Cory Booker Energy
CA-03 is flippable in 2026, but only if a candidate shows up with the passion and vision we saw from the Senator in his epic filibuster
Cory Booker dismantled a confederate monument yesterday when he filibustered on the senate floor for just over 25 hours. He now holds the record for the longest filibuster, which de-thrones legendary racist Strom Thurmond, who had filibustered for just over 24 hours in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957. How appropriate to have Senator Booker take this record, not just as a black man but also because of the contrast between their respective messages. Thurmond’s filibuster was about halting progress. Booker’s about refusing to retreat.
Booker also reached a lot of people in those 25 hours. The Associated Press’s feed hit over 150k viewers. Booker’s own feed hit over 100k, and on TikTok it got over 250M likes. I listened for about 18 hours of the speech, muting only when we were at the dinner table or when I had to take a work call.
He was relatable. He showed resolve. He allowed himself a range of emotions, from moments of laughter to moments with tears, and even moments of anger. And he owned it all. In his words, “Anger is not a bad emotion it is what you do with that anger that is important. Does it consume you? Does it drive you to hate other people? Or do you allow it to fuel you?”
He connected with a lot of people who had been waiting for, no begging for, democratic leaders to do *literally anything* that matches the scale of the havoc and destruction being wrought on our democracy by the Trump administration.
And he did this by framing this moment not as a political moment but a moral moment. “This isn’t about right and left it is about right and wrong,” he repeated regularly.
He also framed this moment as a human moment. Hours and hours of his speech were dedicated to letters and emails from real people, people who are afraid, people who he spoke to by name, with issues familiar to all of us. Caring for sick parents. Knowing you’re relying on a system that is held together with the thinnest of threads. Worrying about putting food on the table. Caring for each other.
This isn’t about right and left it is about right and wrong
He certainly reached me, and multiple times. The first was when he raised how important Medicaid is to people with HIV. My father had HIV for most of his adult life, and as such relied on SSI Disability and Medicaid. He also had Type 1 diabetes, which as we know has been, until recently, grotesquely expensive to manage. My father would not have lived long enough for me to know him as an adult had it not been for the treatment and pharmaceuticals, he was able to access through Medicaid. He passed in 2001, when I was 24.
We need a vision, not grievances
One message that is still with me Senator Booker’s speech is his suggesstion on how we move forward. He pointed out that Martin Luther King Jr. did not energize the civil rights movement by standing at the Lincoln Memorial and listing grievances about all the bad things that white people had and were still doing to Black people. Rather, King focused on the future. His dream for a future so radically changed that people would look back and think the past unimaginable.
“We need vision,” said Senator Booker several times, if we want to move forward, not just a list of grievances to air against our supposed enemy. He pleaded with us to set aside hate for the other, not in a centrist, reach across the aisle and compromise our values sense, but in a humanist sense. We are people relating to people. And he had the courage to admit that he and his colleagues had in many ways failed over the years to find and offer this vision, one that could keep us from getting to this terrible moment in the American experiment. And, he also had the courage to acknowledge that he alone does not have the ability to solve the problems we face.
Rather, he encouraged us to see the power we have collectively as far greater than the power any single politician or sets of politicians could have.
I agree with him. Its the message of my Ted Talk, No More Heroes.
If we want to flip our congressional district and send Kevin Kiley home, this is the ethos with which we need to meet the moment. California’s Congressional District 3 is very purple, and very flippable. But to my knowledge, no potential candidate has emerged offering a vision for doing so, a vision that will mobilize a diversity of our neighbors, tap into their hopes and dreams rather than capitalizing on their fears and hate. Rather than piting some folks against others we need a candidate offering a narrative that brings many people as possible together into the shared work that moves our communities forward.
We don’t have to agree on everything in order to work towards similar goals. And we agree on far more things than we disagree.
And yes, I know there is someone out there claiming be a candidate. As of yet, I have seen no evidence that they are fit to meet this moment. All I see is grievance and aggression and social media accounts full of clearly AI-generated content.
Grievance politics gets clicks, but not votes. Not in the same way hope for a truly more secure and fulfilling future does.
There are many issues we in the foothills need to be talking about right now—ensuring high quality education and safe schools for our kids, continuing to protect the natural landscapes we all love, managing fire risk, keeping Tahoe blue, ensuring people have access to the highest quality healthcare, protecting privacy and bodily autonomy, the list goes on. The good news is that there are solutions for each of these, solutions that people broadly support despite party affiliations. I don’t care if it’s a dem or an independent but if someone is willing to stand up and offer a vision about how we put these things together I know they will be greeted with a long line of people ready to offer their support.
If you’re out there, let me know! More soon,
