Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) said President Donald Trump would incite his base supporters not to accept the results of the presidential election if he losses in November.
Booker said, “I think he understands to some degree that he has to take extraordinary steps to try to win this election. What are those extraordinary steps? One, he’s attacked the United States Postal service. He’s attacked the whole mail-in ballot process. He’s literally gone as far to say that, if I don’t win, the election was rigged, which means that he is now, even if he loses, telling us all that he will break with a tradition that goes back to George Washington in which we have the graceful transfer of power. He will show no grace. He will question the results. That firm base that believes in him will be riled up, and he will incite them in every way possible to not accept that democratic tradition. Yet, another one of our traditions and our norms that he threatens, and he threatens it in a way that really undermines the very foundations of our democracy, and this is a shameful 67 days. I think we’re going into where we’re going to see just a spectacle of dishonor at the end.”
He continued, “I found it absurd that this president is trying to show pictures of what’s happening now under his leadership and saying this is what’s going to happen if Joe Biden comes in. This is what’s happening now. This is a president who has divided this nation, who has incited white supremacists to take action, like a young man with an automatic weapon or semi-automatic weapon out there shooting folks. This is a guy who has under his leadership, anti-semitism has spiked up dramatically, anti-Islamic attacks have spiked up under his leadership. Under his leadership, you see venom now pouring out as the president is modeling himself how to use the highest office in the land in his Twitter account to demean, degrade and divide. He is the one that is the instigator, the catalytic agent that is driving our country to deeper divide, deeper hate.”
He added, “We’ve got to heal this. It is time for a revival of civic grace. It is time for us to show the depths of our decency, the quality of our mercy. We are better than this as a nation. This leader is driving us in the wrong direction on our virtues, on our values, on our common cause. And, so, it’s a time to end this. So if you believe in those values, let’s stop cursing the darkness.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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