Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) on Wednesday told activists at the National Conference on Ending Homelessness not to protest from the sidelines.
Booker said the way to get through to Congress is to "get up in the face of some congresspeople." That call to action echoes his Democratic colleague Rep. Maxine Waters (Calif.) and others who have said Republican officials should face regular opposition in public.
"Before I end, that’s my call to action here. Please don’t just come here today and then go home," Booker said. "Go to the Hill today. Get up and please get up in the face of some congresspeople."
Booker's rhetoric somewhat contrasts his insistence earlier this month that Americans "need to stop the bulls—t partisanship." At an event about the economy, the senator said "opportunists on both sides" are sowing needless division.
"We have more common ground then we care to admit, and we’re letting political opportunists on both sides of the aisle try to undermine the truth of this nation, that the ties that bind us are so much strong then the lines that divide us," Booker said on July 11.
Yesterday, however, he said supporting D.C. Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to be confirmed to the Supreme Court reflects complicity in "evil."
This comes after left-wing activists made a point of harassing Republicans in public, often citing the Trump administration's immigration policies. Waters enthusiastically supported such tactics.
"If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere," Waters said last month. "We've got to get the children connected to their parents."
Trump and other Republicans have criticized Waters and defined Democrats by her extreme positions. At a rally last month, Trump told the audience that the Democratic Party "has become the party of Maxine Waters and [House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi."