- “You cannot, at the same time, love America and hate democracy,” Sen. Chris Murphy said in a speech on the Senate floor, shaming Republicans for pursuing efforts to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election.
- Murphy’s speech came hours before the US Supreme Court threw out the Texas attorney general’s long-shot lawsuit seeking to determine other states’ election results. At least two-thirds of House Republicans coalesced behind the suit.
- “Voters, citizens, not kings or monarchs or oligarchs, decide who governs.” Murphy stated, “It’s made possible by a series of decisions we make every day to put the rule of law ahead of our own political power.”
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In a Friday speech on the US Senate floor, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut torched Republican colleagues who are supporting the president’s so-far failed efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“Right now, the most serious attempt to overthrow our democracy in the history of our country is underway. Those who are pushing to make Donald Trump President, no matter the outcome of the election, are engaged in a treachery against their nation,” Murphy stated.
“You cannot, at the same time, love America and hate democracy,” Murphy continued.
Murphy also lambasted “flag-waving Republicans who are trying to invalidate legal votes,” because “it is the only way that they can make Donald Trump president again.”
Murphy’s speech – hours before the Supreme Court threw out the Texas attorney general’s long-shot election lawsuit – directly challenged the path that the Republican party has taken over the last years, and particularly since Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
This week, two-thirds of House Republicans supported the president's Texas lawsuit.
"Democracies are a fragile thing," Murphy said in the speech. He added that the government wasn't "a piece of paper," but existed through democratic norms and practices and that leaders are decided via the will of the people.
"Voters, citizens, not kings or monarchs or oligarchs, decide who governs. It's made possible by a series of decisions we make every day to put the rule of law ahead of our own political power, or the position of our political party," Murphy said.
—Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) December 11, 2020
"That is the history of America," he said, "Our decision that democracy comes first, not the perpetuation of our own political power."
In a follow-up interview with The Washington Post, Murphy said that "If this becomes at all normalized more broadly than it already is, they will steal an election two years from now or four years from now."
In the interview, Murphy acknowledged that Democrats have numerous high priority governing responsibilities, but also hope that others would acknowledge and challenge the "hair-on-fire moment" directly to their Republican colleagues.
"This isn't just a party that's trying to stay on the good side of an enemy of democracy," Murphy told the Post. "This is a party that has a whole bunch of enemies of democracy inside its top ranks. That's bone-chilling."