Today's Women's March was quite a sight to behold. Crowds that dwarfed the Trump inauguration and replicated in cities around the world, it seemed that the marchers meant business. It was a real feel-good moment for free expression and offers many the hope for redress from the coming onslaught against our civil rights from the new administration. Maybe there's a glimmer of hope?
I wouldn't bet on it, not yet anyway. The fact is, for the past thirty-five, years, women's rights (and civil rights) have been under constant attack from several Conservative Republican administrations and progressive actions have been continually thwarted by a Radical Conservative Supreme Court.
That it has taken the election of the buffoon Trump to finally, at long last, galvanize the populace to rise up with an impressive, but still only one-day, demonstration against the prospect of the coming Trump program, doesn't prove in the least that this protest has legs.
The election was just ten weeks ago, and this country couldn't find the political will to reject Trump? Today's marches were wonderful symbols of resistance, but still, only symbols. Where were women and minorities, Democrats and union members in the key states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan when the chips were down and the future of American Democracy was at stake?
Where was the massive outrage during the misbegotten days of the Bush administration? Asleep at the wheel on 9/11, George Bush was voted in a second time. Unending wars against the wrong assailants? A fiscal policy that nearly destroyed the financial system was what it took to vote against the Republicans McCain and Palin?
We all know that the flyover country, Trump's base in Middle America doesn't often attract the attention of the cosmopolitans on the coasts. Why middle America constantly votes against their own self-interest is vexing and fatal.
It all began with Reagan, and continued through two Bushes and now Trump. It's not like nobody knew what their plans were, or what sort of a man Trump is. Ignorance and apathy are as American as apple pie. The election was November 8, 2016. The mega protest of January 21, 2017 seems like it's just a wee bit too late.
I have to say, the hats were cute, and the signs were very clever. Voting the right way last November would have been much easier.
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