I think we should all resist referring to this as “the new normal.” It would be like coming home to find the smoke detector going off, the drapes on fire, the dog eating the couch, and your kids deciding that “pants are stupid,” and figuring, “oh well, I guess that’s just the new normal around here!” There is nothing normal about this.
I had been meaning to get back into DC since I was last there shortly before the inauguration. I knew many of the National Guard troops were still here, and there was still fencing around the Capitol building, but I wanted to see it with my own eyes.
The good news is the “mall,” the open green space that runs from the Capital to the Lincoln Memorial with the Washington Monument in-between, was no longer locked behind literally miles of fences.
The bad news is, everything else that counts, still was.