[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 11 (Wednesday, January 20, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S68-S69]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          BIDEN ADMINISTRATION

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, at noon today, Joe Biden was sworn in as 
our new President. I never served with President Biden when he was a 
Senator, but I can tell you, from direct and firsthand experience, that 
he is a man of tremendous empathy. I have witnessed it. And so I pray 
that God will bless him with strength, with health, and with wisdom, 
because I don't need to tell anyone that we, in our Nation, are living 
in troubled times.
  President Trump was elected and then, in this last cycle, received 75 
million votes, in part because he spoke to and was brutally honest 
about some of the grievances and the fears that are now dividing our 
country. It is important to understand that he didn't create them, and 
that is why his exit alone is not going to make America normal again.
  The troubles we face and the things that now divide us really aren't 
so much about politics or about ideology. If you look into them, they 
are really more about the things that are at the core of our identity 
as a nation and as a people.
  Our people want a country where everybody has the opportunity to find 
a good job, to get married, to live in a safe neighborhood, to not go 
into debt because they have a baby, to send their kids to a good 
school, and one day to retire with dignity and security. But we have 
millions of Americans who increasingly feel that that kind of life and 
those kinds of things are out of reach for them, and they are really 
frustrated that neither those in government or either political party 
seem to be doing much about them.
  The people need a sense of belonging and purpose, but the places that 
we used to get that from--our families, the community groups we joined, 
the synagogues, the churches--many of them are in collapse. So now you 
have millions of people who feel isolated or alienated and some who are 
turning to hyperpartisan politics and even online conspiracy cults to 
fill the void that those institutions once filled.
  The overwhelming majority of Americans reject racism and bigotry and 
discrimination. But they also reject identity politics, which 
constantly seems to want to divide us against and apart from each other 
on the basis of race and ethnicity and gender.
  We are a nation that is proud of our heritage as a nation of 
immigrants, but millions of Americans--I would say the majority--also 
believe we are a nation that has to have immigration laws. They need to 
be followed, and they need to be enforced.
  Most Americans accept that our country, our society is changing, and 
they understand that there are people with different views and 
different ways of life. What they do resent is efforts to demonize and 
to persecute those who hold the traditional values that are inherited 
from our Judeo-Christian heritage.
  Most Americans believe decency and morality require that everyone is 
entitled to dignity and to respect. But there are also many growing 
increasingly tired of walking on eggshells of political correctness and 
forced to undergo sensitivity training because everyone seems to be so 
easily offended these days by everything.
  People understand that we have to do something. It is a problem. We 
have do something about people who use social media to spread dangerous 
lies, to instigate violence. But I think they also have a right to be 
very troubled that five CEOs of technology companies--five people in 
five companies, elected by no one, accountable to no one--have the 
power, if they so choose, to wipe out, to silence anyone--even a 
President.
  And I would tell you that, almost without exception, they were 
horrified--horrified--about what happened here 2 weeks ago today. They 
want those people in jail. But they also wonder: Where was that outrage 
when this summer, in multiple cities, across a number of months, there 
were people setting fire to police cars and breaking into police 
stations and attacking courthouses and looting private property?
  I will tell you that they see firsthand every day the extraordinary 
damage being done by this terrible pandemic and the damage being done 
by our bitter divisions, which, frankly, I think most Americans will 
never understand why the first thing we are going to do here, 
potentially, is an impeachment trial of a President who isn't even in 
office anymore.
  What happened today was incredibly important. The pageantry, the 
rituals behind it--it matters. And for the 59th time in our history, we 
peacefully transferred power from one leader to the next. I think the 
fact that that happened on the very steps of this Capitol, where just 2 
weeks ago on this day we saw an unimaginable attack on democracy, that 
should serve as a reminder to all of us in this country and a powerful 
message to the world that our Republic remains resilient.
  But now the hard work of self-government begins, and these anxieties 
I have just described--the tens of millions of Americans--need to be 
acknowledged, and they need to be addressed. If they are ignored, if 
they are allowed to fester, what it will do is it will leave us not 
just a nation that is paralyzed and can't take action on important 
issues; we are going to be left a nation that remains vulnerable to 
those who are willing to exploit and stir the most destructive 
impulses.
  Today, President Biden struck important tones of national unity, and 
I believe they were sincere. But pursuing a radical agenda in a country 
so divided does not serve the cause of unity. It will only serve 
cynicism that destroys trust.
  By the same token, continuing to fan the flames of grievances or, in 
the alternative, pursuing vengeance disguised as accountability will 
not serve the cause of unity either. That is nothing but the politics 
of resentment and

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retribution, which only leads to a fractured nation of people who 
literally come to hate each other.
  Demanding that the other side in a debate on a topic, on a principle, 
agree with you on everything isn't unity. That is the arrogance of 
believing that any of us--that we are the sole holders of the truth: 
Anyone who agrees with us is good, and anyone who disagrees with us is 
wrong--not just wrong but, actually, evil.
  The truth is that real unity isn't everyone having the same ideology 
or the same views or the same ideas. The unity we need actually comes 
from remembering--remembering who we actually are.
  We Americans are not a racist or nativist people. We are a good and 
compassionate people who--in an overwhelming majority, they do not ask 
about race when they donate unwrapped toys so that no child has to wake 
up on Christmas morning with no present under the tree. They don't ask 
where a soldier's or sailor's or airman's or airwoman's parents came 
from when they put together and send care packages to them halfway 
around the world that they defend. We Americans are a bold people. In 
our veins literally runs the blood of pilgrims, of settlers, of exiles, 
of immigrants, of people who overcame slavery and segregation. We are 
the descendants of people who refused to surrender to fear and to 
abandon the hope of a better life.
  We Americans are not the inheritors of an American dream that is some 
prize that we have to fight against one another for in some winner-
take-all competition. We are the inheritors of an American dream that 
anyone can achieve without it being denied to someone else.
  This is who we were when this country inspired and changed the world, 
and I hope this is who we will be again: a people who disagree over 
principles, who argue over policies--that has to happen because our 
Republic depends on every view having a voice and every voice having a 
place to be heard--but also a people who now understand that the choice 
before us is, we will either find a way to share a nation and a future, 
or we will all share the condemnation of history and the rebuke of 
Americans yet to come.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Oregon

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