Finally, the right kind of political theatre

Keep your seat, Senator Schumer.

We’re still celebrating the third anniversary of this here newsletter! And for said celebration, I’m offering 30% off a year of paid subscriptions! That’s $3.5/month, or $35/year if you want to go for the Blue Light Special. Please take advantage while supplies last!

---

I watched multiple hours of Cory Booker’s record-breaking filibuster live, which is not particularly shocking. What is shocking, at least to me, is that I found myself quite caught up in the thing, and sometimes actually moved. I may be a former theatre kid, but I don’t tend to go for theatrics when it comes to politicians. Aaron Sorkin’s whole deal pretty much cured me of that. And Senator Booker has never really been my guy. I don’t share his love for institutions, or for the Bible, or for New Jersey. He’s just always been a cornball to me.

See, even “I’m heading to the Senate floor” had real “I’m taking myself to the red table” energy, so I didn’t pay much attention when this filibuster kicked off Monday night. It really wasn’t until I woke up the following morning that I realized he was doing something real. Turns out, only a true blue cornball could pull off what the Senator from New Jersey just pulled off.

For the most part, a filibuster is not as thrilling as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington would have you believe. And honestly, if all filibusters ended with villainous politicians screaming “I’m not fit to be a senator! I’m not fit to LIVE!”¹ I would kinda love it, but I don’t know if we as a nation could sustain that level of drama. Still, they are rare enough to be something of a spectacle when they do happen.

Side note: I’m so curious about the work that goes into a filibuster. Not just the hours of research and prep that his staff did, writing reams of substantive text for Booker to read.² I also want to know about the physical prep. Standing for 25 hours is no mean feat, especially in your mid-50s. What was his workout routine like? How much stretching did he do in the hours leading up to it? Did he wear sneakers with lots of cushion? Was he on vocal rest? So many questions.

The two filibusters that people have cited most often in reference to Booker’s are Ted Cruz’s, which clocked in at 21 hours and 19 minutes, during which time he advocated for defunding Obamacare; and Strom Thurmond’s, the erstwhile record-holder at 24 hours and 18 minutes, during which time he advocated for never having to allow Black people to have rights or be in public with him.³

Both of those examples are attempts to keep people from having things. Thurmond and Cruz were both happy with their legacy being “men who wanted to curtail Americans’ access to their rights.” Booker did something quite different. This filibuster felt additive, or at least, like a corrective to the relative silence and inaction about this bag of bullshit administration that we’ve gotten from Congress thus far. This isn’t just someone making a pitch for a presidential run, though I’m sure that’s part of it.⁴ This is someone making a pitch to make history. And to relegate Strom Thurmond to a footnote of a footnote in said history, which in some ways is even better.

Now, a filibuster is absolutely political theatre.⁵ The whole point is to grind legislative business to a halt and make people pay attention to you, after all. But to me, this is the right kind of political theatre. It’s theatre with the correct messenger, medium, and audience.

First, it’s coming from a man who says “I’m nerdy enough that I have a favourite Federalist paper,” and I fucking believe him. This is a man who truly madly deeply believes in the power and responsibility of his institution, and his history-making act carries the weight of all of that. If he were to self-identify as a radical, and suddenly start advocating to remake the entire U.S. government anew, nobody would buy it. For a Senator who loves the Senate to essentially scream “do your fucking job!” at the rest of his colleagues? I believe it, and I appreciate it. I don’t have to share his faith in the institution to acknowledge that he knows his role in the social change ecosystem, and he’s played it well in this case.

Booker has also read the room, and ascertained that a record-breaking filibuster from a famously mild-mannered Black man in a black suit cut like a civil rights leader’s is the exact kind of thing that the media loves covering, much more so than they enjoy covering the topics he spent 25 hours calling attention to. Every single institution is either fumbling or openly abdicating their responsibility to hold Trump accountable to some semblance of the rule of law, so it takes something genuinely dramatic to reach the people.

A brief reenactment of those of us paying attention having a quick word with Congress, or the New York Times, or the Supreme Court, or…

Most Americans aren’t political junkies, not even if you count the ones in recovery like I am; so most Americans aren’t connecting the dots of what our co-presidents are doing to this country every day. And, to be clear, I don’t think they’re going to listen to the details of what Booker covered. But the news of this filibuster will go further than the latest destruction DOGE has wrought. And Booker dropped enough good sound bites that the essence of his message should penetrate even though the specifics surely won’t.

I’m by no means saying that one filibuster has saved democracy, or that the American version of democracy we’ve been rocking with is remotely adequate. But it feels like an exciting piece of a larger call to action. It’s not kneeling while wearing kente cloth, which was so pathetically stupid. It’s not naming a bill “Stop the Steal” and doing a Muttley giggle at your own cleverness, which actually made me want to swallow my own thumbs. This filibuster feels like someone finally decided to do something significant, when so many powerful people are content to do and say nothing meaningful. Jimmy Stewart would be proud.

1. Spoilers for an 86-year-old Frank Capra movie starring Jimmy Stewart and Claude Rains, by the way. Also, you should watch it!

2. Presumably, Ted Cruz’s staff did less work for him to read Dr. Seuss on the Senate floor like the gallon of spoiled yogurt stuffed into an unconvincing human suit that he is.

3. I believe a Civil Rights Act of some renown was also involved.

4. Him being young enough to stand for that long does separate him from the pack somewhat.

5. Please note—you must put your emphasis on theatre’s second syllable, no matter your original accent, when talking about political theaytre.