"Hurt, angry Americans must stand with Sen. Cory Booker. Now." Birmingham Real-Time News

[Amaryllis]

https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2025/04/hurt-angry-americans-must-stand-with-sen-cory-booker-now.html

Much more at link and well worth reading.

By Roy S. Johnson | [e-mail]

This is an opinion column.

Sen. Cory Booker had been standing for almost 20 hours before I knew he was standing at all. Standing at the podium in the U.S. Senate chambers. Standing and pontificating, as Senators and members of Congress often do.

As they usually do before a near-empty chamber, articulating and gesturing really for C-SPAN political nerds and the Congressional Record.

It wasn’t too long before I realized, though, that the 55-year-old Democrat from New Jersey wasn’t standing and speaking to an echo chamber for an audience of none. He was standing and speaking to us all.

Standing and speaking for us all.

Even for those who will no doubt throw verbal rocks at him. Even for those who disagree with everything he eloquently and passionately said — with every fact he cited — or covered their ears, refusing to hear.

Even for those who are breathing fire that threatens to torch our Constitution and transform our democracy into a heap of smoldering embers. Fire that will leave the foundation upon which this nation was built as a pile of ash.