Analysis: Did Women’s March on Washington help or hurt their cause?
WASHINGTON — The Women’s March on Washington spread out across the nation’s capital Saturday, the day after Donald Trump took the oath of office to become president.
Other cities, from London to Las Vegas, hosted sister marches to “promote women’s equality and defend other marginalized groups,” and help the protest’s function of giving voice to activists’ rage at Trump’s victory.
Participants took heart in the widely held belief that the D.C. protest drew more attendees than the inauguration ceremony itself. The question is: In the grand scheme of things, what did the march achieve?
Many of the overwhelmingly female attendees wore pink cat-eared hats in reference to a crude remark Trump made years ago about grabbing women. Some carried signs to support abortion and LGBT rights, while others declared that Trump is not their president. (As if the election did not count.)
Hollywood supplied the event’s most memorable moments. Actress Ashley Judd recited a poem written by a 19-year-old Tennessean that compared Trump to Hitler and associated him with racism, homophobia, sexual assault, white supremacy and misogyny. That’s the sort of language that can appeal to progressives, but not independent voters.
Filmmaker Michael Moore urged attendees to “take over the Democratic Party.“
Madonna lobbed the F-word liberally as she confessed to having “thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.” Then she asked attendees to join her in a chant, “We choose love.”
Did Judd, Moore and Madonna help or hurt their cause? Their goal doesn’t seem to be persuading the American middle so much as energizing the base.
Maryland resident Gayle Bragg said she participated because “I think people are going to see that things really do matter.” Bragg described the protest as polite and wonderful.
The problem is, as observed by Mollie Hemingway, senior editor of The Federalist, “people can go to Twitter and see some pretty vile and vulgar signs.”
There were not enough speakers who showed an understanding that when activists embrace the “nasty” label, as Judd did, they look nasty to people who don’t liberally toss out terms like racist or misogynist.
Liberal CNN political commentator Van Jones provided needed relief. Calling himself “a private in the love army,” Jones told protesters, “I am tired of hearing us say, ‘Love trumps hate,’ but sometimes sound more hateful than Trump.” He suggested that the left stop putting down “red-state voters.”
“Just because somebody made a bad vote doesn’t make them a bad person,” Jones added, “and it’s not going to make us into bad people, either.”
Activists on the left and right too often give in to their anger in a way that does a disservice to their cause. Trump, after all, won the electoral college, yet marchers were calling for a “revolution” that doesn’t jibe with the notion of a peaceful transfer of power.
“Why do you do it?” I asked Medea Benjamin, a co-founder of Code Pink, who was escorted away after she loudly heckled Trump during his inaugural address.
“I like people to see that we will not be silent, no matter where they are,” Benjamin answered. She likes to show, “You can’t stop us.”
The Women’s March on Washington was her favorite. “It was pure love all day,” she said. I asked: Will it backfire? Her response: “I think it will make pro-Trump people really wonder if they are on the right side.” That’s what she believes.
Having watched the tea party, Hemingway cautioned, pundits ignore movements at their own peril.
Still, she noted, the marches took place in liberal cities “that supported Hillary Clinton by overwhelming margins.” That probably has something to do with the huge crowds.
As Washington dithers over the latest media chew toy — the size of the Trump inaugural crowd — she sees a silver lining. Now the news media will not be able to ignore the size of the March for Life rally on Jan. 27.
Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or at 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.
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