“Would the senator yield for a question?” asked Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.Senator Cory Booker, who on a long day’s journey into night had turned himself into the fighter that many Democrats were yearning for, replied with a wry smile: “Chuck Schumer, it’s the only time in my life I can tell you no.”But Schumer wasn’t taking no for an answer. “I just wanted to tell you, a question, do you know you have just broken the record? Do you know how proud this caucus is of you? Do you know how proud America is of you?”New Jersey’s first Black senator had just shattered the record for the longest speech in Senate history, delivered by South Carolina’s Strom Thurmond, an arch segregationist who filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957.In the normally sombre Senate chamber, around 40 Democrats rose to their feet in effusive applause. A few hundred people in the public gallery, where the busts of 20 former vice-presidents gazed down from marble plinths, erupted in clapping and cheering and whooping. The senator took a tissue and mopped perspiration from his forehead.Since Booker’s obstruction did not occur during voting on any bill it was not technically a filibuster. But it marked the first time during Donald Trump’s second term that Democrats have deliberately clogged up Senate business.Indeed, after 72 days in which Democrats have appeared lame and leaderless, Booker stood up and did something. He said his constituents had challenged him to think differently and take risks and so he did. In an attention economy so often dominated by the forces of Maga, his all-nighter offered a ray of hope in the darkness.Some Democrats have desperately tried to be authentic with cringeworthy TikTok videos such as a “Choose Your Fighter” parody. Booker, by contrast, went old school: one man standing and talking for hour after hour on the Senate floor in a display of endurance reminiscent of a famous scene in the 1939 film Mr Smith Goes to Washington starring Jimmy Stewart.It had all begun at 7pm on Monday when, wearing a US flag pin on a dark suit, white shirt and black tie as if dressed for the funeral of the republic, Booker vowed: “I rise tonight with the intention of getting in some good trouble. I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.“I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis … These are not normal times in America 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.”What followed was a tour de force of physical stamina. The 55-year-old, who played tight end for Stanford University’s American football team, asked a Senate page to take away his chair so he was not tempted to sit down, which is barred by the Senate rules. The chair could be seen pushed back against a wall.Above Booker the words “Novus Ordo Seclorum” – a Latin phrase meaning “a new order of the ages” or “a new order of the centuries” – were inscribed in the Senate chamber above a relief depicting a bare chested hero wrestling a snake.Booker leaned on his desk and sipped from a glass of water. He shifted from foot to foot or paced to keep the blood circulating in his legs. He wiped away sweat with a white handkerchief. He plucked a tissue from a blue-grey tissue box, blew his nose and dropped it into a bin. He persisted.Alexandra De Luca, vice president of communications at the liberal group American Bridge, tweeted: “I worked for Cory Booker on the campaign trail and (and I say this with love) that man drinks enough caffeine on a normal day to stay up 72 hours. This could go a while.”Booker may also be a great advert for veganism. He could be jocular, bantering with old friends in the Senate about sport and state rivalries. He could be emotional, his voice cracking and his eyes on the verge of tears, especially when a letter from the family of a person with Parkinson’s disease reminded him of his late father.He could also be angry, channeling the fury of those who feel their beloved country slipping away. Yet to the end his mind was clear and his voice was strong. This was also a masterclass in political rhetoric, which Schumer rightly praised for its “crystalline brilliance”.There were recurring themes: Trump’s economic chaos and rising prices; billionaires exerting ever greater influence; Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, slashing entire government programmes without consent from Congress and inflicting pain on children, military veterans and other vulnerable groups.Booker read dozens and dozens of letters from what he called “terrified people” with “heartbreaking” stories. As the day wore on, he quoted from a fired USAid employee who told a devastating story of broken dreams and warned: “The beacon of our democracy grows dim across the globe.”The senator also warned of tyranny: Trump disappearing people from the streets without due process; bullying the media and trying to create press corps like Vladimir Putin or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; seizing more executive power and putting democracy itself in grave peril.A few times he inverted former president John F Kennedy’s famous phrase to warn that today it’s no longer “ask not what your country can do for you. It’s what you can do for Donald Trump.”He acknowledged that the public want Democrats to do more. But he insisted that can only go so far and, as during the civil rights movement, the American people must rise up. He frequently referred to a “moral moment” and invoked the late congressman John Lewis, famed for causing “good trouble”.“This is not who we are or how we do things in America,” Booker said. “How much more can we endure before we, as a collective voice, say enough is enough? Enough is enough. You’re not going to get away with this.”The Senate chamber contains 100 wooden desks and brown leather chairs on a tiered semicircular platform. For most of the marathon nearly all the seats were empty and only a handful of reporters were in the press gallery.But Democrat Chris Murphy accompanied Booker throughout his speech. “We’ve passed the 15-hour mark,” Booker observed. “I want to thank Senator Murphy because he’s been here at my side the entire time.”Other Democrats took turns to show up in solidarity, asking if Booker would accept a question. He agreed, reading from a note to ensure he got the wording right: “I yield for a question while retaining the floor.”Occasionally he would quip: “I have the floor. So much power, it’s going to my head!”Just after 10.30am Schumer, the minority leader, told Booker: “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. All of America needs to know there’s so many problems, the disastrous actions of this administration.”They discussed Medicaid cuts before Booker responded: “You heaped so many kind things on me. But never before in the history of America has a man from Brooklyn said so many complimentary things about a man in Newark.”Angela Alsobrooks, the first Black senator from Maryland, entered the chamber, caught Booker’s eye and raised a clenched fist in a shared act of resistance.As Booker approached the 24-hour mark, most Senate Democrats took their seats and Democrats from the House of Representatives, including minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, sat or stood in the chamber. The public and press galleries swelled.Booker once again channelled Lewis, the civil rights hero. “I don’t know what John Lewis would say, but John Lewis would do something. He would say something. What we will have to repent for is not the words and violent actions for bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of good people. This is our moral moment.”As Booker closed in on Thurmond’s record, Murphy noted that this speech was very different. “Today you are standing not in the way of progress but of retreat,” he told his friend.Booker commented: “I could break this record of the man who tried to stop the rights upon which I stand. I’m not here, though, because of his speech; I’m here despite his speech. I’m here because as powerful as he was, the people were more powerful.”Even when the record was beaten he carried on. “I want to go a little bit past this and then I’m going to deal with some of the biological urgencies I’m feeling,” he said.Finally, after 25 hours and four minutes, Booker declared: “This is a moral moment. It’s not left or right. It’s right or wrong. Madam President, I yield the floor.”Again the chamber erupted in cheers and Democrats mobbed their new unofficial leader. No one who was there will ever forget it. Booker had delivered a vivid portrait of a great nation breaking promises to its people, betraying overseas allies and sliding off a cliff towards authoritarianism. He had also made a persuasive case that an inability to do everything should not undermine an attempt to do something.His was a primal scream of resistance. More
