Cory Booker on What It Takes to Believe in America Again - The New York Times

A friend of mine said that they hung a flag, or maybe it was her friend that hung a flag and their teenage son said, “When did we become Republicans?” That’s a problem for Democrats. I don’t think it’s a problem for Democrats. I it’s a problem for America. It’s a problem for both. Fair. Senator Cory Booker spent more than 25 straight hours this spring speaking from the Senate floor. “So tonight, I rise with the intention of getting in some good trouble. I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.” He did so to call out President Trump’s anti-democratic behavior. “And institutions, which are special in America, are being recklessly and I would say even unconstitutionally affected, attacked, even shattered.” A lot of pollsters and pundits say Americans aren’t that worried about democracy. I wanted to know how Senator Booker thinks we can get Americans to pay attention. So I asked him to join me for “America’s Next Story,” our series of conversations about the ideas that once held this country together and those that might do so again. Senator Booker, thanks for joining me today. I’m grateful to be here. Thank you. And I love this series. I’m privileged and feel very blessed to be on it. Thank you. Since we last spoken, you’ve gotten engaged. Congratulations. Thank you very much. It’s a whole new world for me. I’m just more excited than I’ve been about anything, Do you have a date? We do. It’s a matter of weeks from now, so. Excellent. Yes, I’m very excited. My wife says an engagement is not real unless there’s a ring and a date. So it sounds like you qualify. Yeah we want to do it really, really quick. I have these great hopes for children. Great. Let’s go back to 2024. Your state, New Jersey, shifted more to President Trump than almost any other state. And that got a little bit lost because it didn’t flip. Kamala Harris still won the state. Why do you think that is? When you talk to people in New Jersey. What did you hear about why Donald Trump, who was a familiar character, was more appealing to them in 2024 than he had been the previous two times he ran? So I don’t want Donald Trump, as familiar of a character he is, to be the main character in our narrative of where we are in America right now. Look, there are existential urgencies about him right now and what he’s doing to hurt people. But I think we make a big mistake if we center him as the main character in the narrative and in my state, I think the reason why you see this shifting up is because New Jerseyans, Americans, are really fed up with our politics and have lost faith in both parties. Remember, in this presidential election, the majority of Americans rejected both candidates. Neither of them got over 50 percent. And it speaks to a larger hurt that’s going on in our country, where the American dream, which delivered in measurable ways for generations, from my great grandparents to my grandparents to my parents, every generation was doing better than the one before, more economically secure. But now people are living in a nation where there’s a deep economic insecurity. And so here you have a nation and a state where you don’t know who can deliver on that redeeming of the American dream for them. And I think that frustration is playing out in our politics. It’s playing out, especially when you see demagogues and carnival barkers who are trying to exploit that pain or lie to Americans about what they are going to do. Lower grocery prices on day one. I’m going to lower prescription drug prices. Health care. I have some semblance of a plan, but you’ll be O.K. Again, people feel like they are looking for who to believe in and what to believe, and that makes some sense to me. It would make more complete sense. If Donald Trump hadn’t held office before. But he had. And so, in a way, we were in fact, Kamala Harris hadn’t been president. And he had. And so I get the frustration. I’m also curious why you think Trump was a more appealing alternative to these frustrated people than the Democratic Party and Kamala Harris. So, look, I mean, Trump may have done well in New Jersey, but happened in his first term, he has sunk in the polls in my state dramatically. And there is a frustration and even some of the counties that had high immigrant populations that seem t