The new March on Washington
ON FRIDAY, the National Mall in Washington filled with thousands of Americans cheering the inauguration of a president. On Saturday, it filled even fuller, this time as thousands protested the same man.
The Women’s March on Washington so exceeded expectations that organisers cancelled and then rerouted the formal procession to the White House. The demonstration underscored how divided the nation still is.
Such division on election night might not have been surprising. That the rift remains as wide, and the feelings as raw, 10 weeks later is a reflection in part on the president himself. During the transition, he chose not to reassure and heal. Even as president, he continues to brag about his popularity and to gibe at his domestic “enemies”. The message has been less that of a “president for all Americans” than the us-versus-them mockery conveyed on Saturday morning by Michael Flynn Jr, son of Trump’s national security adviser, retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn. “What MORE do you want?” he asked of participants in the Women’s March. “Free mani/pedis?”
Judging by our on-scene reporting, we would tell Flynn that the goals of the marchers were considerably weightier than that. The protesters wanted a whole host of things reproductive rights, equal pay, affordable health care, action on climate change. Their demands did not always match up, but the marchers had this in common: Whatever they cared about most, they had travelled to the nation’s capi- tal to do something about it.
The overwhelming numbers of optimistic, determined marchers in Washington and Boston, Chicago and Atlanta, even London and Berlin – they don’t prove, on their own, that Trump speaks only for a minority of Americans. Certainly they do not change the results of an election that put Republicans in charge of Congress and the White House. But just as certainly, the massive protests throw cold water on Trump’s inaugural address claim to be the one and only avatar of the American people.
The right response to this reality would be for Trump to embrace these Americans, too, as his constituents, not his enemies, and begin working today to make progress for all Americans. Across the country, after all, there are millions more Americans who are neither rabid Trump supporters nor rabid Trump opponents, but moderate-minded citizens who would like to see Republicans and Democrats working together on health care, climate change and other areas of concern.
OK, we know: every good wish. For now, then, maybe the best response to these extraordinary two days is to celebrate an engaged citizenry. Just as the men and women who made their voices heard in support of the new president on Friday played an important part in American politics, so the women and men who answered on Saturday played theirs. The events showed the nation’s division. But they also showed millions of Americans refusing to give up on their democracy.