The Americans have the know-how when a president passes away. They are always adept at finding the instructions laid out personally by the president. They polish the horse-drawn caisson and put on a grand display of pageantry that gathers political adversaries in a spectacle of collective mourning, reflection, and unity. This is what is unfolding this week in Washington, where former President Jimmy Carter is lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda in anticipation of a funeral tomorrow that will bring together all five living current, former, and future presidents: three Democrats and two Republicans. The grandeur is unfolding in the wake of an uneventful certification of the election, providing the nation with an unusually calm week of routine—a bipartisan political ritual—on the eve of political upheaval.
Read from: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/08/us/politics/carter-funeral-rituals-trump-politics.html