On Monday evening, while Donald Trump was spinning his lies about thugs, rapists, and high crimes at the U.S. border, presidential hopeful, Beto O’Rourke, was across the street, on the right side of history, trying to welcome, protect and assist desperate asylum seekers and their quest for a better life.
At 7pm, O’Rourke led a march through El Paso to highlight the city’s strength as a binational community, and to repel Trump’s 2016 failed campaign promise to build a border wall for his restless base.
Here is a one-minute clip of O’Rourke followed a text excerpt.
Text excerpt:
“We will not take advantage of them. We will not send them back to certain death. We will not believe that walls can or should keep them out. Instead, we welcome them with open arms.
This, the wealthiest, the most powerful country on the face of this planet, can meet this moment and our obligations to one another—and be all the stronger for it.” -Beto O’Rourke
Earlier in the day, MSNBC correspondent, Garret Haake, tweeted a stunning Resolution from El Paso County.
“El Paso County passes a resolution saying it is “disillusioned by President Trump’s lies regarding the border and our community,” citing past false statements and the likelihood of new ones at rally tonight.”
Resolution:
Laura Clawson sums up the essence of the Resolution.
Trump and his administration have “disseminated false information to local elected officials across the nation regarding its perceived need for border security funding priorities, including calling life on the U.S.-Mexico border a ‘crisis situation,’” but that “data from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) illustrates that no such crisis exists.”
Turning to El Paso specifically, they write that Trump “falsely stated that El Paso was one of the most dangerous cities in the United States until the construction of border fencing, yet another lie that was quickly disputed by residents and members of our local law enforcement agencies. El Paso’s violent crime rate dropped 62 percent from its peak in 1993 to 2007, a year before construction on the fence began.”
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.
In this tweet from O’Rourke, he affirms the Resolution as he highlights, in English and Spanish, the greatness of El Paso and the greatness of our country.
“United States of America: Cities—not because of walls, but in spite of walls [are] secure because we treat one another with dignity and respect. That is the way that we make our communities and our country safe.
Here in the largest binational community in the western hemisphere—2 ½ million people, two countries, speaking two languages, two cultures and two histories come together, are joined, not separated by the Rio Grande River, forming something far greater, more powerful, than the sum of our people or the sum of our parts…We have so much to give, so much to show the rest of the country, and we’re doing it right now, here in the city that’s been one of the safest in the United States of America for 20 years and counting—safe long before a wall was built here in 2008. In fact, a little less safe after that wall was built.” -Beto O’Rourke
Of course, Trump who was across the way, spent a good amount of his speech lying, insulting O’Rourke by saying his rally will mark O’Rourke’s political career and lying about crowd numbers—again. This guy. We’ll get a count here soon. Some are saying O’Rourke’s crowd was bigger than Trump’s.
Update:
Trump claimed he had a crowd of 35,000, and said O’Rourke had a couple hundred. But the El Paso Coliseum where Trump held his rally reportedly only holds 11,000. Bloomberg News reported that O'Rourke drew a crowd of 10,000 to 15,000.
What we do know for sure is that Trump’s a bold-faced pathological and pathetic liar, and Beto O’Rourke has just begun to kick Donald’s ass.
Below is a video that shows the El Paso march and rally. To see O’Rourke’s speech in full, forward the video to 1:44 (one hour and forty-four minutes).
Beto O’Rourke brings hope, light and integrity.
Thank you, Daily Kos community members, ‘willyr’ for posting the full speech link in the comments and ‘Texas Lefty’ for the Beto O’Rourke tweet.