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.
They will never learn that performative politics is meaningless.
People: Vote Democrats out of power at all levels of government.
People: “Why won’t the Democrats do anything?”
Democrats: Do literally the only thing they can do given the people voted them out of power.
People: “Empty gesture.”
People suck.
I’ve always wondered how people like you explain the last 30 years of democrat inaction
You don’t know any people like me.
23 hours and nobody heard it.
These sort of antics always seemed pretty stupid. Why not just have a set limit for any one speaker
Grand gesture!
Feel kinda dumb for not knowing already, but do they get to take a piss break during this?
No, Booker said he fasted for days and stopped drinking water 24 hours before his speech to not leave the floor. Strom Thurmond famously had a bucket placed close enough to keep one foot in the room while he relieved himself.
The article I read said that Booker, Andy Kim, and a few other Dems would occasionally ask him “extended questions” to give him a break. Dunno if he’s allowed to leave the floor or not, but I imagine the “extended questions” are just them doing nonsense filibuster bullshit for a few mins
They have condom catheters for urine bags. Anyone know if those are “against the rule”?
Modern day, these are all recorded right? Thinking a pee face compilation (hard to believe no diapers) would be a great addition to 2025.
Go full LBJ and just whip it out mid speech in full view. I doubt cspan would be quick to censor.
That man was insane, but sometimes I fantasize about that high pressure shower he supposedly has installed.
LBJ was a specific style of batshit that comes from not giving an iota of a fuck about social cues and I aspire to such capabilities.
Assert dominance, drink all the water you want and piss yourself. Keep the floor for weeks.
Don’t think so.
It wasn’t even a filibuster?
He just started talking at 6pm, and kept talking for almost a day?
What was the point?
https://gov.mtopgroup.com/art1/floor-senate
There wasn’t even anything scheduled to happen today…
This performative “raising awareness” isn’t helping, especially if you schedule everything with the fascists before hand
Edit:
Can any of the trained seals who clap whenever asked at least tell me what the point of starting at 6pm and doing like 14-16 hours when no one was even there?
Without even knowing what he spoke about yet, which I don’t, I can respect the conviction of a person who uses their platform to speak when they have rare access to that platform and there’s plenty to talk about.
Plenty of us are going on marathon posting sessions on social media and it’s to a much smaller audience. I have to empathize a little bit with anybody who feels exhausted or overwhelmed by the absurdity of everything but then gets up to speak for a whole damn day on one of the largest stages in the world
Even if the room is empty the audience is global. It may be grandstanding, but that’s part of the job. Getting attention to things you care about is part of the job. People put you there to bring attention to things that they hope that you care about.
If government’s going to work at all people have to give a shit about it and whatever this dude was talking about it’s clear he gives a shit about it.
Plenty of us are going on marathon posting sessions on social media
I didn’t think of that either…
People acknowledgeing how little this did, have to acknowledge they’re also not really “fighting the power” themselves.
Good point.
Some will show up and do things only because they feel the support is out there to act and be seen.
I might make different efforts were I them, but they are at least paddling in the same direction I want to go. I just don’t have the energy to resent how they choose to spend their outrage.
If your house is burning down, your kids and dog are trapped inside…
You barely make it out alive, but you know your family is in there…
Firefighters show up, a wave of relief washes over…
Then they sit down and pray to Jesus that someone comes to put out the fire.
If you got upset the people paid to put out fires aren’t using the equipment or putting any real effort into saving your family who are actively burning to death, and you yell at the firefighters:
Why won’t you fucking do anything?
How would you react to someone telling you the firefighters are doing all they can?
I think a better analogy is that they are paddling in the direction that we all want to go but are denying that the ship they are paddling is sinking. We need them to be directing people to life boats and fighting back against the fascist boarding our ship. But they seem to just want to paddle forward when the water is already above their chest. There is no honor in “going down with the ship” if all you did that whole time was useless. Captains “go down with the ship” to make sure they did everything in their power to save people. That is not what the Democrats are doing at all.
Dude. We’re not elected policians. You really need to have a higher standard for your representatives than people posting on Twitter.
It really was not a good point AT ALL. I swear liberals are so use to not expecting any material change from their party that all they do is hold them to the same standard as a social media poster. That’s actually pathetic.
You really need to have a higher standard for your representatives than people posting on Twitter.
I am…
I’m saying if those people admit the politicians aren’t doing anything productive, then it obviously means funny signs won’t do anything, even if you have a frog costume…
Someone on the Democratic side stands up and does something within their power to go against the Republican party, and you’re criticizing them for not doing it during session?
This is something. It’s not a game changer, but it’s better than nothing.
Why are you upset that this took place? It’s a positive thing. Are you upset that the no kings protest took place while there wasn’t something more significant happening at the same time as well?
Because they’re either trained to shit on democrats at every single opportunity, or they’re training others.
Edit:
Never mind, no idea why I’m still seeing these
I know that we went rounds the other day, but genuinely, I’m curious why in this case you are critical of one of the only things that I’ve seen Democrats do in 9 months that is even slightly opposed to Republicans. I definitely wish that more was done, but given the lack of control in Congress at least protesting on the floor is better than nothing.
I mentioned it previously that I do think that you often post valuable content, even when I don’t agree with the delivery. This feels like a situation where I would feel if even performative, we would agree that protesting is better than nothing.
“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.
“The record”. Posterity
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
As I see it. I’m no politics wonk.
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.
But… he hasn’t said anything we didn’t already know, and now that he’s done, it’s back to “business as usual.” So what exactly was gained?
When you have no power to enact change, you speak truth to the ones who do.
But most of this speech was to empty room. Nothing requires his opponents to listen to even be in the room to hear him.
If you made that up, props to ya. Bad ass statement there.
He is a senator talking to other senators. And it isn’t like any of the republicans are going to change their mind based off what some rando from Oregon said. And it also isn’t like the news media is going to at all play any of that.
I want to say I like the sentiment and I think I do… if only from a “if we have to suffer, so will you”. But this is about as effective for change as a bunch of Democrats bopping their head to the soundtrack from Hamilton in solidarity.
Hell, if anything it adds fuel to the “Democrats are holding the government hostage” narrative because… they kinda were. It isn’t like the senate is going to vote on an amended bill any time soon but they actively can’t while this kind of stuff is going on.
Senators aren’t “randos”. Each state has two.
And those two account for 2% of the voting power in that room. And, to my knowledge, Merkley isn’t even a particular notable Democrat. With the Democrats making up 45% of the voting power in that room (with a couple DINOs like fetterman who dilute that even farther)
So he should have just sat down and shut up?
That doesn’t address the question. The senator could have done nothing, instead he he protested on the floor. Perhaps it was just performative and won’t change anything, but it was at least something. Would it have been better to do nothing?
Much like with being “apolitical”, doing nothing IS something.
Like I said. The actual act seems to have had no purpose to begin with other than MAYBE trolling or making photo ops. Anyone who would actually be paying attention to cspan or Rupar already knows we have an authoritarian government and anyone who doesn’t isn’t going to hear about this. And the audience was the US Senate republicans who ARE the problem.
In terms of impact? This wasn’t that dissimilar from MTG screaming shit from the back row while Biden spoke or boebert giving a thumbs down to the cameras. It doesn’t change minds and is just campaigning to your base. Which… I don’t know Oregon’s political tendencies off the top of my head so maybe that was the point. But it’s not going to change anything and is sure as hell not “speaking to power” or whatever that person wanted to pretend it was.
Now let’s look at repercussions. Because every action has a reaction. We have a government that shut down and a rapist actively destroying the White House during said shut down. We have a Senate that refuses to even consider an amended budget (in large part because there is zero chance the House will do so since it would involve triggering the Epstein files…). And what did we give the republicans in return?
Democrats hold Senate hostage and waste time ranting about their trump derangement syndrome when we should be working together to re-open the government and get our cleanly shaved white men in the military paid!
And a complicit news media will just say “So you are denying that Senator Merkley spent 23 hours complaining about president trump during a shutdown?”.
To be clear: my inner troll still thinks this is funny and it can’t be THAT much worse than what is going on (see: complicit news media).
But before you and anyone else ever start to say “something is better than nothing, no matter how ineffective and arguably detrimental to our efforts”, let me leave you with
Was THAT at all a good idea? Are you going to defend fucking THAT?
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.
I’m pretty sure he’d have yielded if they were going to vote on the bill, and it had a shot at passing.
You are applying logic and assuming an informed audience.
Rather than just “We wanted to vote but some asshole had to spend 23 hours talking about his trump derangement syndrome”
Do you think that the the other 99 senators are uninformed?
No moreso than most government officials.
But the senators barely matter in this. What matters is The American People who very much are.
So what exactly was gained?
At the very least, we’re talking about what was said and that it happened. The message got to a wider audience than it would have if the statements were just inserted into the record.
Also, on the plus side, this was a senator saying this stuff in public for the entire world to hear, so others may be emboldened to speak these things in other places as established fact as well, instead of continuing to whisper it only behind closed doors.
Not sure why the original question was so heavily downvoted though, unless people thought the answer was painfully obvious. To me, the public record bit is important, but that could have been done elsewhere as well.
