On anniversary of Capitol riot, Washington ? and America ? are as divided as ever

They thought it couldn't happen here. But so did many other nations before America.

Walking the halls of the snowbound US Capitol on Thursday afternoon, a year to the hour since it was breached by a fascist impulse, it was hard to imagine the mob running riot - pummeling police, flaunting the Confederate flag and abusing a Black officer with the N-word.

But yes, it did happen here.

The cathedral of American democracy was scarcely attended and hauntingly hushed for the anniversary, in part because the coronavirus is rampant in Washington. Walk up a staircase and you might see a solitary reporter fetching coffee. Turn down a marbled corridor and you might spot a lone Capitol police officer - was he among those that fought and bled that day?

Republicans were particularly hard to find, their absence illustrating the radically different interpretations of what happened on 6 January 2021, or as one headline put it, "a national day of infamy, half remembered". It was clear that America could not decide whether this was a political scrap or a national tragedy, a moment for angry polarisation or unified mourning. It did not feel like catharsis.

The vice-president, Kamala Harris, kicked it off just after 9am by pointing to "dates that occupy not only a place on our calendars, but a place in our collective memory", citing 7 December 1941, 11 September 2001 - and 6 January 2021.

But whereas the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought Americans together to fight the second world war, and the terrorist strikes on New York and Washington conjured rare solidarity, the deadly siege of the Capitol turns out to be just another wedge in the divided states of America.