One of the most fascinating lessons served up by history is that movements and key individuals end up dying via the same rules they lived by.
Donald Trump’s fired-up opponents would do well to dwell on this right now. Many of the protesters at the weekend’s march, to paraphrase British Prime Minister Theresa May’s recent distinction, believe in equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. And yet it’s worth asking: what exactly will be the outcome of the weekend marches?
The fact that an estimated 2 million protesters marched in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago can’t—and shouldn’t—be ignored. It sent out a statement that only Trump’s most tone-deaf supporters won’t have heard. It probably made quite a few people who have lately been shaken by the world around them feel better and more empowered.
But in the long-term what is going to be happen? Protesters say the next steps will be more marches, potential lawsuits and telephone polls. There’s some kind of movement being formed around a “Tax Freedom Day” in which President Trump is pressured to release his tax returns.
So in other words, it’s business as usual except without Madonna making good on her inclination to blow up the center of government.
President Trump isn’t in the White House because liberals didn’t organize their operations effectively. He’s there because liberals didn’t advance the right ideas, something Joe Biden acknowledged over the weekend.
Despite the highly partisan nature of the political battlefield, many voters will be retaining an open mind about the Trump administration and will be uncomfortable about judgement being drawn 24 hours after he inauguration.
Our President lacks the patience to be a great poker player but the other side has just laid its cards on the table when the game has only just started.
Furthermore the decision to make pro-life women unwelcome to march reinforced the sense that this was a march by women of a certain disposition against Trump and his policies , not women driving for greater equality and against injustice.
The protest mirrored the election campaign. There was much in the way of abuse and anger, little in the way of highlighting Trump’s policies beyond conventional positions of support for reproductive rights and female approval.
Many of the placards were offensive and crude typified by the image of small girl wielding a slogan at a New York subway station reading: “F**k your fascist bullshit.” So much for Michelle Obama’s cherished recent liberal mantra “When they go low, we go high”!
The nadir was when actress Ashley Judd read out a poem in which Trump was described as someone who “looks like he bathes in Cheeto dust”. They think Trump is out to get them!
The takeaways from the march were that Scarlett Johansson had a hard time growing up and Hillary Clinton still hasn’t got tired of parroting her “Stronger Together” slogan even though that didn’t work out so well last year.
Who knows? There might still be tangible gains arising from the weekend. An aspiring movie producer could have slipped Jessica Chastain a knockout movie script during the march which may win her an Oscar. But it would appear that resistance took a backseat to bitter recrimination.
Meantime for all the marching, key questions remain unanswered. Where are the bold new ideas from the left to win back middle America? Who is at the vanguard of the next generation of future Democrat leaders?
In that sense, a bunch of old male Democrat power broker dudes planning the party’s future in a smoke-filled room in the basement of a Beltway hotel would probably have achieved more clarity about the future of the left than the anti-Trump protesters, as numerically impressive as they were.
The weekend spectacle also diverted attention away from an unhinged press conference from White House press secretary Sean Spicer and a CIA briefing that veered off course in true Trump style. Jamie Lee Curtis marched during the weekend (of course she did!) but I’m reminded of the 1985 movie Perfect in which she starred alongside John Travolta. Playing sleazy journalist Adam Lawrence, Travolta said, “It’s not the truth I’m worried about, it’s the tone.”
By assuming an attitude of aggressive hostility—not to mention potentially radicalizing a generation of young kids—the left just squandered political capital with people who didn’t march but still have the vote.
And for all the pseudo-solidarity going on during the marches, let’s not forget the left is turning on itself. Look at the hits meted out to Nicole Kidman and Zoe Saldana merely for expressing abstract support for an incoming President and questioning the wisdom of celebrity political interventions.
Symone Sanders, former National Press Secretary to Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, said last week, “We don’t need white people leading the Democratic Party right now” reinforcing the sense that mutiny is brewing on this ship of fools. Gotham actress Erin Richards was even given a hard time for merely following Trump on Twitter.
As with much of what passes for liberal thought these days, an aura of smug narcissism surrounded the protests. So many of the social media postings were variations of “We must have broken barriers for equality—my d***head brother showed up” or “You’ll never guess which old friend I met along the way!”
It should also be noted that not every prominent feminist showed up to protest. To the best of my knowledge, New York-based feminist historian Amanda Foreman whose brilliant Netflix documentary The Ascent of Women highlighted the point protesters were making in a far more reasoned and constructive fashion, didn’t march.
I’m with her.
The marches in Washington and elsewhere were passionate but predictable protests that spoke to the present but not the future. As with so many initiatives launched by the left these days, they were well-intentioned but ultimately counter-productive.
The protests perpetuated the identity politics that decided the outcome of the election. They didn’t effectively shine a light on the deficiencies of Donald Trump
Hundreds of thousands of people remain in denial about this and whether or not you happen to possess a pussy, it’s not ultimately worth your while to join their ranks.
