Why Cory Booker Matters
And More About What Doesn't Matter
Good for Cory Booker. The New Jersey Senator and vegan presidential candidate apparently has always been bothered by the historic record set by Strom Thurmond for the longest Senate speech.
Here’s a good excerpt from the Guardian, including this:
“If it is to be, it is up to me.” All of us have to think of those 10 words – 10 two-letter words: “If it is to be, it is up to me.” Because I believe generations from now will look back at this moment and have a single question: “Where were you? Where were you when our country was in crisis and when American people were asking for help? Help me. Help me.” Did we speak up?
After coming off the floor, he told reporters (:58)
“I was very aware of Strom Thurmond’s record since I’ve gotten to the Senate. I’ve always felt it was a strange shadow to still hang over this institution that the longest speech—of all the issues that have come up, all the noble causes…I just found it strange that he had the record, and as a guy who grew up with legends of the civil rights movement, it just always seemed wrong to me.”
Sen. Booker said his mission was to “elevate the voices of Americans, to tell some of their really painful stories, very emotional stories, and let go and let God do the rest.”
There are a lot of painful, emotional stories to tell.
I found this story from Magnum, who write:
Magnum photographers have traveled to many of the countries benefiting from or relying on foreign aid programs, relaying stories of people around the world given access to essential services financed by the U.S. government. Their images are testimonies not only to the individuals receiving aid and their battles with health crises, but the resilience of their families, the tireless efforts of aid staff, the humanist initiative to save countless lives, and the basic right to healthcare.
Magnum (I didn’t know they did reporting!) references the New York Times’ publication of memos released by Nicholas Enrich, an assistant administrator for global health at USAID who Trump placed on leave, estimating the devastating effects of slashing foreign aid programs:
“Up to 18 million additional cases of malaria per year and potentially 166,000 additional deaths; 200,000 children paralyzed with polio annually with millions of more infections; one million children not treated for severe acute malnutrition each year; uncontrolled outbreaks of mpox and bird flu, including as many as 105 million cases in the United States alone; rising maternal and children’s mortality in 48 countries”, among other daunting repercussions.
Trump Administration Abruptly Cuts Billions From State Health Services
States have been told that they can no longer use grants that were funding infectious disease management and addiction services.
Tuberculosis Resurgent as Trump Funding Cut Disrupts Treatment Globally
The United States was the major funder of tuberculosis programs. Now hundreds of thousands of sick patients can’t find tests or drugs, and risk spreading the disease.
One more headline, from today’s paper:
Entire Staff Is Fired at Office That Helps Poorer Americans Pay for Heating
The move threatens to paralyze the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps to offset high utility bills for roughly 6.2 million people nationwide.
My go-to source for political news,
wonders if there’s a silver lining in Trump’s tariffs:Trump’s flexing of power by unilaterally starting a global trade war, paradoxically, may also be what saves us from a full authoritarian takeover.
Maybe so, in the long run. But Cory Booker is telling us we don’t have to wait for it all to fall down before we start picking things up again. He’s being hailed for getting the Democratic message right at a time when you can’t escape the topic of what Democrats are not doing, or doing wrong.
I repeat—we wouldn’t be having those conversations if Hakeem Jeffies was the Speaker of a Democratic House, committed to first, undoing what they can of the Trump agenda and standing up to what comes next, and second, paving the way for a clean sweep of Democratic victories in 2028.
Sound unlikely? Remember, the reason we’re stuck with Donald Trump is that he succeeded in turning out voters smarty-pants Democrats like me didn’t know existed, and too many other Democrats whose pants are smart decided they could just stay home. With the Republican majority whose strength I’ve compared to a thread of cotton candy, winning back the House is all that matters—and eminently within reach.
Democrats need to get over their depression and remember how we got here. What’s that people say about those who cannot remember the mistakes of the past being condemned to repeat it?
I ran through some of the numbers in this post:
First-time voters broke for Trump, 54%-45%. That was a huge reversal from four years ago, when new voters strongly favored Biden, 64%-32%.
Trump increased his share of the Black male vote from 12% to 20% and carried Hispanic men by nine points, 54% to 45%.
Young people’s electoral participation dropped notably in 2024. After historically high youth voter turnout of over 50% in the 2020 presidential contest, CIRCLE found that 42% of youth (ages 18-29) voted in 2024.
But the Trump campaign believed that they could improve their performance among young adults, and they did—from 35% in 2020 to 42% in 2024.
Cory Booker knows that the way to get people to vote is to give them something to vote about. Donald Trump and his enablers provide grievance, resentment, blame, cruelty and toxic masculinity. In my mea culpa after the election, “I Was Wrong About Everything!” I quoted this from the Guardian:
One 2021 study found that a leading predictor of support for Trump – over party affiliation, gender, race and education level – was belief in “hegemonic masculinity”, defined as believing that men should be in positions of power, be “mentally, physically, and emotionally tough”, and reject anything considered feminine or gay. Some heterodox influencers gained a following by embodying or promoting precisely this brand of masculinity, and giving their followers a script for blaming dissatisfaction on women.
But Senator Booker, like the colleague he said he originally thought would be the one to mount this marathon, Chris Murphy, offer a better way. They know that stories about real people are what motivate voters, and there’s no shortage of those.