I
The speech we need to be hearing from party officials.
In the past we as your party leaders and individual senators and representatives have always been ready to work together with the Republicans and try to find middle ground. The American people have long hoped that this was possible, too. We now know that it is not possible to find middle ground with the extremists in control of the Republican party. We know that compromise only leads to worse and worse outcomes and more and more political division.
These are not normal times, the country is in a deep crisis, and to approach this crisis as though it were business as usual would be irresponsible and immoral, and it would be a violation of our oath of office. We are confronted with a dangerous political movement that is destroying our democratic republic. It represents the greatest threat to the United States since the Civil War.
Many millions of American citizens voted for us in the belief that we would fight to end the national nightmare, stop the madness, arrest the progress of the destructive juggernaut sweeping across the land. We encouraged that belief when we asked the people for their financial support and for their votes. We kindled their faith in us and fanned the flames of their commitment to resist the growing tyranny. We told them democracy was on the line when we courted their votes and donations. They heeded our call. Can we in good faith betray them now?
When people voted for us they did not vote for bipartisanship, they do not vote for compromise. they did not vote for some mythical common ground. They voted for resistance, they did so in full consciousness of the very grave threat to liberty that has emerged.
We must now be true to ourselves and to our voters, and resist, in every thought, word, and deed as though we meant the words we spoke in our campaigns and at our convention. The fate of our country, the survival of democracy now depends upon that resistance, and I pledge myself to that cause.