Joe Biden Quotes

To state the obvious, one year ago today, in this sacred place, democracy was attacked — simply attacked. The will of the people was under assault. The Constitution — our Constitution — faced the gravest of threats. Outnumbered and in the face of a brutal attack, the Capitol Police, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, the National Guard, and other brave law enforcement officials saved the rule of law. Our democracy held. We the people endured. And we the people prevailed. For the first time in our history, a president had not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol. But they failed. They failed. And on this day of remembrance, we must make sure that such an attack never, never happens again.

I know the moment we’re in; you know the moment we are in. I know the stakes; you know the stakes. This is far from over. And finally, we’re confronting the stains of what remains — the deep stain on the soul of the nation: hate and white supremacy [...] that hate never goes away. It never – I thought — in all of the years I’ve been involved, I thought once we got through it, it would go away. But it doesn’t; it only hides. It only hides until some seeming-legitimate person breathes some oxygen under the rocks where they’re hiding and gives it some breath.

Now, it’s no secret that in the contest between democracy and autocracy, the United States — and I, as President — champion a vision for our world that is grounded in the values of democracy. The United States is determined to defend and strengthen democracy at home and around the world. Because I believe democracy remains humanity’s greatest instrument to address the challenges of our time.

the Democratic Party had failed (in 1983)
'to remember waht got us this far and how we got here — moral indignation, decent instincts, a sense of shared sacrifice and mutual responsibility, and a set of national priorities that emphasized what we had in common.. The Party that was the engine of the national interest — molding our pluralistic interest into a compelling new social contract that served the nation well for fifty years — became perceived as little more than the broker of narrow special interests. Instead of thinking of ourselves as Americans first, Democrats second, and members of interest groups third, we have begun to think in terms of special interests first and the greater interest second.. We have let our opponents set the agenda and define what is at stake.
p. 140

We’re surely making progress. Things are getting better. COVID … no longer controls our lives. Our kids are back in school. People are back to work. In fact, more people are working than ever before. Americans are building again, innovating again, dreaming again. So my hope this Christmas season is that we take a few moments of quiet reflection and find that stillness in the heart of Christmas — that’s at the heart of Christmas, and look — really look at each other, not as Democrats or Republicans, not as members of “Team Red” or “Team Blue,” but as who we really are: fellow Americans. Fellow human beings worthy of being treated with dignity and respect.

[T]he American story depends not on any one of us, not on some of us, but on all of us, on we the people, who seek a more perfect union. This is a great nation. We are good people. And over the centuries, through storm and strife, in peace and in war, we′ve come so far, but we still have far to go.<p>We′ll press forward with speed and urgency, for we have much to do in this winter of peril and significant possibilities. Much to repair, much to restore, much to heal, much to build, and much to gain. Few people in our nation′s history have been more challenged or found a time more challenging or difficult than the time we′re in now.

I know that we can’t prevent every tragedy. But here’s what I believe we have to do. Here’s what the overwhelming majority of the American people believe we must do. Here’s what the families in Buffalo and Uvalde, in Texas, told us we must do. We need to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. And if we can’t ban assault weapons, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21. Strengthen background checks. Enact safe storage laws and red-flag laws. Repeal the immunity that protects gun manufacturers from liability. Address the mental health crisis deepening the trauma of gun violence and as a consequence of that violence. These are rational, commonsense measures. And here’s what it all means. It all means this: We should reinstate the assault weapons ban and high-capacity magazines that we passed in 1994 with bipartisan support in Congress and the support of law enforcement. Nine categories of semi-automatic weapons were included in that ban, like AK-47s and AR-15s. And in the 10 years it was law, mass shootings went down. But after Republicans let the law expire in 2004 and those weapons were allowed to be sold again, mass shootings tripled. Those are the facts.

Hear one another. See one another. Show respect to one another. Politics doesn′t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn′t have to be a cause for total war. And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated, and even manufactured.

From the very beginning you weren't allowed to have certain weapons. You weren't allowed to own a cannon during the Revolutionary War as an individual.

Today, we remember the hell that was unleashed that night. This was not a riot, it was a massacre.<p>As many as 300 Black Americans were killed, and nearly 10,000 were left destitute. Homes, businesses, and churches were burned. A generation of Black wealth was extinguished. In the years that followed, even as Greenwood worked to rebuild, discrimination was systematically embedded in our laws and policies, locking Black residents out of opportunity and ensuring that the attack on Black families and Black wealth persisted across generations.

"Acknowledging that a woman's right to be safe from a gender-based attack was a "civil right," I believed, was critically important in changing the American consciousness. When a right reaches the status and categorization of a "civil right," it means the nation has arrived at a consensus that is nonnegotiable. Violence against women would no longer be written off ... Once our criminal justice system — at the local, state and federal levels — recognized these as serious and inexcusable crimes, women could stop blaming themselves."

I am so tired of acronyms in Washington. I can’t stand it. I cannot stand it. But I’m going to have to learn, aren’t I?

American auto companies, along with American labor, are committing their treasure and their talent . . . to make electric vehicles and {batteries} and electric charging stations all across America, [and all] of it made in America. This new law also provides tax credits [designed to help create] clean energy manufacturing jobs, solar factories in the Midwest and the South, wind farms across the plains and off our shores, clean hydrogen projects and more, all across America.

When one of your loved ones goes out of your life, you think what he might have done with a few more years,” Joe Sr. had written to his friend. “And you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours. Then one day, because there is a world

When it seems impossible to get anything done in Washington, we are doing something consequential. If we can reach compromise on guns, we ought to be able to reach compromise in other critical issues, from veterans’ healthcare to cutting-edge American innovation, and so much more. I know there’s much more work to do, and I’m never going to give up. But this is a monumental day. God bless us with the strength to continue to work to get the work that’s left undone done, and the lives lost that can’t be saved that obviously are gone but will be an inspiration for us to do more.