I am kind of too scared to ask here, but what did it actually achieve?
Knocked Strom Thurmond’s racist ass filibuster of the civil rights act out of the #1 slot.
And that is absolutely all.
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Politics isn’t sportsball, so no. Breaking arbitrary stats doesn’t mean shit in terms of making material changes in the world, which is what politics is about.
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It is not unreasonable to ask why he didn’t use the filibuster to block actual legislation, instead of just I terupting procedure.
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It’s better than nothing. But that’s all it achieved.
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they elected oz in the very next session; using a filibuster to prevent his confirmation is how you use a filibuster effectively.
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the same way thurmond did it; you secure the votes behinds the scenes and then throw a filibuster when it’s time to vote to turn up the pain; not when there’s nothing on the table and no one around like booker did it.
I guess I’m just a little more cynical and you’re just a little more idealistic. If you review this thread, and the many other threads posted about this speech, in full you’ll see I’m not the only one who feels like this is bare minimum effort from Democrat leadership. Agree to disagree.
Nothing but it made Democeats feel like it did something and that is all that matters.
Booker’s speech was an audition for Schumer’s job. He laid out his vision of the Democratic agenda, and showed strength doing it, contrasting with that craven, corrupt, simpering, weak, vile, weenie Schumer.
Schumer is in the way, and needs to retire immediately, and make way for AOC to take his seat.
If Schumer leaves, Booker become Minority leader, and AOC goes to the Senate, that speech will have acvomplished a lot.
Bookers 24h subathon showed strength nor vision. There was nothing differing him from Schumer except his age and skin color. According to DNC logic this makes Booker a worse candidate than Schumer.
I too grew up in an era of action movies, where the good guy decisively self-defenses the bad guy to death, saves the world, goes home and has marital relations with the prom queen. It’s a powerful story, but ultimately it’s just a story.
Peaceful resistance does work, but there isn’t a single event that achieves change. It has to be an accumulation.
Rosa Park’s arrest didn’t achieve anything “in terms of change”.
Ghandi’s protest fasts didn’t achieve anything “in terms of change”.
When the Baltics had their singing revolutions, there wasn’t a single performance that achieved anything “in terms of change”.
All these were parts of larger efforts of peaceful resistance that culminated in change.
What did Cory Booker’s speech achieve? It’s too early to say. It’s possible it will be part of an accumulation that culminates in measurable results. On the other hand, it’s possible cynicism will poison the resistance and it will achieve nothing. We’ll only know once the history is written.
This is essentially what I was going to say (though more poetic).
I’m of two minds. I admit that i cringe a bit that he would even call this “good trouble”. John Lewis’ “good trouble” was nearly getting beaten to death. How Booker can apply such a label to an act of protest that didn’t even meaningfully delay any noteworthy business is frankly amazing to me.
But also, he did fucking do something. He specifically articulated that we should all be alarmed, and he declared that he intends to not cooperate with or normalize what is happening. Low bar? Yes. But we all have to start somewhere.
I actually like Cory Booker. He was my third or fourth pick among the 20-something candidates that ran in 2020.
I’ll say this: this act is not enough to convince me that elected Democrats are going to do anything meaningful in the next two years. But the absence of it would’ve made me far less likely to expect it. Good for him.
It’s political momentum. Same thing bernie and AOC are doing. None of them have changed anything yet, it’s just getting attention and support for future acts
Think of it like a protest. Most protests don’t DO anything, but he forced the entire senate to sit and listen to him for 25 hrs rant about how bad things have gotten. I’m sure there was work and stuff they were supposed to vote on that he effectively delayed. But that’s all it really was, a record breaking protest.
But it literally it was on the news for a day, that’s it.
Protests go on for multi days and have a physical effect and achieve discomfort.
Meanwhile, I don’t see the speech achieving a lot of that.
Sure, but how many protests legally prevent half of Congress from doing anything?
Edit: rewrite for better negation agreement.
Why does it have to achieve an immediate result to be a worthy action?
It set a new record. That’s about it
It got people to talk about it and take interest in what is going on. There are undoubtedly some portion of the population that are fully oblivious of the world around them, or just indifferent at least, but someone going on for that long has to make them wonder why he would do that.
What does anything achieve on a long enough timeline? The same nothingness, but for 25 hours the entire senate could do nothing but bear witness to an unyielding resistance to the cruelties currently in motion. May not be much but some will find inspiration in those that continue to make ‘good trouble’ I personally found a spark of hope and I’m a real cynic tbh
Senators (in the US) are elected representatives of their state. Sen. Booker, through his 25 hour speech, brought his constituents’ message to the forefront, criticized the Senate, Democrats’ and his own failures to act. He got millions of people to look at Senate business as if he was a professional streamer which is usually boring stuff. The speech is Booker’s answer to “what can I do at this moment to make a difference?”, which hopefully will get others to ask the same of themselves.
It’s impossible to measure the true impact of the speech afterward, but it’s intended to inspire people to take action, resist the Trump monarchy, and cause “good trouble” where they can. Who knows whether this has had any influence on the Wisconsin Supreme Court which was a humiliation to Musk, or if it had any influence on the 4 Republican Senators joining Democrats to pass a resolution nullifying the false emergency against Canada?
What did a single Trump rally achieve? Nothing. What did multiple years of Trump rallies achieve?
Fascism
Absolutely nothing. It’s nice that he broke the record of some asshole racist but functionally nothing has changed.
Democrats are just as impotent today as they were yesterday and throughout the Biden administration.
It was a great show for what it was, but did it achieve anything? Not really. Which is, in and of itself, pretty sad.
Performances like that are meant to inspire acts of political courage among the people.
Would be cooler if it inspired acts of courage for the Dems on the Hill.
If they want to inspire then get out and march from the front. I’m not sticking my neck out until they do.
Yet your performance has inspired nothing but antipathy
Nothing. It was cringe and should be condemned. Don’t let hasbara bots convince you otherwise.
Allowed the media to focus on something other than Trump.
He also beat Strom Thurmond’s speech. I’m fine with a black guy beating that piece of shit’s record.
