Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) wanted to talk this week and decided to put on a show.
The legislative entertainer did so under the guise of the latest performative act in the sequel known as the Democratic resistance to President Donald Trump’s second term. With his colleagues and fellow Party members facing record-low approval ratings near 27%, Booker decided his ability to talk for an extremely long time was the catalyst Democrats needed.
“Tonight, I rise with the intention of getting in some good trouble,” Booker began his speech. “I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.”
And then he talked, and talked, and talked, and talked, and talked, and talked.
He did so for 25 hours and four minutes, only stopping when his Democratic colleagues gave him a brief respite while holding the Senate floor. But after all that time, the senator from New Jersey, whose previous performative antics include his “I am Spartacus moment” during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing drama, never made any substantive points.
He spoke for a long time but never truly said anything. Booker tried so hard to replicate the famous filibuster performance of the character Jefferson Smith in the classic film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. However, he more resembled the lead character in The Court Jester. In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Smith (James Stewart) gives a filibuster to prevent a piece of corrupt legislation, speaking for, incidentally, 25 hours. All Booker did was whine about Trump and his political agenda.
It was over 25 hours of Booker’s typical pearl-clutching, hyperbolic hysteria, filled with left-wing platitudes, catchphrases, and anecdotes that may or may not be true but were meant to rile up the political base. And rile up it did because Booker was being hailed as some kind of hero by the Democrat spin machine on Wednesday — but it didn’t expand the Democrat base. He just repeated the things Democrats have been saying that cost them the 2024 presidential election. It was nothing new, groundbreaking, or revelatory and shouldn’t be treated as such.
Consider Booker’s own words.
“I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis,” said the senator. “In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety, financial stability, the core foundations of our democracy,” Booker said. “These are not normal times in America. And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate.”
Anything that runs counter to left-wing political demagoguery is branded by their political acolytes as a crisis, not normal, or the contemporary favorite, a “threat to democracy.” In reality, all these words mean “against liberal Democrats.” Booker’s outrage over deporting alleged gang members and alleged criminal illegal immigrants caused him to speak for 25 hours. Meanwhile, for example, the entire country is still waiting for him to spend 25 seconds talking about Laken Riley or other victims of illegal immigrant crimes. They’re waiting for him to condemn Tesla terrorists and other left-wing violent extremists.
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For those matters — incidents where innocent people died and ordinary people were harmed — Booker was silent. And his silence speaks volumes in ways that his constant rambling for 25 hours never did. He is intolerant and exclusive to the democratic process that happened on Nov. 5, 2024, defying the political will of nearly 78 million Americans.
Booker isn’t a hero. He’s a performative political stuntman.