[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 40 (Tuesday, March 3, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H2344-H2345]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        FACING AN INFLECTION POINT IN THIS NATION AND THE WORLD

  (Ms. McBride of Delaware was recognized to address the House for 5 
minutes.)
  Ms. McBRIDE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today at an inflection point for our 
Nation and the world.
  Both here at home and abroad, families are facing the crushing weight 
of Donald Trump's chaotic and cruel leadership. At home, inflation is 
driving up costs around the country, and my neighbors are struggling to 
afford their utility bills, their health insurance, and their 
groceries.
  In cities across our country, masked paramilitary agents are brutally 
murdering American citizens, disappearing immigrants without due 
process, and acting with cheered-on cruelty that mirrors a secret 
police force.
  Overseas, this President has launched more military strikes against 
more countries than any President in history. He is circumventing 
Congress and ignoring international rules. He is emboldening 
authoritarians and insulting our allies. Just this past weekend, the 
United States began yet another war of choice in the Middle East based 
on misrepresented intelligence and uncertain objectives.
  Already six Americans have tragically died in this avoidable 
conflict. Whether a full-scale ground war unfolds now or not, this 
President's shoot-first-ask-questions-later foreign policy inevitably 
leads to one place globally: death, destruction, and destabilization.
  Mr. Speaker, this year marks the 250th year since the signing of the 
Declaration of Independence. In the century and a half since, our 
country has faced several inflection points. In each one, we are faced 
with a choice: Do we destroy, or do we build? Do we destroy our Union, 
our Constitution, and our democracy, or do we choose to build a more 
perfect Union?
  We seem to face one of these inflection points every 80 years, when 
the last living memory of the previous inflection point fades as the 
last generation that remembers it disappears. When living memory of the 
Revolution faded, we faced a Civil War. Eighty years after that, as a 
Great Depression raged, many in America called for a dictator to 
emulate the strong men in Europe.
  Mr. Speaker, now as we lose the last of the Greatest Generation, we 
are once again seeing destroyers calling into question our democracy.

                              {time}  1215

  Mr. Speaker, destroyers thrive in a culture of cynicism. They exploit 
it for their own gain. They want to destroy our government and sell it 
for parts. They want to destroy our attention span and mine what little 
remains for advertising dollars. They want to destroy housing and 
healthcare so that they can consolidate power by doling out the scraps.
  They want to destroy jobs and the American worker by unleashing 
unregulated technology that leaves the rich richer and everyone else 
behind. They want to destroy international institutions and rules so 
that the strong can plunder the weak.
  Perhaps most dangerously, they want to destroy the central ingredient 
of our

[[Page H2345]]

democracy, which is our hope in a better future and our faith in one 
another. The bedrock of democracy is the faith that things can change 
because people can change.
  In this world where it feels like every force is pulling us apart and 
where the platforms we live on can leave us feeling like politics and 
persuasion are pointless, amidst all of that, I have good news. While 
real disagreements exist and while our politics and this place don't 
always bring out the best in us, I see every day back in Delaware that 
we are not as divided as the algorithms make it seem.
  Whether I am meeting with healthcare providers or educators, farmers 
or first responders, students or seniors, whether I am in red areas or 
blue areas, I see that people are good and kind and decent.
  While it may be easier to destroy, I see that we still have the 
capacity to build something better.
  We can build the housing of tomorrow that makes the American Dream of 
homeownership within reach, a healthcare system that allows every 
American to live and to thrive.
  We can be truly profamily by building a cradle-through-career support 
system with paid leave, universal childcare, and strong public schools 
so that it is actually affordable to start a family.
  We can build an economy of the future that protects workers and 
guarantees that the new prosperity made possible by new technologies 
are shared by the many and not concentrated with the few.
  We can do hard things, Mr. Speaker, if we are willing to do the hard 
work. We can do the hard work of hope, the hard work of changemaking, 
of choosing grace over grievance, of learning from history so that we 
are not doomed to relive it.
  Mr. Speaker, if there is one enduring truth, it is that we can still 
tap people's better angels if we choose to see them.

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