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AFTER MONTHS OF SURRENDER, THE DEMOCRATS HAVE FINALLY STOOD UP TO
TRUMP – THANK YOU, CORY BOOKER  
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Emma Brockes
April 2, 2025
The Guardian
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_ Watching the New Jersey senator hold court for 25 hours felt
radical and cathartic _

The marathon speech on Monday and Tuesday by Senator Cory Booker,
Democrat of New Jersey, broke a record that had previously been held
by Strom Thurmond., Eric Lee/The New York Times

 

One of the problems beleaguering political opponents of Donald Trump
has been finding a form of protest that, given the scale of his
outrages, doesn’t seem entirely futile. You can parade outside a
Tesla showroom
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You can hold up dumb little signs
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Trump’s address to Congress inscribed with slogans such as “This
is not normal” and “Musk steals”. You can, as Democrats appear
to have been doing since the election, play dead.

Alternatively, you can go for the ostentatious, performative gesture.
On Monday evening, Cory Booker, the Democratic senator for New Jersey
who carries himself like someone who’d have been happier in an era
when men wore capes, started speaking on the floor of the Senate
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carried on for 25 hours and five minutes, breaking the chamber’s
record by almost 50 minutes and delivering – finally – a solid,
usable symbol of rebellion.

This wasn’t a filibuster per se; no legislation was being passed.
Booker decided to speak for “as long as I am physically able”, he
said, in general protest against Trump and in what he described as a
“moral moment” – a claim that, when he ended his speech on
Tuesday evening, hoarse of voice and teary-eyed, didn’t seem to me
an exaggeration.

The power of the filibuster is vested in the iron-man stamina required
to perform it: in Booker’s case, standing for longer than a direct
flight between Washington DC and Sydney, without food, rest or toilet
breaks. It puts him in a category of protest that floats somewhere
between a sit-in and a hunger strike, a measure of commitment that
demands a kind of default respect, as does the technical challenge of
filling the airtime. A few hours into his speech, Booker asked a
Senate page to remove his chair and with it the temptation to sit
down. Democratic senators were permitted to ask him questions or make
short remarks to give him brief respite from speaking. Mostly,
however, it was on Booker to keep talking and talking, which he did
– it should be noted, quite easily – by enumerating all the
terrible things Trump has done in his first three months in office.

[A supporter outside the US Capitol holds up a sign in support of Cory
Booker after his speech.]

A supporter outside the US Capitol holds up a sign in support of Cory
Booker after his speech. Photograph: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images

There was something immensely satisfying – cathartic, even – in
watching Booker protest against Trump via a form of dissent that,
while radical and pushed to its absolute limit, still fell within
congressional norms. Part of the fallout from Trump and his cohorts’
behaviour has been the shocking realisation that you can ditch
standards and protocols, ignore judges and bin entire social and
scientific programmes created by Congress, and, at least in the
immediate term, nothing will happen. (In the medium to long term, of
course, people will die
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It could be argued that Trump’s extraordinary, norm-busting
behaviour requires protest that meets it in the extra-political realm.
Democrats aren’t going to storm the Capitol, but I have friends who
have talked about withholding their federal taxes this tax season.
Teslas aren’t only being boycotted but set on fire
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Beyond the US, Europe is targeting Republican states in particular
with reciprocal tariffs
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Alabama beef and soybeans from Louisiana
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to inflict personal economic pain on Trump and his supporters.

Still, it is the direct political victories that matter the most. In a
ringing blow to Trump this week, the election of judge Susan Crawford
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her Musk-backed rival for the Wisconsin supreme court – in a race
that garnered a huge turnout from voters – highlights the power of
boring, process-observant political pushback over more flamboyant
gestures. This race was critical in determining the state’s
congressional lines, gerrymandered by the Republican-controlled state
Senate to favour Republican outcomes. But it also sent a more broadly
cheering message: that the involvement of Elon Musk – who, along
with affiliated groups, ploughed more than $20m
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trying to get Brad Schimel elected – ended up motivating the
Democratic vote more emphatically than the Republican.

Meanwhile, Booker kept talking. It was telling that, during and after
his marathon speech, neither Musk nor Trump acknowledged him on their
various social media platforms, although a White House spokesman did
derisively refer to Booker’s performance as a “Spartacus” moment
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drifted in and out to watch his feat of endurance, while his staff
kept his face wipes replenished and placed folders of material before
him to read from. To date, the art of the political spectacle has been
almost exclusively Trump’s for the taking. It was a relief, finally,
to see a Democrat seize and hang on to the mic.

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_Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist_

* Cory Booker
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* filibuster
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* Anti-Trump
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