Amid a culture of deepening political division and vitriol, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., is trying to embrace something very different in the Trump era: Virtue.
Speaking exclusively to MS NOW’s Ali Vitali about his new book, “Stand,” Booker proposed a method of resistance Tuesday night that stands in stark contrast to some of the more combative — and sometimes trollish — tactics that Democrats like California Gov. Gavin Newsom has adopted in response to President Donald Trump.
It’s a vision of politics that could double as the foundation for a 2028 presidential bid, and Booker did little to downplay the speculation Tuesday night.
“What we are against preoccupies our attention, while the deeper question of what we are for is left unanswered,” Booker writes in his new book.
He expanded on his aspirational vision Tuesday, telling Vitali during an event at Sixth & I that the ugly politics of the moment runs deeper than one person.
“I think we are in a real crisis right now, and it’s not Donald Trump,” Booker said. “Many of the frustrations and fears and worries that I’ve experienced talking to Americans over the last decade predated him. He’s almost an accelerant, but not the source of a lot of the fuel of people’s concerns.”
Booker pointed to personal and historical examples to illustrate his point. He told the story of Jimmy Lee, a man who was shot and killed in Alabama for protesting voting rights, with Booker drawing connections to immigration enforcement agents. He highlighted civil rights figures like Alice Hall and former Rep. John Lewis, who Booker said, showed the power of people who raised their voice against injustice..
“It’s actually always been ordinary Americans in extraordinarily difficult times, showing the best virtues imaginable,” he said.
He also recounted a turning point from his early career, when he lost to Sharpe James during his first mayoral campaign in 2002. The campaign ended in a public screaming match and a near-physical altercation.
Booker talked about the conversation with a mentor that followed that altercation, saying it showed him the importance of forgiveness and redemption within the community.
Booker is running for reelection to the Senate this year. But Booker wouldn’t rule out any plans for the future, particularly after his record-setting 25-hour speech on the Senate floor last year.
When Vitali asked what would go into making the decision, he mentioned his new wife as a determining factor.
“I think the two of us care deeply about our country, and both agree that politics as we know it is broken, and I’m determined to play a role in some way in healing that” he said. “No matter where I’m sitting in the next election cycle, I’m going to use the privilege that this world has given me to try to shape that conversation, or at least add to that national conversation.” Bipartisanship was a major theme for Booker throughout the night. He specifically called out the voices who recently criticized Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., who broke with his caucus earlier this week to confirm Markwayne Mullin as Homeland Security Secretary. “If everybody in your coalition agrees with you on everything, then your coalition is too small,” Booker said. That call for acceptance of disagreement is one of the virtues he calls for in the book. “Doubling down on darkness or divisiveness or demeaning, degrading all of the things we’re seeing exhibited from the White House, that is not how we win,” Booker said. When Vitali asked if anger was one of those virtues, at a time when the base has called for a stronger response from Democrats, Booker said it’s a motivator that can be used to get things done — or burn things down. “It is fuel, and just like gasoline — another fuel — it can be used to fuel engines of great productivity, or used to set them ablaze,” he said. “If you’re not angry right now, take your pulse, a hundred percent you’re shown things that’s making you angry. But does that burn you up inside, or does it motivate you to do something positive?”
Ali Vitali is MS NOW's senior congressional correspondent and the host of "Way Too Early." She is the author of "Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House … Yet." Recommended
