This book focuses on the symbolic power of a talking filibuster. Since a true filibuster requires hours of standing and talking, it is physically grueling. While some talking filibusters obstruct the passage of undesirable bills and nominees, other aims may include publicizing an ignored issue, revising a bill, or forcing consideration of an otherwise dead bill. Moreover, filibustering can give voice to an unheard group that can coalesce and create a political movement, such as the libertarian posse that formed during Rand Paul s 2013 filibuster against drone killings or the feminist army that formed during Wendy Davis s filibuster against a Texas abortion bill that same year. It s this suffering of the legislator on behalf of constituents that captures the cultural imagination and leads to filibuster depictions in film ( Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ), on television (The Simpsons, The West Wing, Parks and Recreation, Scandal), and helps filibusters to go viral on social media. Charting the history of the filibuster from Ancient Rome until today, this book argues that the filibuster's evolution can be traced through eras of anti-tyranny, deliberation, drama, and emancipation. Chapter by chapter, this evolution is described with Jean Baudrillard s conception of the real, simulation, simulacra, and the hyperreal, and with Jacques Rancière s theories of dissensus and emancipation
Chapter 1: Cato the Younger s Senatorial Purgatory or Julius Caesar s Political Purge.- Chapter 2: Frontier Filibusters as Prayers of Supplication: From John Quincy Adams and Free Petition to Charles Sumner and Free Kansas.- Chapter 3: Deliberate Versus Motorized Legislation: Robert La Follette s Filibusters as Deliberative Sifting and Winnowing.- Chapter 4: The Dust Bowl s Patron Saint of Suffering: Huey Long s Filibuster Laments.- Chapter 5: Spectacles of Chivalrous Penance: From Frank Capra s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to the Segregationist Filibusters.- Chapter 6: The People s Filibuster: Wendy Davis s Spectacle, Emancipated Spectators, and Social Media.
Evan Layne Johnson, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at Florida SouthWestern State College where he teaches and researches history, politics, public address, and rhetorical criticism. His research centers on the U.S. Congress and Presidency and how cultural and technological changes affect the quality of political speech and policy outcomes. He has published articles on conspiracy arguments, archival research from Jimmy Carter s Presidential Library, and on using poetics and stylized language in public speaking.
