Jeff Merkley of Oregon gave address to make case that president is ‘violating the law’ through authoritarianism
Oregon’s Jeff Merkley gave a marathon, nearly 23-hour speech on the Senate floor that began on Tuesday and ended late Wednesday, pressing the case that Donald Trump is acting as an authoritarian by prosecuting political enemies and deploying the military into Merkley’s home town of Portland.
The 68-year-old senator began speaking around 6.20pm on Tuesday evening and continued until just after 5pm on Wednesday. Standing continuously on the Senate floor alongside placards that read “authoritarianism is here now!” and “Trump is violating the law”, Merkley paused only to take questions from fellow Democratic senators who joined him in the chamber to make their own points about the president’s conduct.
“I’ve come to the Senate floor tonight to ring the alarm bells. We’re in the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our republic since the civil war. President Trump is shredding our constitution,” Merkley said as he began his speech.
“The record”. Posterity. It makes the entire thing part of the History of Government. Otherwise, it’s just external reports and heresay. This paves the road for official acts like secession. Think of it like HR filing a formal disciplinary action. Until they do, the paper trail isn’t there. “See? We warned you.”
As I see it. I’m no politics wonk.
The French process: go to the tennis court, and politic without the king’s permission.
The liberals are proud to watch their liberal democracy die as fascist break every form of “process” that they care for so much. Instead of realizing that the rules are no longer being followed and fighting back they would much rather go down with the ship and do useless things like this so that history can say “the were honorable”.
They care so little about the actual material outcome (because they believe it won’t actually impact them personally) that they have somehow convinced themselves that defending “the process” of a liberal democracy is better than actually trying to stop it from dying.
Your comment does a great job of explaining this. I think without you even being aware of it. You’re delusional if you think they are doing this for any future “official act”. There are no future acts. They are going down with their ship and will bend the knee to the fascist in time. Accepting the new “process” to defend. Because they have nothing else they believe in but “the process”.
Seriously, if you think the liberals in Washington are fighting back and “planning” with stuff like this - you are not paying attention. They are playing their role to make you feel as if something is being done in resistance. Wake up.
But there are official means to do that type of stuff.
This was not that…
I don’t even know if a transcript will be kept, especially since the first 12+ hours was overnight
I think this is the real explanation…
People just don’t know what can be done, so they get excited for stupid meaningless shit. And don’t demand for productive things instead.
Just clapping for bread and circus like it’s 1788
The liberals are playing their role in making people, like the comment you replied, feel like something is being done. The liberals in Washington might actually feel like they’re doing something too. But they wouldn’t be in Washington in the first place if what actually needed to be done was even an idea in their heads.
They will never say what needs to be said. They will never do what needs to be done. They are not capable of it. So, they will do useless stuff like this until they bend the knee and accept the new rule of the fascist state.