Welcome to another edition of Red State Scripts, a(n) (aspirationally) weekly resource for U.S. folks living in geographies represented by pro-Trump elected officials but who nevertheless feel inclined to have a bit (or a big) of a holler. These scripts aren’t meant to change any assholes’ minds — though it’d be nice, surely! — but are instead about finding a way to voice opposition, build community, and articulate grievances. Use 5Calls to find your reps, and give them a piece of your mind.
I feel like these emails are always earnest and dorky, but I’ll extra lean into it tonight: New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker just destroyed racist shitbag Strom Thurmond’s speaking record in the U.S. Senate by speaking for 25 hours and 5 minutes against the Trump Administration’s ongoing legacy of various crimes and chucklefuckery. Thurmond, one of the world’s all-time miserable white supremacist assholes, set the previous record opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Booker invoked John Lewis and his call for “good trouble” throughout his record-breaking speech.
I only checked in periodically throughout the day between work projects, but I listened to most of the final three hours while doing chores, and Booker’s remarks at that late point were electrifying in both clarity and purpose. I’m a bad extemporaneous speaker, prone to harble-garble tangents and rambling even with notes at my best hour (10am, after the cats bless me with a solid night of sleep, when the caffeine has kicked in and the Vyvanse is driving my prefrontal cortex), and was invigorated by Booker’s focus. Booker closed his marathon remarks by thanking the (undoubtedly frustrated, angry) constituents who demanded he take action of this type. I am not overall a Cory Booker fan, but his invocation of Lewis, who put his body on the line for civil rights, and “good trouble” overall, was deeply moving to me.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was put in mind throughout of the 2013 People’s Filibuster in Texas, when Leticia Van de Putte kicked off enough hollering to bring Wendy Davis’ abortion rights filibuster past midnight. If you know, you know. And if you don’t, here you go:
The omnibus anti-abortion bill that Davis filibustered went on to pass in a subsequent special #txlege session. It was incredibly deflating. (And, of course, we know the sorry state of the Texas abortion access landscape now.) And moments after Booker’s speech in the Senate tonight, Dems failed to even symbolically oppose a Trump nominee for NATO ambassador. It was, again, incredibly deflating after the high of finally, for once, feeling heard and represented.
But this is what we do in “red” states, and this is why “red” state organizers, activists, and regular-ass folks who are trying to hold our families and communities together have so much to teach the rest of the country: we keep at it even when we don’t get our first, second, third, or thousandth demand met. We keep asking for more. We keep running for something, because messaging is important even when we lose. We show each other what we believe, even when it’s unpopular, and even when the GOP games the system to win, anyway. We keep our communities safe through mutual aid and both high- and low-key resistance. We show up when it’s dangerous, when have the privilege and cultural capital to spend and even and especially when we don’t. We show up when we know our electeds don’t give a fuck. We are creative, and we are resilient, and we shouldn’t have to be. But we are.
I will do a little brag-example here about my local neighborhood association, of which I am the president only because the last guy got tired of it and nobody ran against me when I volunteered. I don’t do much besides forward emails and make agendas and ensure the Zoom works (actually my husband mostly does that), but right now we’re having an ish with overcrowded parking at our neighborhood park on kickball nights. Some neighbors want the cops involved on-site to ~ fix ~ the situation; I extremely the fuck don’t, and neither do some of our loudest residents. I’m supporting the advocates who want to find a no-cop solution to the situation in light of the likelihood that city law enforcement involvement makes an ICE presence more likely (and the sheer prospect of any law enforcement officers involved would dissuade many of my neighbors from using an amenity we are all are entitled to). Literally all I’m doing is trying to make it a hyper-local priority to find a better alternative to policing this specific event. I think we can make this happen, and even if we don’t get what I think is safest immediately, I’m going to keep working toward a non-LEO-involved solution. I will be loud and pissy about the thing when and if we don’t get the best result for our community, and until we do get that result.
That’s the work. We keep the fuck at it. So people can play kickball, yeah, because if you can’t play kickball at the park around the corner, what the fuck else can you do in these here ostensibly free United States?
Well, you can holler at Ted Cruz. I have a bespoke script for him tonight, because Cory Booker not only smoked segregationist Strom Thurmond, he smoked Ted Cruz’s bullshit Green Eggs and Ham filibuster against the Affordable Care Act. Cruz was so salty about Booker’s filibuster he ~ joked ~ on Twitter that he might pull a fire alarm to stop it. But Cruz doesn’t have the juice, and I’m excited to tell him so.
I’ve also written a script for John Cornyn and other red-state reps who are wholesale failing their constituents on a number of other fronts. So [TikTok voice] … let’s get into it.
As ever: use the 5Calls database and to give the what-for to your red-state reps.
Here’s what I’m saying to Cruz:
I’m [my name] and I live in zip code [mine].
Sir, I am delighted to inform you that you lack the juice. You got summarily smoked today by Cory Booker, who beat not only your Senate speaking record, but the record of noted racist and segregationist Strom Thurmond. You are juiceless. You are juice-free. Your juice content is none juice. As Gary P. Nunn would put it, you are drier than the Texas sand. You are operating at zero percent humidity. Capri Sun wants nothing to do with you, for you are illiquid and have nothing to offer a chonky pouch. You’re not even reconstitutable from concentrate. Your lack of juice will literally go down — or more accurately, be erased — in the record books. Even the highest-end moisturizers will do nothing for you besides simply disappearing into the void of your crusty, crackly moral decrepitude. That’s all! Oh, and you’re juiceless. Like, real dry.
And for Cornyn (and other similar assholes):
I’m [my name] and I live in zip code [mine].
You are doing the poorest possible job of representing [my people], and I am angry at your wholesale lack of backbone to stand up against outrageous incursions on free speech and movement with the violent and unconstitutional arrests and disappearings of U.S. residents, green card, and visa holders such as Rumeysa Ozturk, Mahmoud Kahlil, and Alfredo Juarez. I rebuke attacks on transgender Americans’ right to simply exist, and the continuing decimation of the federal government—especially essential heath care research and resources—by billionaire douchebag Elon Musk, who every day you are allowing to act as puppeteer to the Trump Administration. Cuts to federal assistance for heating and cooling funds for low-income residents are literally deadly, and in a world where you are also doing nothing to mitigate climate change, the people’s blood is on your hands. I don’t know how you sleep at night. Maybe you don’t. You really, really shouldn’t.
The usual boilerplate: I’ll aim to post a new Red State Script every week, depending on the news cycle. If you have a script suggestion, leave it in the comments for others to use, and if you’re looking for an issue to comment on, let me know. And especially if you work for a state, local, or grassroots org producing such content for constituents, holler at me and I’ll share it, happily, with edits and adaptations made for diverse geographies — I’m grimesandrea@proton.me by email. (And if you have a script in mind and want to share it with the world, tag me on Bluesky or post it in the comments!)
As ever: Let’s holler into the void alone, together.
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