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Much like with being "apolitical", doing nothing IS something.
Like I said. The actual act seems to have had no purpose to begin with other than MAYBE trolling or making photo ops. Anyone who would actually be paying attention to cspan or Rupar already knows we have an authoritarian government and anyone who doesn't isn't going to hear about this. And the audience was the US Senate republicans who ARE the problem.
In terms of impact? This wasn't that dissimilar from MTG screaming shit from the back row while Biden spoke or boebert giving a thumbs down to the cameras. It doesn't change minds and is just campaigning to your base. Which... I don't know Oregon's political tendencies off the top of my head so maybe that was the point. But it's not going to change anything and is sure as hell not "speaking to power" or whatever that person wanted to pretend it was.
Now let's look at repercussions. Because every action has a reaction. We have a government that shut down and a rapist actively destroying the White House during said shut down. We have a Senate that refuses to even consider an amended budget (in large part because there is zero chance the House will do so since it would involve triggering the Epstein files...). And what did we give the republicans in return?
And a complicit news media will just say "So you are denying that Senator Merkley spent 23 hours complaining about president trump during a shutdown?".
To be clear: my inner troll still thinks this is funny and it can't be THAT much worse than what is going on (see: complicit news media).
But before you and anyone else ever start to say "something is better than nothing, no matter how ineffective and arguably detrimental to our efforts", let me leave you with
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4994572/hamilton-cast-members-sing-dear-theodosia-january-6th-anniversary
Was THAT at all a good idea? Are you going to defend fucking THAT?
I think we'll just have to disagree on this one. I don't think this was trolling and I don't think this is anything like MTG and Boebert. The speech has brought media attention to this that has reached people that otherwise didn't know it was happening. His message wasn't something juvenile like those examples you mentioned but rather something serious. It probably won't change the minds of anyone in powers, but even if it reaches a few people and moves them a little closer to changing their mind, then it was better than nothing. I don't believe a second that it's going to have the adverse effect of turning anyone off that already was never going to be swayed.
I didn't know that this was happening until this morning when it was half way done. I found out through various articles. I'm sure I'm not the only person that saw that, and I can guarantee that others saw the headline that a Democrat gave a 23 hour speech and found something positive in that. Imo, that's better than a headline that says no Democrats argued against the current regime. There was no musical number or childish gestures, but a legitimate speech. The delivery of the message is important and this was delivered professionally.
I would be elated if any of my reps did even the bare minimum to try and represent me.