Booker says it ‘irked’ him that Thurmond held previous record to ‘stop people like me from being in the Senate’
Booker says it ‘irked’ him that Thurmond held previous record to ‘stop people like me from being in the Senate’
thehill.com
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Summary
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) broke the record for longest Senate floor speech at 25 hours and 5 minutes, surpassing the 24-hour, 18-minute filibuster by former Sen. Strom Thurmond, who opposed the 1957 Civil Rights Act.
Booker said it “irked” him that Thurmond’s record symbolized efforts to block civil rights.
He used the speech to protest potential GOP spending cuts and Trump-era policies.
Supported by fellow Democrats, Booker remained standing and speaking for over a day, calling his action a symbolic reclaiming of the Senate’s legacy.
To preface this question, I just want to clarify I’m not trying to be a troll or stir the shitpot, I genuinely think I’ve missed something here. That being said, I’m confused about why people are so excited about this 25 hour speech. He talked for a little over a day. I thought the main issue we have with democrats is that talking is all they seem to do. I mean, he wasn’t even filibustering anything.
What was it about this particular spell of talking that’s making people appreciative versus all the other hot air from democrats? What did this accomplish?
So is eating 73 hot dogs in 10 minutes. What does it accomplish?
Everybody paying attention is already aware of these things. What does repeating them accomplish?
Our representatives are the ones who are supposed to be acting. Again, what did this speech accomplish?
First of all, it delayed the vote to cut Medicaid. Even if just by a day, it means that someone's grandma may get coverage for oxygen that would have been cut a day earlier. Second, it shows that Democrats are willing and able to fight. The Senate can't vote until discussion ends. Cory wasn't just delaying the Medicaid vote, he was delaying every single item on the agenda after that. It sends a strong signal; come back and work with us on legislation, or don't come back at all. Another thing to remember is that it takes 3/5ths of the present members to break the filibuster. Cory being able to go that long without being procedurally cut short also sends a clear message of unity, republicans couldn't break the filibuster.
Edit: oh, and to top it off, Trump's public address for yesterday got like 20k views total. The single stream that I was in for Cory's filibuster got over 150k peak views. Trump has got to be pissed about that.
I heard some views got a half a million.. and more.
As an Australian living in Canada, I'm far from an expert on this stuff, but it seems to me the main benefit of something like this is visibility - he had (I believe) 10s of millions of views over the various platforms it was streaming on. Hopefully some of those people were not previously engaged and now are. It's a start.
I hear you, and I can see why you would think this was an empty political gesture that Dems are famous for. I can also agree that all the excitement for him "breaking the record" is stupid. If people could get past that bullshit, they'd realize what the real objective was.
The objective was for Cory Booker to audition for Chuck Schumer's job by laying out what the Democratic agenda would look like under Booker's leadership, including exhibiting strength. Does anyone believe that the simpering, spineless, weakling Schumer could have spoken like that for even an hour, no less 24?
It is long past time for Schumer to go. Nobody on either side, anywhere in the government, respects him. He's used his position to gain enormous wealth, and now that his weakness has helped MAGA to gain power and destroy our nation, he STILL wants to hang around and pad his bank account. What other reason could there be? He certainly isn't offering ANY opposition to the Nazis, just appeasement and compliance.
I've hated him with a white-hot passion ever since he cooperated with the Republican smear campaign against Al Franken, destroying his career and his life, just so he could clear the decks for his friend Gillibrand to run for president. Then her camaign flamed out in weeks. They ruined Al Franken's life for NOTHING. Fuck this Vichy piece of shit.
If he was in front of me, I would happily say all of this to his stupid Nazi collaborator face. I wish I had that chance.
Schumer needs to go, and make way for AOC, and let Booker run the show. I'm not a huge fan of Booker, but he's light-years ahead of Schumer.
Yup. Rather than organizing worker protests, consumer boycotts, and civil disobedience they are doing performance art
Because this is the best the Democrats can come up with.
It's also all they have, because they're never going to be the party to start an active resistance.
These pointless theatrics are the only thing that liberals have, because they're so far right that they literally promote genocide. What else can they do when they support 99% of Trump's policies?
More than one issue exists.
Sure I mean I’ll take this over the do-nothing strategy, but yeah he’s already pivoting to identity politics. Like bro…that’s not what this is about, stop huffing your own senator chamber farts for fucks sake.
Curious what he had to say about the corrupting influence of big pharma or commercial real estate bribe money during this speech. Anything? Bueller?!