I sincerely hope this … holiday season will drain the poison that has infected our politics and set us against one another. I hope this Christmas sea… - Joe Biden

You can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t obey the law only when it’s convenient. You can’t be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies. Those who stormed this Capitol and those who instigated and incited and those who called on them to do so held a dagger at the throat of America — at American democracy. They didn’t come here out of patriotism or principle. They came here in rage — not in service of America, but rather in service of one man. Those who incited the mob — the real plotters — who were desperate to deny the certification of the election and defy the will of the voters. But their plot was foiled. Congressmen — Democrats and Republicans — stayed. Senators, representatives, staff — they finished their work the Constitution demanded. They honored their oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Look, folks, now it’s up to all of us — to “We the People” — to stand for the rule of law, to preserve the flame of democracy, to keep the promise of America alive. That promise is at risk, targeted by the forces that value brute strength over the sanctity of democracy, fear over hope, personal gain over public good. Make no mistake about it: We’re living at an inflection point in history. Both at home and abroad, we’re engaged anew in a struggle between democracy and autocracy, between the aspirations of the many and the greed of the few, between the people’s right of self-determination and ... the self-seeking autocrat.

Progress was and is possible. Justice is achievable, and our best days are not behind us, they’re before us. Now it’s summer. The winter has passed, and with a grateful heart I stand before you now on this August night to report that democracy has prevailed, democracy has delivered, and now democracy must be preserved. You’ve heard me say it before, we’re facing an inflection point, one of those rare moments in history when the decisions we make now will determine the fate of our nation and the world for decades to come. That’s not hyperbole, I mean it literally. We’re in a battle for the very soul of America.

"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."