Gerry Connolly actually said...

"if you don't create political space, you are inviting repression and authoritarian regimes because there is no alternative."

"without questioning this government, without challenging this government, without holding it to certain standards, that is precisely the alternative."

"However repressive or anti-democratic tendencies they may have been showing at the time of the overthrow, they did not do what this government has done against its own citizens."

"There has to be another alternative making this better, creating political space so that we aren't faced with a black-and-white, either/or alternative."