Embrace all Americans
ON FRIDAY, the National Mall filled with thousands of Americans cheering the inauguration of a president. On Saturday, it was even fuller as thousands protested the same man and what they fear his presidency will bring.
The Women’s March on Washington was a demonstration of a scale that would have been remarkable on any day. That it took place the day after President Trump’s inauguration, that it dwarfed the size of the celebration, and that similar throngs gathered in other cities across the country, underscored how divided the nation still is.
This is a reflection in part on Trump himself. During the transition, he chose not to reassure and heal. And as president, he continues to brag about his popularity.
The message has been less that of a “president for all Americans” than the us-versus-them mockery conveyed by Michael Flynn jr, son of Trump’s national security adviser.
“What more do you want?” he asked of participants in the Women’s March. The protesters wanted a whole host of things: reproductive rights, equal pay, affordable health care and action on climate change.
The overwhelming numbers of optimistic, determined marchers in Washington and Boston, Chicago and Atlanta, even London and Berlin, don’t prove on their own that Trump speaks only for a minority of Americans.
They do not change the results of an election.
But 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
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.
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 Saturday played theirs.
– Washington Post