The Democratic Senator Cory Booker in the US Parliament protested against the Trump government with an incredible performance. He used a trick.
24 hours after Cory Booker started his speech in front of the US Senate, the Senator from the state of New Jersey came back to one of the most famous civil rights activists in American history. “It was John Lewis who inspired me,” said the 55-year-old. “John Lewis has changed my life, his courage ensured that I can stand here today and talk in front of them.” And Booker did that in an incredible way.
At 7 p.m. on Monday evening (local time) he had started to talk, 24 hours later he was still behind the lectern in the congress. Not tired and exhausted, but full of enthusiasm, entertaining, jokes tearing. What he spoke about was not funny at all. Because the democratic senator used his marathon speech to protest against the government of Donald Trump to shake up the senators present and send a signal to the people in the country: Look, we do not simply allow Democrats to do what is happening in Washington, DC. We get up and defend ourselves, was his credo.
Booker also came to the black civil rights activist Lewis, whom he described as a shining model of peaceful political resistance and as a true American hero. He stands here and protest in the spirit of Martin Luther King and John Lewis, says Booker. “John Lewis, I will make you proud,” he said in one of his last conversations with the civil rights activist who died in 2020.
In the congress, Booker used an instrument that is a special feature of the American parliamentary system: the filibuster. In principle, it allows the democratically elected MPs of unlimited speaking time. The filibuster is usually used to delay votes on controversial legislative proposals. But on this day there was no such coordination in the Senate, also because Donald Trump has almost only ruled with presidential letting, the so -called Executive Order. These do not require the approval of the parliament.
Booker also dealt with the fatal developments in the United States, which in his opinion, who would have taken place under Trump at a frenzied pace. He had received many letters from voters and concerned citizens who asked why politicians like him would no longer do against the autocratic tendencies that emerged in the White House every day. That shaked him up that he “recognized the urgency, the crisis of the moment”. So he wants to fight, the senator said.
He did it with an extraordinary performance. When he was still in front of the parliament at 8:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday evening, he had broken an ancient record in terms of filibusters: No MP had had a significantly more than 24 hours before him. The longest speech was given by the democratic MP Str Strom Thurmond from South Carolina in 1957, his speaking time was 24 hours and 18 minutes at the time.
The physical and mental exertion of the filibusters can only be based on the fact that the speaker is subject to strict rules. They stipulate that the speaker continuously and speaks in a liquid tone that he has to stand behind the lectern all the time and, above all, are not allowed to take any breaks. Booker was more than 24 hours at a time. He had a chair that is usually next to the Senate speaker, so as not to be tempted to sit down. Some filibuster speakers bridged the long time of speaking with tricks, in which they read out from telephone books or children’s novels.
