Jeff Merkley of Oregon gave address to make case that president is āviolating the lawā through authoritarianism
Oregonās Jeff Merkley gave a marathon, nearly 23-hour speech on the Senate floor that began on Tuesday and ended late Wednesday, pressing the case that Donald Trump is acting as an authoritarian by prosecuting political enemies and deploying the military into Merkleyās home town of Portland.
The 68-year-old senator began speaking around 6.20pm on Tuesday evening and continued until just after 5pm on Wednesday. Standing continuously on the Senate floor alongside placards that read āauthoritarianism is here now!ā and āTrump is violating the lawā, Merkley paused only to take questions from fellow Democratic senators who joined him in the chamber to make their own points about the presidentās conduct.
āIāve come to the Senate floor tonight to ring the alarm bells. Weāre in the most perilous moment, the biggest threat to our republic since the civil war. President Trump is shredding our constitution,ā Merkley said as he began his speech.
Edit:
Never mind, no idea why Iām still seeing these
I know that we went rounds the other day, but genuinely, Iām curious why in this case you are critical of one of the only things that Iāve seen Democrats do in 9 months that is even slightly opposed to Republicans. I definitely wish that more was done, but given the lack of control in Congress at least protesting on the floor is better than nothing.
I mentioned it previously that I do think that you often post valuable content, even when I donāt agree with the delivery. This feels like a situation where I would feel if even performative, we would agree that protesting is better than nothing.