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.
Democrats need to instruct people to take direct action against the administration and the rouge DOJ
People are sick of sitting around watching Nazis rise to power, this doesnāt go anywhere until we force change
The people need to be confident that they can stand up to rogue and criminal federal officials, knowing that state and local officials will have their back. The public need to know that critical shortfalls in health care and education and emergency services are going to be backfilled by state and local governments while the shutdown persists.
What Iām seeing now is a bunch of city/state chuds working hand-in-glove with the Feds, while mayors and governors just throw up their hands and insist they canāt act. Merkleyās filibuster is fine on its face, but this isnāt a fight any given Senator is in a position to win.
If Trump is pulling the plug on the CDC, we should see every blue state in the country stepping in to hire up all those officials that got let go and continuing the work regionally. If Trump is letting crypto-bros run rampant over the money supply, we should see state AGs hounding down Silicon Valley scammers and prosecuting crooks and criminals under local prohibitions on fraud, embezzlement, and corruption. If Trumpās ICE agents are breaking into peopleās homes without a fucking warrant, the local Sheriffs and State Troopers need to find and arrest those agents and prosecute them for their crimes.
I donāt see any of this. I see Dems making speeches and blustering, but backing down as soon as a Fed shows up with a mask and a gun to do highway robbery. If thatās how the country is going to operate going forward, the very concept of law and order is dead and weāre consigning ourselves to military dictatorship.
Some of that is already happening: https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/23/federal-immigration-agents-deploy-tear-gas-discount-mall-little-village/
https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/09/03/california-oregon-and-washington-to-launch-new-west-coast-health-alliance-to-uphold-scientific-integrity-in-public-health-as-trump-destroys-cdcs-credibility/
But I agree that state and local leaders need to do much, much more. I think part of the problem is that we, the people, need to be pushing our āleadersā to do these things, but weāre largely not, instead waiting around for someone to save us. But we need to start resisting and acting ourselves, and seeing that will hopefully embolden our āleadersā to act.