Madam President, democracy, our system, is an anomaly in world history. The norm are pharaohs, kings, dictators, emperors, Presidents for life. That is the norm. The vast sweep of human history is all about authoritarians running their society. The idea that the people can actually participate in the building and operating and electing and creating their government is an unusual one. It is an anomaly in world history. That should tell us something, because that means it is fragile, and we have seen how fragile it can be. On January 6, our entire democracy came down to the integrity and courage of one man: Mike Pence. If Vice President Pence had succumbed to the pressure--enormous pressure that he was under to try to throw out certain electoral votes and choose and count others, we would have been in literally uncharted constitutional territory. There is no telling how that chaotic situation would have been resolved. Our system is unusual, and it is fragile. Likewise, the secretary of state of Georgia, a Republican, a strong Republican who voted for President Trump, what if he hadn't done the right thing? What if he had responded to President Trump on that infamous phone call by saying, I will see what I can do to jigger the numbers and find those 11,770 votes. Where would we be? The point is we should not put ourselves in situations that depend expressly upon the luck and good fortune of having the right people in the right place at the right time.…
On the recordDecember 20, 2022
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