THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES’ press gallery sits directly above the Speaker’s dais. For obvious reasons, photographers claim the catbird seats in the front row, leaving the rest of the hack hordes up in the gods, with no view of whatever is happening on the platform below. They could only hear, not see, the chaplain who, at the end of a brief pro-forma session of the last Congress, implored divine forgiveness for its shortcomings. But the view of the rest of the chamber is perfect—and on January 3rd, it was striking.

Shortly before noon, members of the 116th Congress began filing in. Republicans claimed seats on the right side, Democrats on the left. Pretty soon there was, on one side of the chamber, a sea of white men in suits, and on the other, a wide array of hues, colours and styles: Barbara Lee of California in Kente cloth, Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii in a lei and leaf-garland, Bobby Rush of Illinois looking dapper and professorial in tweeds, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota defying a ban on head coverings on the House floor by wearing an orange-and-gold headscarf. It was multicultural America on one side; a rather dour country club on the other.

The 116th is the most female and most diverse Congress ever, though that diversity mainly exists on one side of the aisle. The number of Republican women actually declined in November’s mid-terms. In the room where members are sworn in, there were multiple versions of the Bible, alongside the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, a book of Buddhist sutras and the constitution (for Kyrsten Sinema, a newly elected Democratic senator from Arizona, and, according to the Pew Research Centre for Religion and Public Life, the only member of Congress who identifies as religiously unaffiliated).

Nancy Pelosi, who reclaimed the gavel yesterday to become the first person re-elected Speaker since 1955 (she remains the first woman to have held the job), increased the number of guests each member was permitted to bring, and so alongside the exuberant, newly elected members were hordes of happy children and grandchildren. Mrs Pelosi entered trailing three, including a granddaughter who jumped up and down and shouted “Nancy Pelosi!” as her grandmother cast her vote for speaker. Eric Swalwell of California bounced his baby in an aisle. As the roll-call vote for Speaker dragged on, Antonio Delgado, a newly elected young congressman from the Hudson Valley in New York, gathered his three young children on his knees and quietly read to them.

Then the House got down to work, passing two bills nominally aimed at reopening government, but actually designed to pressurise Senate Republicans and fracture the party’s unity in both houses. One funded most of the currently shut-down government until late September; the other funds the Department of Homeland Security for about a month. Neither contains the $5bn that President Donald Trump has demanded for a border wall. Mitch McConnell, the Senate leader, has refused to pass legislation without Mr Trump’s approval, though yesterday he saw the first stirrings of revolt within his party. Cory Gardner, a Republican senator from Colorado, urged Mr McConnell to pass a continuing resolution to reopen government. That dispute also provided an insight into the political winds approaching: Messrs Gardner and McConnell are both up for re-election in 2020; Mr Gardner, in purple Colorado, fears being usurped by a Democrat; while the bigger threat to Mr McConnell will come from his right in the primary.

Mrs Pelosi, a savvy and ruthless legislator, understands this dynamic well, and will exploit it mercilessly in the next two years—though she may face her own challenges from her party’s left flank. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and two other progressives yesterday voted against a budgetary measure designed to avoid ballooning deficits. And while House leadership has trod lightly on the subject of impeachment, Rashida Tlaib, a newly elected member from Michigan, told a crowd of supporters, “We’re going to go in and impeach the motherfucker.”

If Democrats decide to emulate Ms Tlaib they will lose. Impeachment, as Mrs Pelosi has repeatedly said, must be a bipartisan affair; if Democrats ignore that political reality they will reap the whirlwind. The party is finally in a position to exercise real oversight over a presidency and a president that have effectively been unchecked. In the coming weeks, expect them to pressurise Mr Trump on his tax returns, family-separation policy, business interests and his role in arranging hush payments to women with whom he allegedly had affairs. Mr Trump will no doubt fight back on Twitter; after all, that strategy has worked for him so far. But he may soon find its limits.