An adrift Democratic Party received a much-needed jolt of energy this week when Democratic senator Cory Booker took to the Senate floor to speak in protest of the Trump administration’s policies, vowing to hold it for as long as he was physically able. Over the course of 25 hours, Booker railed against the Trump administration’s handling of immigration and education and the looming threats to Social Security and Medicare, urging his fellow Democrats to seize this “moral moment” and, in the words of the late congressman John Lewis, to get into some “good trouble.” Booker’s marathon speech officially broke the record set decades earlier by South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond, the notorious segregationist who took part in a day-long filibuster in protest of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

One day after his record-breaking speech, I spoke to Booker about why he decided to speak, how his Republican colleagues responded, and where Democrats go from here.

What compelled you to do this?
My constituents and people around the country. People who are hurting as a result of his policies, people who’ve lost health care or have had their Social Security payments undermined by the service cuts that they’re doing, the veterans that are being laid off, the people around the world who, frankly because America is not there, are facing the most incomprehensible horrors. People were demanding that I do more and the demand was sinking into me that even though we were trying — my staff is working, for these last 71 days, working longer hours doing everything we can — it was not enough. As I said in my speech, it was insufficient. Especially after the very contentious fight over the continuing resolution that, I think, left a lot of people just even more discouraged with what Democrats were doing. I just said, okay, I’ve got to think really hard here about other tactics and strategies I could put forward.

Your remarks focused on the impact that the White House’s policies are having on everyday Americans. You shared letters from your own constituents about their concerns. What has the reaction from voters been like?
I mean, that was very important to me. I didn’t want to be one elected leader just talking about another elected leader. I really wanted to elevate the voices of the people affected. I wanted to center their stories. I wanted to try to trigger a more courageous empathy. When people heard these courageous people who would write to me and laid bare their pride, their hurt, their anger, their frustrations, their fears. I mean, those stories were so raw and so real and such a damning indictment of how this administration’s policies over the last 71 days are really affecting people. I’ve just learned that in my whole career — and I’m talking beyond my career in elected office — that speaking from the heart, speaking your own personal truth, is so compelling. And so, that was what we decided to do. A few things shaped the way we organized our official remarks, the ones that were written out. I ended up speaking a lot even away from the binders we’d prepared. But we said, number one, we want to center the voices of Americans who are affected. There were some elected leaders, there were some policy people, think tanks and the like. And then the number-two guiding thing that we said is we want to elevate voices from the right. That we want to quote Republican governors. We want to quote Republican think tanks. We want to talk about everybody from the Manhattan Institute to the Cato Institute and how they themselves are condemning a lot of the actions that are being taken........

© Daily Intelligencer