People must set aside vitriol and come together to preserve the strength of the nation, Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA) said at the Reagan Library in California on Tuesday.
Garcia urged everyone, regardless of party, to shelve petty grievances to discuss their differences and pursue a true “America First” worldview, saying the choice to fight for the more perfect union the founders intended isn’t a choice at all but a necessity. He spoke as part of the Reagan Foundation’s “Time for Choosing” speaker series, named for President Ronald Reagan’s 1964 speech of the same name.
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“Stirring hatred by highlighting differences in perspective as the justification to write someone off and cancel them is evil and destructive,” he said in prepared remarks shared with the Washington Examiner. “It’s also lazy. It achieves nothing. Some call it ‘cancel culture’ — some call it ‘subconscious biases.’ Whatever you call it, it is un-American by definition.”
Garcia, a Navy veteran who was first elected to Congress in a 2020 special election, listed issues such as defunding the police, the COVID-19 vaccine and masking, and threats to Supreme Court justices as examples of pointless divisions that prevent people from exchanging ideas and getting to solutions.
“Do you write someone off because they associate themselves with a certain political party or wear a certain hat? Have you decided recently not to go to a relative’s house because of political differences?” Garcia asked. “If so, then you are guilty of contributing to the problem.”
Though imploring unity, he also praised the diversity of thought that could be unique to public life if people would talk to each other. Garcia blamed the current problem, which he said echoes the late 1970s, on a string of human failings.
“We have a blizzard of crisis. But it’s not our country’s fault and not the Constitution’s fault. This is a human failure with a bread trail that begins at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.,” he said. “The strategy of appeasement … to a far-left progressive agenda is proving again to be ineffective. In the span of just 20 months, this administration has done a decade of damage.”
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“In the end, we are all on the same team,” Garcia continued. “The real threats to our nation are the Chinese Communist Party, Russia, terrorists, socialism, our debt, incompetent and self-serving politicians, and those seeking to marginalize our Constitution. The threats don’t care whether we consider ourselves to be lions or sheep, as Democrats or Republicans. They care only that we are divided. They care only that we are made more vulnerable because of this division.”
The Time for Choosing speaker series is described as “a new forum for leading voices in the conservative movement to address critical questions facing the future of the Republican Party.” Past speakers include former House Speaker Paul Ryan as well as Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE).
