In S.B., U.S. Senator Cory Booker Urges "Greater Moral Imagination" from Pro-Democracy Forces

The possible 2028 presidential candidate galvanized a Democratic Women event with an emotional sermon that invoked the civil rights movement as inspiration for grassroots opposition to Trumpism

New Jersey Senator Cory Booker lit up a Democratic Women of Santa Barbara club fundraiser on Sunday, with a rollicking political sermon that urged hope over despair, action over silence, and love over hate in opposing Donald Trump’s cruelty.

Two-parts Sunday preaching and one-part dad joke standup, Booker’s off-the-cuff speech drew quiet tears, loud laughs and a standing ovation from about 250 politically active folks gathered on the lawn of the Santa Barbara Club on the six-month mark of Trump’s Administration.

Booker acknowledged the widespread dread and suffering already triggered and set in motion, but argued that America’s history shows that the forces of light will outlast the power of darkness.

“Martin Luther King in Birmingham didn't meet Bull Connor by bringing bigger dogs and bigger fire hoses,” Booker said.

He urged his audience not to abandon the famous campaign formulation of former First Lady Michelle Obama — “when they go low, we go high” - and to oppose and resist the “cruelty, corruption and chaos” through “greater moral imagination.”

“King had the moral imagination to change the entire fight and realize what you all realize…the real challenge now is what King said: ‘What we're going to have to repent for, is not just the vitriolic words and violent actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of the good people.’”

The 25-hour man. At 56, Booker is the senior U.S. Senator from New Jersey, and is seeking a new six-year term in 2026 for the seat he has held since 2013. He ran a failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 against Joe Biden, but is forecast to run again in 2028, one of a large number of elected party officials included on early lists of contenders.

Unlike many other senior Democrats, Booker has been visible, loud and morally clear in speaking up against Trump’s extremist view of presidential power and right-wing policy agenda. In April, Booker earned plaudits, widespread attention and a large amount of campaign cash with a 25-hour marathon speech on the floor of the Senate, notable at a time when grassroots Democrats, and pro-democracy voters of all strains, are desperate for leaders who can take on Trump.

The extraordinary speech not only dissected and disclosed the nihilism and authoritarian values that underpin the Administration’s words and actions, but also made history by breaking the record for continuously speaking in the Senate, previously held by the late segregationist Strom Thurmond, who inveighed against a landmark civil rights bill for 24 hours in 1957.

A popular surrogate speaker who eagerly accepts invitations from Democratic colleagues to stump for them in their backyards, Booker also has made multiple, high-profile appearances in toss-up districts that could prove crucial in the 2026 mid-terms, as well as in those of entrenched pro-Trump Republicans in red states.

In Santa Barbara, his happy warrior performance at Dem Women’s 55th annual fundraiser helped net more than $100,000 for the event, with much of the money to be targeted to crucial congressional races around the country. After his downtown speech, Booker also attended a private fundraiser in Hope Ranch, where he spoke to a different crowd, of about 100 people, which raised a similar amount, this money earmarked for his own Senate campaign committee.

Both speeches were filled with emotion and the raw pain of painful experience — his description of holding in his arms a dying teenager who had been shot, in the projects where Booker was living in his early days as a Newark politician, was searing — and overflowed with soaring rhetoric.

“You’ve served to galvanize those of us who have been in despair,” former state Senator Hannah Beth Jackson said in introducing Booker.

Healing words for a hurt community. Some political professionals, while appreciating Booker’s energy, enthusiasm and compassion, expressed disappointment in his failure to set forth specific, substantive tactics or strategies for building an efective opposition movement.

Still it was an uplifting day for despondent Democrats, especially in the wake of the July 10 militarized raids on two Central Coast cannabis operations by heavily armed and masked federal immigration agents that shocked Santa Barbara with their he-man displays of performative authoritarianism. In response, Booker preached the importance of “endurance and perseverance” in organizing non-violent protests:

“What I don't understand right now is, with so much going on that is a violation of the dignity of humanity, with so much that's going on that is grievous and unjust. Why aren't more people standing up? But that's not a constructive question.

“The question is, how can I be used as an agent provocateur? How can I call to the conscience of a country, how can I comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable? How can I dramatize this action that is being done by people who are throwing out our Constitution, throwing out kindness and elevating and celebrating meanness and cruelty in a way that I've never seen?

“How can I be an agent of love at a time of increasing hate? How can I be an agent of unity when people are trying to divide us against each other?”

Anger and generations. Booker pointed to how Trump is sinking and sagging in the polls, even on his signature issue of immigration, and said it is crucial to maintain a sense of historical perspective. He portrayed his own achievements, and those of California Senator Alex Padilla, as well as those of Rep. Salud Carbajal, who was in attendance, as case studies of how far and how quickly the children and grandchildren of poor, working class families advanced on pathways that represent dramatic change in U.S. society and culture.

His riff:

“I know there's anger…Anger is a constructive emotion. I know there are people that say, ‘fight, fight, fight.’ I want to fight, fight, fight. But how we fight, how we show up is so important, so that's really what I want to point out…

“We have things every day that I don't understand - why there's not more people not standing up, and I feel angry, I feel bitter, but I will not allow myself to have some kind of amnesia about how I got to where I'm standing right now.

“Every one of us, and some of you told me your stories going back generations..I promise you this is a truth.”

“I cannot tell you enough how I come here with a broken heart…I'm going to tell you right now, if America hasn't broken your heart, you don't love her enough, you're suffering from the worst poverty - that is the poverty of empathy.

“But you all are showing that it’s the very moment when you're broken, that your shattered pieces can find more points of connection with other people, who also have shattered pieces, can form a stronger, greater whole with a mission of love.”

“I don't think it's wrong for people to have a broken heart. I don't think it's wrong for you all to feel fear.

“I don't think it's wrong for people in this room to feel some despair, but I want you to know that what real hope is — real hope is scarred. Real hope has wounds, real hope has to be resurrected time and time again. Real hope is the active conviction that despair will never have the last word.”

Cory Booker photos by Marian Shapiro.