Political Quotes

“I thank Chairman McGovern for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, I often quote George Santayana, who warned: ``Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'' The insurrection on January 6 was the worst attack on our Constitution since the Civil War. While the secessionists were defeated in 1865, our Nation's experiment with multiracial democracy during Reconstruction did not last. It was extinguished by the Lost Cause mythology that minimized the evils of the secessionists and raised monuments to the leaders of the Confederacy that they established. These willful circumventions and misrepresentations were used as justification for avoiding accountability and violently stripping African Americans of constitutional rights. We are at risk of repeating that history today. Just as the Lost Cause laid the ideological groundwork for Jim Crow and all its inhumanities, the big lie seeks to justify nullification laws that seek to suppress votes and establish autocratic rule. The former President and his enablers are using the big lie to deny the horror of January 6. They are attempting to obstruct and subvert the select committee's work and to prevent a full accounting of their efforts to undermine our democracy. We know from our history that when our government is attacked, failing to hold the perpetrators accountable emboldens them. Allowing their myths to gain currency incentivizes them.…”