Causing “Good Trouble” New Jersey Senator Cory Booker spoke on the Senate floor for a record-breaking 25 hours and four minutes disrupting Senate business, having decided to make his admiration for Congressman John Lewis real. “If he’s my hero, how am I not living up to his words?” by not standing silent at a time of “crisis” and “recklessness” in the Trump administration.
“I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business o the senate or a long as I am physically able.”
Booker broke the previous record set by Senator Strom Thurman in 1957 against the Civil Rights Bill.
In Time Magazine, Nik Popli reported, “Booker, a former presidential candidate, denounced the Trump Administration’s attacks on Medicaid and Social Security, pausing at times to allow Democratic colleagues to ask questions—one of the few ways he could briefly rest his voice without yielding the floor. Booker also assailed the Trump Administration’s handling of immigration, education, and national security, arguing that its policies had inflicted arm after harm’ on ordinary Americans and undermined the nation’s democratic institutions.”
“‘This is not who we are or how we do things in America,’ Booker added. ‘How much more can we endure before we, as a collective voice, say enough is enough? Enough is enough. You’re not going to get away with this.’”
Senator Booker remained passionate throughout his marathon speech, castigating the Trump Administration for the threats to Medicaid, Social Security, the Center for Disease Control, the National Institute of Health, the Veteran’s Administration, and the entire judicial system.
He called the cuts to programs that help the neediest to free up money to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest immoral. “This is not right or left; it is right or wrong,” he said Tuesday afternoon. “This is not a partisan moment; it is a moral moment. Where do you stand?”
“This is our moral moment,” said the Senator. “Generations get them,” this is ours.
His call to “Save the soul of America” was enthusiastically welcomed by Democrats who were aching for more visible pushback against Trump and Musk, taking a chainsaw to “The bedrock commitments” created by Congress to keep everyday people safe and healthy.
His message was not to be afraid to “be bold with a vision that inspires. Remember the bravery of Congressman John Lewis and all the others who faced dogs, firehoses, teargas, and clubs. “Go out and cause some “good trouble.” – David Mark Greaves