The current executive administration is a joke. 

However, it seems to be commonplace for people to sit back and watch these terrible political events unfold instead of taking action. 

On April 1st, 2025, Cory Booker completed the longest ever continuous speech in the history of the US. He stood and spoke for 25 hours and 5 minutes about the faults of the Trump administration. His intention for this was to create “good trouble,” which in this case meant holding the Senate for as long as he was physically able. He also used his platform of over 300,000 viewers online to inform Americans about his desire for more to get involved to prevent what is happening to the United States. 

“As I said again and again on the Senate floor, this is a moment where we cannot afford to be silent, when we must speak up,” said Booker in a tweet after he had left the Senate floor.

Booker remarked several times during his speech about this exact topic, and how the growing generation must continue to rise up and stand for what is right and what they believe in. Americans cannot sit idly by as the very foundations of the country are being ripped apart through Constitutional defiance and terrible foreign policy. Millions upon millions of people are negatively impacted by the administration’s choices, such as the cuts to USAID and Medicaid. 

The joke of this administration is on those who do not act. 

The people who chose not to vote because the lines were “too long.” 

The people who choose to ignore situations like this. 

The people who don’t speak up or fight back. 

“Don’t let this be another normal day in America… What is needed more now is less people sitting on these sidelines, less people being witnesses of American History and more people determined to make it,” Booker said during his speech.

Booker’s determination to get people out there, to cause what he calls “good trouble,” to stop this administration from hurting millions of people, and to stick up for those who cannot stick up for themselves. Americans must work together to stop the destruction of the country they live in.

These problems cannot be resolved by people being more interested in themselves than in other everyday Americans. Americans must stand together for each other as this administration repeatedly tears them apart. 

“If it is to be, it is up to me.”

This quote describes how people must be responsible for their own actions and future, not sit passively as it recedes from them.  Go to town halls. Vote in primaries. Call your representatives. They cannot let others decide what the future holds, but instead hold on with hope, as Booker did today.

Cory Booker’s speech on the Senate floor should show Americans what they must aspire to be: persistent and dedicated to their cause. 

Opinions are reflections of the student writers not of the FOCUS.