THE BIG STORY

Now Joe Biden gets to sort out America’s soul

When Joseph R. Biden takes the oath of office on Wednesday, it will not resemble past inaugurations. His will be a lonely, scaled down affair, because of the security concerns in DC, and the raging coronavirus. Even Biden’s parade will be mostly virtual.

This, writes our politics editor Matt Berman, is a pretty direct metaphor: “Whatever Biden’s America will become, it will start deep into an exhausted panic.”

But it is the possibility — this “will become” — that Americans get to imagine starting today. Biden has framed his campaign, and his impending presidency, as a “battle for the soul of America.” He has presented the Donald Trump presidency as an exception to what America is. In crisis after crisis, he repeatedly said, “this is not who we are.”

However Biden defines the “soul of America,” he will have to reckon with the reality that America did things that are counter to that idea. America separated families and chanted “Jews will not replace us” and made “unarmed Black man” a stock phrase. It let a conspiratorial fringe go mainstream and stage an insurrection at the US Capitol.

As Berman writes, “Biden, after nearly five decades in American life, is in the strange place of being responsible for sorting that out and making sure it’s his definition that lasts.”

The real end of the 2010s

It’s hard to imagine the Jan. 6 riots taking place 10 years ago. That’s because the culture that exists around social media literally did not exist back then. In the intervening decade, “phones and tech started to shift from something a little beside the point to the central engine of political and cultural life,” Katherine Miller writes.

She explores why the end of the Trump presidency is the real end of 2010s, and looks back on the decade that gave us Trump.

President-elect Joe Biden delivers remarks at the Major Joseph R. "Beau" Biden III National Guard/Reserve Center in Delaware. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

A round of stories from the incoming and outgoing administrations

🛑 On Trump’s final day in office, the US reached a horrific milestone: 400,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. The death toll increased by 100,000 in just over a month.

➡️ Biden led the first national mourning for COVID victims. It’s just the start for those grieving.

🛑 Trump has pardoned his former advisor Steve Bannon, rapper Lil Wayne, and a Silicon Valley engineer who stole trade secrets from Google,

➡️ Joe Biden is starting his presidency with a ton of orders to undo Trump. The incoming president will sign executive orders in his first hours on everything from COVID-19 to climate change and immigration.

Douglas Emhoff, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, Jill Biden, and President-elect Joe Biden look on as lamps are lit to honor victims of the coronavirus pandemic. Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

SNAPSHOTS

A dozen National Guard members have been removed from inauguration duty. The removals come after thousands of troops headed to the Capitol were vetted by the FBI for ties to extremist groups.

US officials admit they violated a court order when they expelled 32 immigrant kids to Guatemala. After our reporting on how the hectic day unfolded, government attorneys say they will work to bring the children back to the US as soon as possible.

An American influencer who promoted the sale of her eBook about how to move to Bali during the pandemic is now being deported. Kristen Gray got into trouble with Indonesian authorities after promoting her guide to moving to Bali as a foreigner.

Inside the fortress that Washington has become ahead of the inauguration. “It’s a ghost town.” Read the story from Christopher Miller and Brianna Sacks on the security measures in Washington, DC. Residents of the city are frustrated. They say no one ever thinks about their experience.

Layers of fencing outside the Capitol in preparation for Joe Biden's inauguration ceremony. Greg Kahn

WHERE EXTREMISTS FLOURISH

“If they won’t hear us, they will fear us”: How the Capitol assault was planned on Facebook

Facebook has attempted to downplay its role in the violent Jan. 6 insurrection. But a new report details a slew of specific threats made in pro–Trump and militant groups on Facebook both before and after Biden’s election victory in November.

The report from Tech Transparency Project (TTP), shared with BuzzFeed News, uncovers how in those groups, organizers and members alike perpetuated the lie that the election results were fraudulent and made open calls to “Occupy Congress” on Jan. 6.

Facebook has said it had banned pages and groups from right-wing militants and QAnon conspiracists over the summer. But TTP’s report shows that extremist groups continued to flourish on Facebook.

Some of these groups heavily promoted the Jan. 6 event in DC as what users felt was a last resort to prevent perceived tyranny. One described it as “Independence Day 2.0”.

ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

People are finding comfort in tweeting their family’s frantic texts pushing QAnon lies

It makes sense that when you’re going through something difficult, you’re comforted by stories of others going through the same thing.

So it’s not a surprise that a thread has gone viral of people sharing their struggles with family members who believe in the QAnon mass delusion.

In the thread, dozens of people shared screenshots of exchanges with their parents and other family members pushing mass delusions spread by QAnon accounts and other lies about the 2020 election, the coronavirus, and the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol.

They say they find solace in the fact that they're not alone in watching their loved ones spiral.

Make a point of giving yourself some grace today,

Elamin