The first mass protests of President Donald Trump represent a historic moment – one worth reflecting on so we can understand where we are and where we’re going as a nation. I traveled to Washington D.C. this weekend to take part in the Women’s March on Washington. The inauguration protests across the country provide an opportunity to analyze what is positive about the emerging anti-Trump movement, while also identifying weaknesses that must be addressed in the future. Speaking in general terms, the largest strength of this mass movement is its diversity, as related to gender, race and ethnicity, age, and economics. Such diversity is necessary for any meaningful bottom-up push for social change. If there is one glaring weakness coming out of these protests, it is the underdeveloped sense of economic grievance, in terms of the failure to spotlight the neoliberal, bi-partisan injustices that have emerged in recent decades.
First, the basic details. In terms of turnout, the DC metro service estimates that approximately 600,000 people attended the protest events on Saturday, January 21 on the national mall. This number likely under-estimates the turnout, since it doesn’t include the more than 1,200 buses that made it to DC, in addition to DC residents near the downtown who participated, and those already in the downtown, housed in hotels and other accommodations, who did not use of the train. A more realistic estimate would perhaps be between 700,000 to 800,000…