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.
I think we’ll just have to disagree on this one. I don’t think this was trolling and I don’t think this is anything like MTG and Boebert. The speech has brought media attention to this that has reached people that otherwise didn’t know it was happening. His message wasn’t something juvenile like those examples you mentioned but rather something serious. It probably won’t change the minds of anyone in powers, but even if it reaches a few people and moves them a little closer to changing their mind, then it was better than nothing. I don’t believe a second that it’s going to have the adverse effect of turning anyone off that already was never going to be swayed.
I didn’t know that this was happening until this morning when it was half way done. I found out through various articles. I’m sure I’m not the only person that saw that, and I can guarantee that others saw the headline that a Democrat gave a 23 hour speech and found something positive in that. Imo, that’s better than a headline that says no Democrats argued against the current regime. There was no musical number or childish gestures, but a legitimate speech. The delivery of the message is important and this was delivered professionally.
I would be elated if any of my reps did even the bare minimum to try and represent me.