Senator Cory Booker's marathon 25-hour Senate speech didn't stop Trump

In the shadow of a republic teetering on the brink, Lisa McCormick—a voice sharpened by disillusionment—has sounded an alarm that cuts through the cacophony of political theater. She indicts not one, but two titans of American power: Republican President Donald Trump, whose administration wages war on the very pillars of governance, and Democratic Senator Cory Booker, whose performative resistance crumbles under the weight of ethical decay.

Together, they embody a crisis of leadership where lawlessness meets fecklessness, and the people pay the price.

President Trump’s second term has unfolded as a masterclass in demolition.

With Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as his sledgehammer, he has dismantled agencies, shredded worker protections, and unleashed chaos on a scale unseen in modern history.

Federal contractors saw their wages slashed by up to 60%, miners were left gasping under suspended silica rules, and unions—the last bastion of worker leverage—were gutted.

Meanwhile, Trump’s tariff tantrums and mass deportation threats have hurled the economy toward recession, destabilizing global alliances that once fortified peace. The Department of Labor, hollowed out; immigration courts, weaponized; safety nets, frayed.

"This is not governance. It is sabotage," says McCormick, who earned more votes than any statewide Democratic primary challenger to an incumbent since 1980, when she took on disgraced former US Senator Bob Menendez in 2018.

Yet where is the opposition?

Enter Senator Cory Booker, who staged a 25-hour Senate speech—a marathon of defiance against Trump’s autocratic whims. But as the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) revealed, the speech doubled as a fundraising spectacle.

Seven social media posts, campaign links woven into official action, constitute a blatant violation by Booker of ethics rules designed to separate governance from graft.

“It gives the unmistakable impression that official actions can be influenced by campaign contributions,” wrote FACT’s Kendra Arnold.

Booker’s performative resistance, it seems, is just another transaction in a marketplace of broken promises.

McCormick’s indictment is unsparing.

“Wall Street darling Cory Booker insults us and becomes complicit in Trump’s crimes when he pretends that what America needs right now is more talk without action,” said McCormick. “Booker’s theatrics and Trump’s tyranny are symptoms of the same disease—a system where corporate interests and billionaire puppeteers pull the strings, while workers, immigrants, and families pay the price.”

While Booker’s team blurs lines between duty and donations, Trump’s DOGE operatives erase lines between democracy and dystopia.

Agencies shuttered, inspectors general fired, civil rights offices shuttered. Musk’s “efficiency” crusade illegally accesses federal systems, freezes grants, and replaces public servants with algorithms. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? Dismantled. Social Security? Under siege. The Postal Service? A relic in Musk’s crosshairs.

And what of the people?

Workers face workplaces stripped of safety standards. Immigrants—once contributors to communities—are hunted, detained, and deported under policies echoing Japanese internment. Children lose Medicaid and food stamps, investments in future productivity are sacrificed at the altar of tax cuts for the wealthy. The chaos is not collateral damage; it is the design.

“Our Democratic Party was founded on principles that championed the people—equality, justice, representation,” McCormick laments. “Now, it’s transformed by a hostile Wall Street takeover.”

"Booker’s feckless fundraising and Trump’s billionaire cabal are both symptoms of a system where power serves itself, not the public," said McCormick. "When government officials blatantly engage in violations of the law, it illustrates that America has become a kleptocracy with pervasive corruption, and it falls on the citizens to make big changes."

As Trump’s DOGE automates authoritarianism and Booker’s speeches dissolve into self-promotion, the question lingers: Who will stand guard for democracy?

The courts, besieged. The media, drowned in a “flood-the-zone” deluge. The people, left to navigate the rubble of institutions meant to protect them.

"The Doomsday Clock says it's 89 seconds to midnight, but our political system is broken," said McCormick. "Americans must rise to the responsibility of citizenship!"

In this twilight of accountability, McCormick’s voice is a flare—a warning that the cost of complicity is a nation unrecognizable. The clock ticks. The flood rises. And somewhere, the ghost of democratic promise watches, waiting to see if courage can still stir in the wreckage.