Beto's speech at the 2024 Texas Democratic Convention

Texas becomes a battleground state for years and years to come. So it gives me great pleasure to bring you that medal of honor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let me begin by saying out loud what is in your mind and on your heart right now. Which is we are so extraordinarily lucky and grateful for Gabby Giffords. Her courage, her heroism, her tenacity. We are a better country. She just gave us the operating instructions for what it is going to take to win. One word after the other, one foot after the other, one action after the other. That is how we're going to get there. And listening to her, seeing her in action leaves me far more hopeful and optimistic than I would be otherwise. So many of you I first met in that 2017 and 2018 campaign here in Texas. I met you all over the state. And now I'm so grateful to join Veronica and Cesar and Michael and everyone else in welcoming you to one of the strongest, most successful, most beautiful, and yes, one of the most safe cities in America. Safe, beautiful, strong, successful. Not in spite of the fact that we are a city of immigrants. Strong, safe, and successful because we are a city of immigrants. I don't know if I've told you this before, but in the 2018 campaign, I went to every one of the 254 counties in Texas. Heard that one before? So when we showed up for everyone, everywhere, we wrote nobody off. We took no one for granted. We went to Abilene, Texas, glowing so red you can see it from outer space as you're orbiting it at the planet. We went to Cashmere Gardens in Houston, Texas to make sure that no one was taken for granted. We were there listening to and being with the people that we wanted to serve and represent. And listen, we all did that together. And at the end of the day, though I may not have met Ted Cruz, we came very close. We produced more votes than had ever been seen in a midterm election in the state of Texas. First Democrat since LBJ in 1964 to win the five major metro areas and their surrounding counties. But most importantly, you saw 12 insurgent Democrats beat 12 incumbent Republicans in the statehouse. You saw criminal courts with appeals victories, judicial victories in county courts, and in Harris County, the most diverse county in America, 17 black women were elected to judicial positions, changing the face of criminal justice in the process. Well, of those 254 was Cook County, Gainesville, Texas. Anybody from Cook County? All right, we're going to work on that for the 2028 convention. However, let me tell you this story. Please, if you could lend me your ears for a second. So we get to Cook County, our 254th county. And there are bands playing. There's red, white, and blue bunting at the old train station, which if you've been to Cook County, it sounds like none of you have. But if you go there, you'll see it. And it was this magical, beautiful summer day. And as we're walking into the train station to give a speech and to meet all the people who were there to greet us, this guy tells me a story about that train station. He says, hey, back in 1943 and 1944, an entire division of Texas boys and men from all over the state converged here to begin their training to serve in World War II. Now, they came from big cities like El Paso and Houston. They came from small towns like Gainesville. They were Democrats. They were Republicans. They were independents. They were Christians. They were Muslims. They were Jews. They were atheists. But they were Americans before they were anything else. And after they trained there in Cook County, that whole division, those young men got on the trains in that train station. Those trains took them to the coast. They boarded ships that took them across the Atlantic. They finished their training in England. And on this day, 80 years ago, those young Texas men who had trained in Cook County landed on the shores of Normandy. They joined 73,000 Americans, the largest amphibious assault in the history of humankind. And what were they fighting for? To stop fascism across the sea and to defend democracy here at home. And ladies and gentlemen, they were literally decimated. One out of every ten who landed was either injured or killed just on that first day, June 6, 1944. And as our president, Joe Biden, is there right now commemorating their sacrifice and their heroism, we have a candidate for the other major party, the nominee for the presidency, who wants to bring dramatic fascism to this country, who's talked about starting an American Reich, who described immigrants as those who poison the blood of America, a line that you could have lifted out of Mein Kampf or out of the mouth of Adolf Hitler. He says he'll be a dictator on day one and describes this election as the final battle. And yet despite all of that, I have hope. I'll tell you another anniversary that we're celebrating today. 58 years ago, 1966, James Meredith, who had integrated the University of Mississippi in Oxford, began a one-man civil rights and voting rights march across the state of Mississippi. And for having the courage of his convictions, he was shot down by a white nationalist terrorist, just like that white nationalist terrorist who showed up in El Paso on the 3rd of August, 2019. But for having the courage of his convictions, for his tenacity and his heroism, and that of John Lewis and Seth McClark and right here Lawrence Aaron Nixon, we have in this country the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And yet in this state right now, it is harder to cast a ballot, it is harder to register to vote than in any other place in America. Greg Abbott and his henchmen are targeting the people of Texas with the most vile form of suppression and intimidation that we have ever seen. 700 polling place closures, a racial gerrymander of our state, and the most extreme voter ID in America. And yet, I have hope. And I'll tell you why. This last story, 51 years ago, three Texas women, Jane Roe, Sarah Bighton, Linda Coffey, prevail upon an all-male United States Supreme Court to win the right to make their own decisions about their own bodies, their own future, and their own health care. No one came from outside of Texas to rescue Texas women. It was Texas women who rescued the rest of this country. Whatever the challenges before, we know that we can overcome them because we've overcome them before against much greater odds. And if you think about it, everyone that I just described, those three extraordinary Texas women, James Meredith, the men who landed Normandy on D-Day 80 years ago, they have passed on their service, their sacrifice, their struggle to us at this moment in this generation. And what we do with this inheritance, whether we squander it or capitalize on it, expand it, will define us in the eyes of our kids and the pages of history, and will determine what is possible going forward. So, ladies and gentlemen of the Texas Democratic Party, this moment is ours. We cannot be found wanting. We must meet this moment by making sure that we do everything we can with what we have, where we are. For our part, we're out there registering Democratic voters every single day, staying in touch with them, and making sure that they turn out. Because if we fail in this enterprise, no pressure. But as Abraham Lincoln said, we might meanly lose the last, best hope of Earth. Who wants to be responsible for that? Right? So, to end where I began, that extraordinary campaign that we were all a part of in 2018, a campaign not about the candidate, not even about the political party, but about the people of Texas, got us within 215,000 votes of Ken Coon Cruz. Do you think that you and I can find 215,000 votes over the next five months to make sure that Baltimore is the next United States Senator for the state of Texas? Let us follow the footsteps that have preceded us. Let us live up to the great tradition and fulfill the promise of the United States of America and the great state of Texas. Ladies and gentlemen, have a great convention. Thank you for coming to our council. Thank you very much.