Sen. Cory Booker is on the road, selling a book about American ideals. The volume, titled “Stand,” carries a cover price of $29 and is published by St. Martin’s Press.
This fact is ordinary for a senator. The corporate lineage of his publisher is less so.
St. Martin’s Press is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers, which is owned by the German-based publishing company founded by Georg von Holtzbrinck, who was a member of the Nazi Party during the years 1933 to 1945. His company was re-established after World War II and has grown into a global publishing giant, now chaired by his billionaire son, Stefan von Holtzbrinck.
There is no suggestion that the senator shares the historical views of the firm’s founder, although he has displayed an affinity for billionaires, whose untaxed wealth is largely responsible for electing the neofascist Trump administration that Booker told us he was “ready to fight” in July, although there’s scant evidence of action backing up his promise.
But the commercial partnership presents a stark contrast: a politician who frames himself as a moral voice, profiting through a supply chain that terminates with the heir of a Nazi-era enterprise.
“It’s a largely forgotten piece of history, but in 1932 the German Nazi Party was facing financial ruin,” wrote Ciara Torres-Spelliscy is a Brennan Center fellow and professor of law at Stetson University College of Law. “The Nazi Party was bailed out by German industrialists in early 1933.”
The senator’s tour, which includes sold-out events from Newark to San Francisco, promotes a message of unity and foundational virtues. His political record, however, reveals a different narrative, one of notable absences and diminished influence during a period of profound national division.
Since his appointment to the Senate in 2013, Booker has missed 9.3% of roll call votes, a rate more than triple the current Senate median. His missed vote rate peaked during his 2020 presidential campaign, when he led the field of contenders as the most absent.
He currently is a part of Chuck Schumer’s leadership team, chairing the Senate Democratic Strategic Communications Committee, which exists “to formulate and advance their agenda through the use of modern communications platforms and techniques.”
Booker challenger Lisa McCormick has said she would have fired Schumer after his first betrayal in March 2025, when “spineless Senate Democrats” capitulated to Trump Republicans in order to avoid a government shutdown that would have given the minority party members some leverage.
During Booker’s tenure, key Democratic legislative priorities have failed, Republicans have made drastic changes in the federal government, and several national conditions have worsened.
The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned constitutional abortion rights and weakened the Voting Rights Act. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have risen significantly. North Korea has advanced its nuclear weapons program.
Booker, a prodigious fundraiser, has raised nearly $100 million in campaign contributions throughout his career, with donors including numerous billionaires and political action committees.
Critics argue this financial embrace of the elite undermines his populist rhetoric.
“He gives speeches about ‘love’ and ‘justice’ on television,” said one New Jersey-based advocacy group leader who is critical of the senator, “while ignoring the justice of a living wage and an affordable New Jersey.”
The senator’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the provenance of his publisher or the contrast between his book’s message and his political record.
In “Stand,” Booker writes that the nation’s principles are “strategic keys to our survival.”
The book’s promotion through a tour and a major publishing house is a routine exercise in modern political brand-building. Yet the transaction lays bare a familiar paradox: the packaging of calls for renewal by a system that many voters feel has failed to renew anything but the fortunes of those within it.
McCormick said the book should have been entitiled, “Grandstanding,” because the politician has never done anything substantive while drawing as much attention as the Kardashians.
The question for voters, as the senator signs copies at his nationwide events, may be less about which ideals he chooses to highlight and more about what concrete results he claims to have won for them.