Cory Booker at the moment filibustering at the senate as a protest against the whole trump administration . He is speaking for as long as he is physically able too, as stated by him in the CSPAN clip, https://www.c-span.org/clip/us-senate/sen-cory-booker-d-nj-starts-speaking-in-senate-for-as-long-as-i-am-physically-able/5158775
Here is an article that states why he is on the senate floor if you need clarification https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/31/politics/booker-senate-floor-speech-trump-protest/index.html
A man stood and spoke for over 24 hours straight and so many are dismissing it as nothing more than “performative”
This is what it looks like to fight. It’s not perfect, it’s not easy, it’s not even clear if it will do anything. But it’s something. It’s someone standing up and forcing people to listen to the voices of the unheard.
That’s what it looks like to fight. It’s an ideological war for the soul and future of the nation - did you really think it would be simple, or easy? That we would have natural heroes and great victories?
Fight in whatever way you can. Yell from whatever rooftop you can find, including the senate floor. Kick and scream, even if it feels pointless. But don’t stand around doing nothing but questioning the contributions of others. We need solidarity.
I wonder how many people complaining about it being performative refused to vote against the guy who promised to level Gaza so they could feel good about “not being complicit”.
I think it’s important that we start filling the fediverse and the world with more productive discussion. It feels like every single post and thread around here is completely hijacked by the “centrist/leftist/third party voters” conversation.
The first comments you see on every news article aren’t even about the article, it’s unrelated complaints against the presumed opinions of other people who may or may not have voted, some of whom may have been bots or internationals or children.
It’s wildly counterproductive. We need to move forward and really push for solidarity and meaningful solutions. We can’t stop fascism by fighting each other.
Good Trouble:
Just a couple more minutes to beat Storm Thurmond’s record!
Still going on after 13 hours
23hr and counting.
17 Hours now. And story after story of American’s being hurt, Americans asking their lawmakers to help.
From the CNN article:
The speech is not a filibuster because Booker is not blocking legislation or a nomination. The Democratic senator’s speech will keep the Senate floor open – and floor staff working as well US Capitol police members detailed to the chamber – for as long as he continues speaking, but lawmakers had concluded voting on Monday before he began his remarks.
So purely performative. Not a filibuster.
I mean if it’s a first step and others follow, then good. But why not filibuster a nomination you disapprove? (I have no clue if filibuster applies to a cloture vote. These fucking stooges and their silly made up rules of decorum…)
So what happens if the Senate wants to schedule a vote right now? He’s not preventing a specific bill, but they can’t really do anything until he gives up the floor. It’s not nothing.
Yeah, the Senate doesn’t seem to publish plans in advance, so it’s not really possible to do more than wonder.
I’ve had the livestream running since I got up today and it’s good to hear the words from the senators “asking questions”.
And there’s a whopping 11,437 people watching it on YouTube, so I’ll be one of almost no one that hears more than a few sound bytes.
FWIW I think the counts are spread out by channels.
Coey’s channel has 68K viewers. AP CNN and others I’m sure have other viewers
AP sitting at 79k right now.
Yeah, I see that now. Just us nerds over here watching PBS.
I’ve been watching on C-SPAN. Senate.gov I think has a live stream too?
Well, the Republicans could barely wait to motion for a vote on the nomination of Whitaker to NATO ambassador.
Yeah, you don’t even need to do the actual talking to do a filibuster, you just essentially need to say you’re filibustering. However, there’s carveouts for the filibuster for nominations and budget reconciliation (and a bunch of other stuff, conveniently all stuff Republicans like).
Yeah, reading about the cloture rules now. Seems like the motion for cloture happened a couple days ago (temporarily ending debate) and it “ripened” today prompting a cloture vote, itself not apparently subject to filibuster. But simple majority is all that’s needed on most nominations, and filibuster is limited to 2 hours before the final vote.
Even that will be performative.
The speech is not a filibuster
Can someone mark this post as disinformation?
Oh wait it’s stickied/featured. jfc.
It’s not a filibuster
Yeah, unfortunately it’s far from the first time this community’s mods have allowed misinformation to be pushed here
Just a big 12 hour pile of Democratic bullshit instead of action.
Why isn’t he out there like Bernie and AOC, drawing huge crowds that scare the bejeezus out of the MAGA Nazis?
The Dems could easily take back this country if they would show the slightest bit of courage and strength. At their core, Americans are soft, lazy, and cowardly, and all they want is someone they feel will protect them from all the bad stuff in the world, and the Conservative Propaganda Machine is happy to invent one murderous threat after another who is going to rape, murder, amd eat your family.
Republicans are the most cowardly of all, afraid of literally EVERYTHING, so they are so easy to manipulate that they will vote for literally the worst possible candidate on the entire planet, over a democratic candidate that they’ve been Pavlovian Conditioned to despise with their entire being.
If Dems showed some brass balls, and played Hard Ball, they would start to attract loyalty and numbers to their side. Instead, they allow that simpering, weak, spineless weenie Chuck Schumer to represent them, the same guy who bowed to a MAGA smear campaign and forced out Al Franken, one of their most talented Senators, and a solid potential presidential candidate. Had he not been betrayed by Schumer and that backstabbing bitch Gillibrand, FRANKEN would have beaten HitlerPig in 2020 instead of Biden, and HitlerPig and his hebchmen would be in prison, and MAGA would be ashes.
He’s doing this for the exact same reason Bernie and AOC are - to generate headlines and display that people by and large are not okay with what the Trump administration is doing. There is nothing actually actionable from the rallies (or very, very little). And sadly at the moment there’s very little that can be done to actually stop Trump’s plans. It’s important therefore that Democrats continue to passionately, loyalty, and most importantly eye-catchingly continue to protest however they can.
This is more a play to take over Chuck Schumer’s role as Senate Minority Leader. Its one day in the news cycle, and it’s forgotten.
The MAGA Nazis aren’t afraid of some corporate Democrat with a history of appeasement. A crowd of 35,000 for Bernie and AOC scares the shit out of the Traitors far more.
A crowd here and there of 35,000 isn’t nearly enough. It needs to be crowds of hundreds of thousands in hundreds of places at once. And the only way you get there is a massive increase in faith that the elected Democrats will actually do something. This performance (because I will concede that it’s just a performance) is exactly the kind of act that increases that faith.
The bigger crowds have to start somewhere, amd this is a good start. Many people see crowds like that, and the next opportunity they get, they go, too. Also, people who have been told that MOST Americans are hard-right MAGA Nazis, see crowds like that, and start to realize they’re being lied to.
LOL Bernie and AOC, right
He was just reading letter after letter after letter from American seniors who are scared about what the administration might do to Social Security. Really helps bring home that these are real people who are affected.
Edit: 15 hours now and he’s still going strong. He just gave a fiery speech about how his colleagues need to do more.
Edit: 25 hours. He beat the record. At least it won’t be held by a racist anymore.
18.5 hours. I hope he breaks the record.
4 and a half hours now. Might be symbolic, but there are a lot of angry GOP senators who probably have to stay there.
good job, just keep it up for 3.7 years
Wait, Cory Booker has some pepper?
That’s Great!
Who took over for him?
He’s still there as of
10am PT2pm PT.And now I’m back at 6 P CST
Yeah, I’m not going to apologize for not being terminally online. But I found, got it on my phone and just looking for a sub that accepts videos.
Edit: just going to post the link everywhere so you can’t claim you missed it.
Hell yuh. I have had misgivings about Booker at times in the past but I have to say, good on him, this is the time for such things.
I’m not trying to be a nay-sayer, but what does this actually achieve?
He’s not disrupting a vote. He’s only talking. While I’m all for the Democrats doing something this doesn’t actually achieve much. Chick Schumer had a chance to actually disrupt this administration but he didn’t.
So I am genuinely asking, if the Democrats are not preventing the Trump administration from pushing bills through e.g if this were a fillibuster, how does this help?
Hopefully messing with the apathy in the US. The mainstream media is talking about it. And even though it isn’t a filibuster. Strom Thurmond filibustered bs rhetoric against civil rights in the 50’s for a little over 24 hours and people are talking about that so he is kind of making some history. Am basically hoping he is causing more momentum. The system needs fucking changing but we need to come together for that to happen.
It makes it look like democrats are willing to use the filibuster, while not actually blocking anything that might upset their donors.
Only if the Republicans in Congress weren’t too chickenshit to actually put their names on these actions. Trump is doing everything by executive order.
You don’t understand how the filibuster works. Please educate yourself rather than spreading red maga misinformation to further your clear pro-Trump agenda.
There is no bill being blocked by this. I like the speech but this is not blocking any bills.
Stop being a cultist. You’d support trump if he was a dem and you know it.
They would, they just think since he’s registered R that defines everything about him, instead of how Biden loves most of Trump’s policies.
This helps by distracting from the fact that Chuck Schumer didn’t do shit
It’s the RESISTANCE!!!
(ie. performative antics while completely collaborating with fascism)
You can watch live on the official stream. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/floor_activity_pail.htm
Thank you
Thank you, Senator Booker!
Does the Trump administration need the senate? Seems they’re doing whatever they want regardless of any checks or balances, so who is this actually disrupting?
Get outta here with that negativity. It’s the first sign of life from Senate Democrats, and taking a moral stance against Trump is still important. We need more of this, not less.
They’re doing plenty more than this, but they’re not self-promoting enough for people to notice. Democrats voted and spoke out against Trump’s cabinet nominations, forced a 15-day vote against Trump’s executive order, confirmed Biden’s pending judicial appointments when Republican attendance is low, and are the ones bringing these cases to the courts.
This is to obstruct fast-tracked appointments by Trump according to C-SPAN. Other than that, you’re right.
The Democrats forced a 15-day vote against Trump’s emergency executive order, and Republicans redefined the entire congressional calendar as a single day, just to avoid holding the vote.
Every last Republican in Congress is complicit.
Nice.
Booker, not Brooks? Autocorrect?
Thanks, I did not notice that mistake.
