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Elections Are a Time for Peaceful Debate
On July 13, a gunman attempted to assassinate former President and Republican candidate for President Donald Trump at a political rally in Pennsylvania. Fortunately, the bullet meant for him only grazed his right ear. But another American citizen was killed, and several others were seriously injured by the shooter.
In an Oval Office address, President Joe Biden stressed, “We cannot — we must not go down this road in America.”
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence or for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.”
President Biden noted that “the political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated. It’s time to cool it down,” he stressed. “And we all have a responsibility to do that.”
While “[d]isagreement is inevitable in American democracy,” President Biden said, politics must not become a “literal battlefield.”
“I believe politics ought to be an arena for peaceful debate, to pursue justice, to make decisions guided by the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. We stand for an America not of extremism and fury, but of decency and grace.”
In American democracy, “[w]e debate and disagree. We compare and contrast the character of the candidates, the records, the issues, the agenda, [and] the vision for America,” said President Biden.
“But in America, we resolve our differences at the [ballot] box ... not with bullets. The power to change America should always rest in the hands of the people, not in the hands of a would-be assassin,” said President Biden.
“[F]rom the beginning, our founders understood the power of passion, and so they created a democracy that gave reason and balance a chance to prevail over brute force,” President Biden explained.
“That’s the America we must be, an American democracy where arguments are made in good faith, an American democracy where the rule of law is respected, an American democracy where decency, dignity, [and] fair play aren’t just quaint notions, but [are] living, breathing realities.”
“We owe that to those who come before us, to those who gave their lives for this country. [W]e owe that to ourselves. We owe it to our children and our grandchildren.”