It’s not just the pandemic. For a half mile in any direction, the Capitol was a fortress with police blocking roads and a fence still up around the building sacked by rioters nearly four months ago. National Guard troops patrolled virtually every entrance, on top of more security within the chamber itself — a glaring reminder of this year’s deadly insurrection more than 100 days earlier. But in other ways, Biden’s first speech to Congress represented a return to political monotony to the dozens of senior lawmakers sitting before him after four years of Donald Trump. The carefully scripted speech — laden with policy jargon and subtle overtures to key party factions — is a stark departure from Trump’s hyperbolic assertions and made-for-TV surprises, such as last year’s mid-speech military spouse reunion or the accolades for late radio host Rush Limbaugh. Instead, the most-viral moment from Biden’s speech may have been a snoozing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) caught on the C-SPAN camera. “It was weird,” explained Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) afterward. She said it was difficult to understand Biden during the speech. “He was very soft spoken I think through a lot of it too. Very low energy. It was a disjointed laundry list of wishes.”