Political Quotes

“I take no pleasure in coming to the floor today. We in the Senate take pride in our decorum and our sense of comity with each other, so much so that we often twist ourselves into pretzels to avoid saying anything that might be interpreted as a criticism of another Senator. Yet there comes a time when these verbal gymnastics simply won't do. You are either going to speak the truth or fail to do justice to the values you hold dear. What one of our colleagues said last week about the events of January 6 was felt by many to be racist and hurtful--a stain on the office he is so fortunate to hold. Look, I get that no one likes to be called racist, but sometimes there is just no other way to describe the use of bigoted tropes that for generations have threatened Black lives by stoking White fear of African Americans and Black men in particular. On a radio show, our colleague explained that he never feared for his safety during the January 6 insurrection of the U.S. Capitol. But make no mistake, under different circumstances, he would have been afraid. He said: Now, had the tables been turned--now, Joe, this will get me in trouble--had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned. Is that not racism?…”