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Booker took to the Senate floor on Monday evening, saying he would remain there as long as he was “physically able.” More than 24 hours later, the 55-year-old senator, a former football tight end, was still going. It set the record for the longest continuous Senate floor speech in the chamber’s history, though Booker was assisted by fellow Democrats who gave him a break from speaking by asking him questions on the Senate floor.

It was a remarkable show of stamina as Democrats try to show their frustrated supporters that they are doing everything possible to contest Trump’s agenda. Yet Booker also provided a moment of historical solace for a party searching for its way forward: By standing on the Senate floor for more than a night and day and refusing to leave, he had broken a record set 68 years ago by then Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a segregationist, to filibuster the advance of the Civil Rights Act in 1957.

“I’m here because as powerful as he was, the people are more powerful,” said Booker, who spoke openly on the Senate floor of his roots as the descendant of both slaves and slave-owners.

New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker held the Senate floor with a marathon speech that lasted all night and into Tuesday afternoon in a feat of endurance to show Democrats’ objections to President Donald Trump’s sweeping actions.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the first Black party leader in Congress who had slipped into the Senate chamber to watch Booker on Tuesday afternoon, called it “an incredibly powerful moment” because he had broken the record of a segregationist and was “fighting to preserve the American way of life and our democracy.”

Still, Booker centered his speech on a call for his party to find its resolve, saying, “We all must look in the mirror and say, ‘We will do better.’”

“These are not normal times in our nation,” Booker said as he began the speech Monday evening. “And they should not be treated as such in the United States Senate. The threats to the American people and American democracy are grave and urgent, and we all must do more to stand against them.” Booker warns of a ‘looming constitutional crisis’

Shifting his feet, then leaning on his podium, Booker railed for hours against cuts to Social Security offices led by Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. He listed the impacts of Trump’s early orders and spoke to concerns that broader cuts to the social safety net could be coming, though Republican lawmakers say the program won’t be touched.

Booker also read what he said were letters from constituents, donning and doffing his reading glasses. One writer was alarmed by the Republican president’s talk of annexing Greenland and Canada and a “looming constitutional crisis.”

Throughout the day Tuesday, Booker got help from Democratic colleagues, who gave him a break from speaking to ask him questions. Booker yielded for questions but made sure to say he would not give up the floor. He read that line from a piece of paper to ensure he did not slip and inadvertently end his speech. He stayed standing to comply with Senate rules.

“Your strength, your fortitude, your clarity has just been nothing short of amazing and all of America is paying attention to what you’re saying,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said as he asked Booker a question on the Senate floor. “All of America needs to know there’s so many problems, the disastrous actions of this administration.”

As Booker stood for hour after hour, he appeared to have nothing more than a couple glasses of water to sustain him. Yet his voice grew strong with emotion as his speech stretched into the evening, and House members from the Congressional Black Caucus stood on the edge of the Senate floor to support Booker.

“Moments like this require us to be more creative or more imaginative, or just more persistent and dogged and determined,” Booker said.

Booker’s cousin and brother, as well as Democratic aides, watched from the chamber’s gallery. Sen. Chris Murphy accompanied Booker on the Senate floor throughout the day and night. Murphy was returning the comradeship that Booker had given to him in 2016 when the Connecticut Democrat held the floor for almost 15 hours to argue for gun control legislation. His Senate floor speech breaks Thurmond’s record

Still hours away from breaking Thurmond’s record, Booker remarked Tuesday afternoon, “I don’t have that much gas in the tank.”

Yet as anticipation in the Capitol grew that he would supplant Thurmond, who died in 2003, as the record holder for the longest Senate floor speech, Democratic senators sat at their desks to listen and the Senate gallery filled with onlookers. The chamber exploded in applause as Schumer announced that Booker had broken the record.

Booker had already surpassed the longest speech time for a sitting senator — the 21 hours and 19 minutes that Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, had held the floor to contest the Affordable Care Act in 2013. Responding to his record being broken, Cruz posted a meme of Homer Simpson crying on social media.

Throughout his determined performance, Booker repeatedly invoked the civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis of Georgia on Tuesday, arguing that overcoming opponents like Thurmond would require more than just talking.

“You think we got civil rights one day because Strom Thurmond — after filibustering for 24 hours — you think we got civil rights because he came to the floor one day and said, ‘I’ve seen the light,’” Booker said. “No, we got civil rights because people marched for it, sweat for it and John Lewis bled for it.”

Booker’s speech was not a filibuster, which is a speech meant to halt the advance of a specific piece of legislation. Instead, Booker’s performance was a broader critique of Trump’s agenda, meant to hold up the Senate’s business and draw attention to what Democrats are doing to contest the president. Without a majority in either congressional chamber, Democrats have been almost completely locked out of legislative power but are turning to procedural maneuvers to try to thwart Republicans. Can his speech rally the anti-Trump resistance?

Booker is serving his second term in the Senate. He was an unsuccessful presidential candidate in 2020, when he launched his campaign from the steps of his home in Newark. He dropped out after struggling to gain a foothold in a packed field, falling short of the threshold to meet in a January 2020 debate.

But as Democrats search for a next generation of leadership, frustrated with the old-timers at the top, Booker’s speech could cement his status as a leading figure in the party.

On Tuesday afternoon, tens of thousands of people were watching on Booker’s Senate YouTube page, as well as on other live streams.

As Democratic colleagues made their way to the Senate chamber to help Booker by asking him questions, he also made heartfelt tributes to his fellow senators, recalling their personal backgrounds and shared experiences in the Senate. Booker also called on Americans to respond not just with resistance to Trump’s actions but with kindness and generosity for those in their communities.

Booker said, “I may be afraid — my voice may shake — but I’m going to speak up more.”

Source: Gav Corwell

DAL NOSTRO INVIATO
MOSCA - «Nonostante tutto, siamo riusciti a rimanere noi stessi, a non cambiare. Credetemi, non è una cosa da poco. Tenete duro, per noi e per il nostro Paese prima o poi arriveranno tempi migliori». Sul retro della busta c’è scritto il luogo da cui arriva la lettera. Colonia penale IK-17, Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. E poi il nome del mittente. Ivan Safronov. Trentaquattro anni, ex giornalista economico di Kommersant e Vedomosti , addirittura ex consigliere dell’allora capo dell’agenzia spaziale Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin, arrestato quello stesso anno per avere passato informazioni alla Nato, accusa da lui sempre negata. Alla fine del 2022 è stato condannato a 22 anni di carcere, sui quali potrebbero avere influito i suoi appelli contro l’Operazione militare speciale. «Sono sicuro che ce la faremo» scrive. E chissà se è un modo per darsi coraggio.

Quel che resta della società civile russa sopravvive in una soffitta all’ultimo piano di una palazzina non distante dal centro e dalla stazione della metro Baumanskaya. L’organizzazione si chiama «Otkrytoe prostranstvo», Spazio aperto, e ogni due settimane affitta una sala per quella che sui documenti viene chiamata genericamente iniziativa extra lavoro, ma nello specifico consiste nel dare una speranza o almeno una carezza ai prigionieri politici in Russia. Lettera di Fiodor Vladimirovich, dal carcere di Novosibirsk, sempre Siberia, in risposta al volontario diventato suo compagno di penna. «Ho saputo dalla sua ultima missiva che lei con i suoi collaboratori avete inviato 5.746 lettere in un anno (…) Non mi decidevo a scriverle ma ora spero che la mia risposta sia davanti ai suoi occhi. Posso solo convenire con tante cose che lei mi ha detto. Il fratricidio è un grande peccato, uno dei primi nella storia dell’umanità: mutila l’anima umana e il suo ripetersi smussa il sentimento del rammarico, dell’empatia, perché il cuore diventa simile alla pietra. Quello che sta avvenendo è triste, e terribile, perché non se ne vede la fine, così come non si vede neppure il pentimento della gente. Il problema non sta solo nel potere, ma anche nel “basso”, in coloro che hanno consentito al potere di diventare così come è oggi».

Nonostante le apparenze carbonare, ché la prudenza non è mai troppa, non è un gruppo clandestino. È una forma di opposizione più o meno consentita, quasi una tradizione. Dai tempi di Breznev, si chiamano «pravozashitniki», difensori dei diritti. Dopo l’inizio dell’Operazione militare speciale, e l’ondata di arresti seguita alle nuove leggi che in qualche modo hanno proibito l’espressione del dissenso sulla guerra, si sono organizzati in gruppi di volontari che a turno scrivono lettere ai detenuti con condanne politicamente motivate, oppure leggono le loro lettere di risposta e informano gli interessati che il loro saluto è arrivato a destinazione. Ilya, il direttore della sezione moscovita, racconta che una volta ha chiesto ai volontari di scegliere quali parole associare a questa iniziativa. Ha vinto «rifugio», seguito da «bella gente». Al terzo posto, «libertà». «Con gratitudine»

Su un tavolo al centro della soffitta vengono mostrate le lettere arrivate nell’ultima settimana. Dmitry Talanov, detenuto in attesa di giudizio, scrive riconoscente dal carcere preventivo di Izhevsk a Konstantin, «pedagogo, amico e avvocato», perché la parte più difficile è forse la raccolta dei fondi necessari a coprire le spese legali di chi è accusato per le proprie opinioni e non può permettersi una difesa adeguata. Roman Bondarev risponde «con gratitudine» dal carcere di Zelenograd, appena fuori Mosca, a Nadezhda Chetaeva, che gli ha scritto un mese fa. Ancora da Novosibirsk, Andrej Vylotov ringrazia «per la solidarietà» Arsenij Shikov.
Spazio aperto è una realtà alla quale aderiscono organizzazioni ancora legali, come il partito Yabloko, e altre che invece sono state costrette a ritirarsi all’estero, come il quotidiano Novaya Gazeta. Nel presentare l’iniziativa, il direttore Dmitry Muratov, premio Nobel per la pace nel 2021, ha scritto le seguenti parole. «I prigionieri politici — coloro che hanno osato parlare, protestare, chiedere giustizia — ora restano soli di fronte al sistema che cerca di piegarli. Ma piegare una persona è di gran lunga più difficile, se sa che qualcuno si ricorda di lei. La lettera è la prova che fuori della colonia penale sono rimaste persone per le quali il detenuto non è un criminale, ma un essere umano».