how to tell the difference between the two.

Conclusion: The Corridor, the Constitution, and the Weight of Silent Things

What the Ritual Tells Us About Democracy

There are moments in the life of democracies that cannot be immediately measured by their outcomes. The January 15, 2020, march did not lead to Donald Trump’s impeachment. It did not reverse political polarization in the United States. It did not prevent Trump’s return to power in 2024. But it said something—something physical, tangible, and indomitable—about the capacity of democratic institutions to take action in the face of what they perceive as a violation of their founding principles. That something has value independent of the outcome.

Democracy is a fragile system, and its strength lies in part in the rituals that embody it. When seven elected representatives walk in silence beneath the dome of a parliament to formally bring charges against their president, they are doing more than just politics. They are affirming that the law stands above power. That institutions outlive the men who lead them. That the Constitution is not a wall decoration but a living contract. These affirmations are worth making, even when they do not prevail.

The threshold of history remains open

Pelosi had said, “When the leaders cross the aisle, they will cross the threshold of history.” That threshold has not closed. It never does in living democracies. Each generation must cross it anew in its own way—by choosing not to look away when institutions are under attack, by choosing due process over the convenience of silence, by marching, even in silence, even without the certainty of victory.

What January 15, 2020, etched into American history is this: seven men and women chose to cross that threshold. In a world where Russia is crushing Ukraine, where China threatens Taiwan, where authoritarianism of all kinds thrives on the fatigue of democracies, this choice—so humble, so ceremonial, so unspectacular in its silent execution—remains a lesson not to be forgotten. The West is only as strong as its institutions. And its institutions are only as strong as the men and women who are willing to defend them.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist