{"id":39226,"date":"2025-04-16T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=39226"},"modified":"2025-04-19T15:09:55","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T15:09:55","slug":"cory-bookers-long-speech-offers-a-strategy-for-trump-opponents-in-a-fragmented-media-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/cory-bookers-long-speech-offers-a-strategy-for-trump-opponents-in-a-fragmented-media-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"Cory Booker\u2019s long speech offers a strategy for Trump opponents in a fragmented media landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Erik Johnson<\/a>, Stetson University<\/a><\/em> and Matthew deTar<\/a>, Ohio University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Cory Booker\u2019s record-breaking, 25-hour Senate floor speech<\/a>, which began on March 31, 2025, and ended on April 1, momentarily snatched the national spotlight from President Donald Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ever-churning national news cycle has already moved on from the spectacle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as communication studies<\/a> scholars<\/a>, we believe Booker\u2019s speech offers important lessons for Trump opponents in a fragmented political and media landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our analysis of Booker\u2019s speech, its media coverage and Booker\u2019s use of online platforms to promote his marathon performance illustrate one way to disrupt the constant public spotlight on Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conventions of long speeches<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In research published in 2023, we compared filibusters and long speeches<\/a> in the United States and overseas. The long speeches we examined took place in national parliaments and political party meetings across the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our research uncovered three patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long speeches incorporate varied topics and texts. Whether or not these digressions are relevant to the issue at hand, they make the speaker\u2019s remarks last longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Sen. Rand Paul\u2019s nearly 13-hour filibuster of John Brennan\u2019s CIA nomination in 2013<\/a>, for example, he read articles on drone warfare alongside a portion of \u201cAlice in Wonderland<\/a>.\u201d And Sen. Alfonse D’Amato\u2019s 1986 filibuster of a military spending bill included a partial reading of the District of Columbia phone book<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., leaves the floor of the Senate after his filibuster of the nomination of John Brennan to be CIA director on March 7, 2013. AP Photo\/Charles Dharapak<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Long speeches also include expected interruptions to the speaker\u2019s performance and address a variety of audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what happened during Sen. Strom Thurmond\u2019s 1957 filibuster<\/a> of the Civil Rights Act \u2013 the longest speech on the Senate floor before Booker\u2019s performance. When Thurmond needed a bathroom break during his 24-hour, 18-minute filibuster, Sen. Barry Goldwater assisted by stalling<\/a> with a report on military preparedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These patterns of topical digression and expected interruption challenge the image of filibusters as individual acts of continuous endurance promoted in films such as \u201cMr. Smith Goes to Washington<\/a>.\u201d And they apply to Booker\u2019s Senate speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our research also demonstrated how the media reframes the complexity of long speeches into simplified narratives. This coverage sometimes differs as different outlets target varied audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

News reports on Thurmond\u2019s filibuster bolstered an image of him as the lone senator defending segregation<\/a> while the rest of the Senate slept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After state Sen. Wendy Davis\u2019 filibuster of a 2013 anti-abortion bill in Texas, supporters linked the filibuster to her rising political prospects<\/a>, while opponents disparaged her with the nickname Abortion Barbie<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These reactions do not grapple directly with the wide-ranging content of long speeches. But they do allow them to reach audiences in ways that can shape popular memory of the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Booker\u2019s 25-hour speech<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Like other long speeches we have studied, Booker\u2019s Senate speech<\/a> addressed several topics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Booker read a passage from the Federalist Papers<\/a> that advocated for constitutional checks and balances on the executive branch. At another point, he quoted federal appellate Judge Learned Hand, who was called the \u201cTenth Justice\u201d of the Supreme Court<\/a> in the first half of the 20th century. Booker also used personal anecdotes that linked his parents to the civil rights struggle and reflected on his first senate campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But mainstream news stories covering Booker\u2019s speech<\/a> produced a largely coherent summary<\/a> of the overall point of the marathon talk<\/a> \u2013 as they saw it, it was a stand against Trump<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Booker\u2019s speech also aligned with another convention of long speeches \u2013 his monologue was broken up by the parliamentary questions of fellow senators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Numerous Democratic allies<\/a> gave Booker a break as they introduced issues of their own interest. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, for example, used her time to discuss Bob Dylan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the speech, however, many news outlets focused on Booker\u2019s physical feat. This directed attention away from the hodgepodge of voices and sources in the speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fielding reporters\u2019 questions<\/a> after yielding the Senate floor, Booker discussed his use of fasting to prepare. And The New York Times reported on the effects of standing for so long and not sleeping<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debates about whether or how speakers stop to use the bathroom are a source of enduring fascination surrounding long speeches. It\u2019s something that Thurmond biographer Joseph Crespino<\/a> calls the \u201curological mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Media fixation on Booker\u2019s body reimagined him as the sole speaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strategies shaping online coverage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When Booker broke the record, roughly 115,000 people were streaming the speech on YouTube<\/a>. A TikTok livestream of the event received 350 million likes by the end of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Booker was prepared for this online attention. Throughout the speech, he repeated a strategic set of phrases. Those ranged from \u201cLet\u2019s get in good trouble\u201d \u2013 a reference to the late John Lewis<\/a>, a Georgia Democrat who served in the U.S. House of Representatives, that appeals to Booker\u2019s political base \u2013 to \u201cThis is a moral moment,\u201d a slogan that evokes Rev. William Barber II\u2019s broad-based \u201cmoral movement<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the speech, Booker repeated these taglines on social media<\/a>, at a New Jersey town hall<\/a> and in interviews with national media<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
In this image provided by Senate Television, Sen. Cory Booker, a New Jersey Democrat, speaks on the Senate floor on April 1, 2025. Senate Television via AP<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s \u201cflood the zone<\/a>\u201d approach to policymaking, which occupies media coverage through overwhelming activity<\/a>, has been widely discussed by the media<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Booker\u2019s speech demonstrates that for resistance to be effective, it must be noticed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His use of easily excerpted catchphrases targeted media platforms built around short, viral video clips. The length of Booker\u2019s speech made it newsworthy, but short clips are necessary to sustain attention online<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On April 2, news commentators and media outlets posed a number of questions that were not about Trump: Why did Booker speak that long<\/a>? How did he prepare<\/a>? Was he wearing a diaper<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These questions are part of the simplifications that occur in response to long speeches, and the media briefly paused from constant Trump coverage to ask them again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other coverage has noted that Google searches for Booker have increased since the speech<\/a> \u2013 and it has speculated whether the speech might improve Democratic Party approval ratings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, an April 13 op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution picked up on Booker\u2019s use of \u201cgood trouble\u201d and declared, \u201cCory Booker is following in footsteps of Rep. John Lewis<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By grabbing hold of a stage and not letting go, Booker became a figure of focus for at least one news cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erik Johnson<\/a>, Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Stetson University<\/a><\/em> and Matthew deTar<\/a>, Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Culture, Ohio University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erik Johnson, Stetson University and Matthew deTar, Ohio University Sen. Cory Booker\u2019s record-breaking, 25-hour Senate floor speech, which began on March 31, 2025, and ended on April 1, momentarily snatched the national spotlight from President Donald Trump. The ever-churning national news cycle has already moved on from the spectacle. But as communication studies scholars, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":39227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[46,295,10,296,36,28,4,38,8],"tags":[7329,3605,8209,16251,479,6931,8389,885,891,886,860,16248,2039,698,16250,7437,3236,16252,1666,1791],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39226"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39226"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39243,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39226\/revisions\/39243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}