Two speeches this week will be remembered for posterity. One for having set a benchmark in history, the other for completely rewriting it.
Scott Adams summed up the comparison well when he observed:
Cory Booker earned himself a place in the record books. He gave a speech in the senate that lasted more than any other senate speech before him.
Senator Jazz Hands went for 25 hours in his Senate speech. It’s been called a filibuster. Was there a bill on the floor? No. Did his grand gesture galvanize anyone around a critical issue of the day? No. Was it performative grandstanding that accomplished literally nothing?
Sure looked that way.
But Trump stood up in the White House Rose Garden and made a speech about Tariffs and trade policy.
Was it a rambling, emotional 25 hour marathon? No. The president is known for long-winded speeches, but he had no need for a 25 hour rant. Why?
Because unlike Booker’s performative act whose main goal of establishing himself as one of the chief banner-carriers for Team Resistance, Trump’s speech had actual substance and weight to it.
His words forced the entire world into a conversation about reestablishing trade deals that are (in his view) fairly balanced.
The ideal response is the one we saw from Ontario’s Premier, in which he agreed to the principle of dropping tariffs altogether. Countries who do NOT want to play ball with dropping the trade restrictions to their markets (tariffs or otherwise) will suddenly find it more difficult to access the US market.
In either case, one comparatively short Trump speech has done more to drive decision-makers around the world to engage with an idea that had NOT been in the national (and interntional) conversation.
Meanwhile, despite all of the cheers and accolades for the ‘stunning and brave’ display of Senator Booker bringing the Senate to a standstill for an entire day, nobody seems quite to know what specific goal he was trying to accomplish… and we really have know way of knowing whether he succeeded in doing so.
