WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock said America’s democracy cannot coexist if political violence continues to rear its head.
During a five-minute speech on the Senate floor delivered the day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated, Warnock encouraged both Republicans and Democrats to turn down the temperature.
“We Americans engage in loud, heated and sometimes rambunctious debates, not as a precursor to violence but to avoid violence,” Warnock said Thursday. “We must learn to disagree without becoming violently disagreeable. Let me be clear: there is nothing more anti-democratic than political violence.”
Warnock, who is also the pastor of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, said he got the idea for the speech after running into former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a conservative Republican, at an event in Washington Wednesday night. As they discussed the news of Kirk’s death, Warnock decided he needed to use his platform to make a statement.
“I love our country, and I am genuinely and deeply worried about us,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after his speech concluded Thursday. “You can feel the tension in the air and yesterday was an intensification of what I’ve been feeling for a while.”
Kirk was shot and killed while delivering remarks on a college campus in Utah. The assailant was still at large Thursday, and no suspect or motive had been identified.
Warnock also cited other incidents like the shooting death of Minnesota Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband in June. It’s not just political violence but hate speech that he says must be denounced.
“You cannot condemn one without condemning the other, for hate is itself a kind of violence that kills the spirit and corrupts the soul of a person and of a nation,” he said.
“And that vicious cycle of violence and hate, of hate and violence, can only lead to the demise of our country and the destruction of our humanity.”
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