Marathon Man

New Jersey’s senior Senator, Cory Booker, seized the floor of the upper chamber for an epic anti-Trump rant that, at this writing, has stretched past 21 hours. The gist of it seems to be that America is doomed unless the Republicans return to the principles of Ronald Reagan. We bow to no one in our admiration for the 40th president, but the idea that Mr. Booker has anything to do with Reaganism is the biggest corker of his career.As a newspaper that thrice endorsed President Trump and counts Reagan as one of the top presidents in American history, our advice to Mr. Booker and his fellow Democrats is to look in the mirror. It’s not the GOP that needs to steer for the policies of Reagan, but the Democrats. The senator’s stemwinder might cheer Democrats who are dead-set on resistance to President Trump and his agenda, but it could point the way to a dead end for the party. The peril for Mr. Booker’s party is to emphasize a reflexive opposition to Mr. Trump and his policies, rather than putting forward a positive policy agenda of their own. Shutting down the Senate to indulge Mr. Booker’s tirade only underscores the downside of a policy centered on obstruction. Yet Mr. Booker, who, as of this writing, looks poised to challenge the record for senatorial speechifying set by Senator Thurmond, seems undeterred.“America’s Moral Moment” is how the New Jersey Narcissus, when sidling up to his pulpit to deliver his scolding, characterizes the stakes for the country. He even had his aides remove his chair to avoid any temptation to sit down. “I’m heading to the Senate floor,” Mr. Booker explains, “because Donald Trump and Elon Musk have shown a complete disregard for the rule of law, the Constitution, and the needs of the American people.” This isn’t the first time Mr. Booker has cried wolf. During Mr. Trump’s first term, he warned that things were “savagely wrong in this country.” During Senate confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Mr. Booker earned guffaws by unveiling records that he reckoned would expose the nominee as a backer of racial profiling — and proceeded to compare himself to the hero of a slave rebellion in Ancient Rome, calling it his “‘I am Spartacus’ moment.”So it’s hard to take Mr. Booker’s marathon of moralizing without a grain of salt. “In just 71 days, the president of the United States has inflicted so much harm on Americans’ safety, financial stability, the core foundations of our democracy and even our aspirations as a people for — from our highest offices — a sense of common decency,” Mr. Booker thunders. “These are not normal times in America, and they should not be treated as such.”Yet Mr. Booker’s endorsement of the principles of a bête noire of the left, President Reagan, whose zeal for cutting taxes and slashing spending put even Messrs. Trump and Musk to shame, is absurd. Mr. Booker even invoked the ghost of Senator McCain.“I know you wouldn’t sanction this, I know you would be screaming, I’ve seen how angry you can get, John McCain,” Mr. Booker mused as he tried to cloak himself in McCain’s Republicanism. A counterpoint to Mr. Booker’s anti-Trump vitriol emerges in, of all places, a New York Times editorial warning that the “Democrats are in denial about 2024.” The Grey Lady reckons that but 27 percent of Americans feel “positive” about the Democrats, in part because “the party moved too far left on social issues.” It’s a sign that the Democrats need not more resistance — they’re no Spartacus — but a reset of their own failed ideas.

Marathon Man

Marathon Man

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