For a day or two or maybe a week after the can-you-believe-this-is-happening-in-America events of a year ago, there were those who thought that the shock to the system might upend U.S. politics in a profound way.
That the country might speak as one against an attempt to overturn democracy. That the tribal divisions of the era might be overcome by a shared sense of revulsion. That an American president who encouraged a mob that attacked Congress in a vain bid to hold onto power might be ostracized or at least fade into exile.
That was then. A year after the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol in which supporters of President Donald Trump trying to stop final recognition of a certified free and fair election burst through barricades, pummeled police officers and forced lawmakers to flee for their lives, what is most striking is not what has changed, but what has not.