The Women's Marches maybe the largest in US history

http://www.vox.com/2017/1/22/14350808/womens-marches-largest-demonstration-us-history-map

by BDGC • 10 years ago

48 55 10 years ago

This is truly unprecedented. For perspective, the largest march on DC during the Vietnam War was 500,000. Adjusted for population, that would be 784,411 people.

Estimated crowd in DC on Saturday was 1.2 million. Nationwide, it was 3 million. Just one of the six Los Angeles area protests had 750,000 people.

Even Witchita, Kansas had thousands.

I've never seen anything like this, and it's just the beginning.

Mao_Zedang11• 10 years ago

Honestly I am going to say its the end not the beginning, in four years, Trump will run again and maybe we will see another tantrum protest but at least for the next four years do not expect any great resistance or movement, the time for that is over.

revx• 10 years ago

I think this time, there's enough of a threat to general persons' livelihoods (repeal of ACA, threat of international embarrassment or incident, etc) that we will start to see organized resistance. But only time will tell...

antidaily• 10 years ago

Thanks for being honest.

hackuser7• 10 years ago

the time for that is over

That's a talking point of Trump supporters, but a moment's thought shows that it's not remotely true. It seems to assume that people only participate in democracy by voting and then politicians rule on their own recognizance during their terms, almost as if voters were electing kings/queens.

In a democracy, politicians are responsive to voters' desires 365 days/year; you can call them, write them, meet with them, protest them, and if you pay any attention to democratic politics, you know it has a serious effect (along with passively collected information such as survey results).

Second, protesting government is a major part of democracy. The March on Washington led by Martin Luther King had nothing to do with an election. The U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights protects it, saying "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

I don't remember the Republicans having the same attitude at all about Obama; they resisted all the time in every way possible, setting records in Congress for obstructionism, buying guns, etc. Vladimir Putin seemed to start this talking point; perhaps it's true for him, but he knows little about democratic government.

losteric2• 10 years ago

nice username.

I don't think it's the end. People were inspired yesterday, the crowds realized they have the numbers and the passion to fight back. People were taking action, finding their local organizations, learning how to inform their representatives, and even planning the next protests already.

We're going to see more and more of this.

We will also see more "Alternative Facts" and PR campaigns from the White House, closely following Dugin's handbook (dismiss, distract, distort, and dismay).

dragonwriter4• 10 years ago

but at least for the next four years do not expect any great resistance or movement, the time for that is over.

Its certainly difficult to mobilize a mass political movement in the US without an imminent election and outside of the immediate aftermath of one, but the great and influential movements all were movements that managed to do that.

The time for a movement is not over. Whether it will hold together or not is, certainly, a thing about which there can be legitimate differences of opinion, but the signs I see suggest that there is something there.

chuckit• 10 years ago

What a shame they're not coming out in those sorts of numbers to protest the wars going on all over the world, drone killings, mass surveillance and so on.

michaelchisari12• 10 years ago

Start organizing! There's a lot of momentum right now, and I'm sure you could get a lot of people on board.

ci5er• 10 years ago

I've never seen anything like this, and it's just the beginning.

Beginning of what? What do they want? I couldn't really distill a pattern in my mind from the signs I saw in Austin. There were marches world-wide, so I'm guessing it's more than "We hate Trump".

tsomctl• 10 years ago

Earth Day 1970 was the largest protest across the whole world, at 20 million. (http://www.earthday.org/about/the-history-of-earth-day/) I can't find how many protested in Earth Day 1970 just in the US.

This one will definitely be in the history books, though.

ufo• 10 years ago

The thing that is really confusing for me is how Trump managed to get elected despite all this opposition to him.

xenadu02• 10 years ago

The tl;dr is voter apathy in key midwest states. IIRC Trump underperformed but Clinton underperformed even more. It is difficult to say with certainty but the FBI letter probably cost her the election by slightly depressing turnout.

It also looks like the Republican effort to disenfranchise people by reducing early voting, voting hours, closing polling stations, enacting voter ID laws, purging voter rolls, etc has worked in the sense that it slightly reduced Dem turnout which was enough in this election. Their efforts to steal elections by gerrymandering themselves into power has also given them outsized control of the House and various state governments.

It is really embarrassing that the majority of the country votes D and the Rs have control over the government. It's pure subversion of democracy.

Russia certainly tried to influence the election but if it had been Obama running (or anyone charismatic) instead of Clinton it wouldn't have mattered; Trump would have lost by a huge EC margin.

I'm far more worried about the long-term damage to the country now that the FBI has once again become an open political weapon, and that Rs are unapologetically disenfranchising people in an attempt to maintain power permanently.

LyndsySimon3• 10 years ago

Russia certainly tried to influence the election but if it had been Obama running (or anyone charismatic) instead of Clinton it wouldn't have mattered; Trump would have lost by a huge EC margin.

While I don't agree with a great deal of the rest of your assertions, this stands out to me as the important one. If the Democrats had run almost anyone other than Hillary Clinton, they would have likely won.

They ran Hillary Clinton.

hackuser7• 10 years ago

the FBI letter probably cost her the election by slightly depressing turnout.

Of course it's hard to point to one factor in such a complex, real world situation, But look at a chart of Clinton's poll numbers; she was comfortably ahead, and as soon as Comey's letter came out, her number dropped like a rock and never recovered.

It is really embarrassing that the majority of the country votes D and the Rs have control over the government.

Note that the Democrats have won the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 national elections. Other than George W Bush's second election in 2004, the GOP hasn't won a nationwide majority since 1988.

LyndsySimon3• 10 years ago

Because 3 million women motivated enough to protest doesn't outweigh 30 million women motivated enough to vote.

The fact of the matter is Trump's support base is broader than his opposition - at least, in the states where it matters.

hackuser7• 10 years ago

In this case, it bears repeating that Trump lost the overall vote, and lost women's votes 54-41%.

The country is a democracy, not an elected dictatorship. Voters and their desires don't disappear the day after the election. Republicans took resistance of Obama's presidency to record levels; only their propagandists can say with a straight face that those who oppose Trump should be quiet for the next four years.

dragonwriter4• 10 years ago

The fact of the matter is Trump's support base is broader than his opposition

No, its not.

at least, in the states where it matters.

Even there it likely isn't now -- even if it was in the most trivial sense on election day -- given the degree to which his support has fallen since then.

Mao_Zedang11• 10 years ago

He won more electoral votes than Hillary.

nommm-nommm• 10 years ago

The Dems shot themselves in the foot by running Clinton.

aplomb2• 10 years ago

Well so long as Soros keeps footing the bill in the shadows for all these "grassroots" organizations...

michaelchisari12• 10 years ago

Just how much per head do you think Soros paid for the largest protests in modern American history?

aplomb2• 10 years ago

Slightly more than pocket change

kiliancs• 10 years ago

I was curious and checked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_peaceful_gathe.... It includes all gatherings of people, not just marches or demonstrations.

I was impressed by the numbers of some of the top gatherings. The shared record is for two religious events at ~30 million people in India and Iraq.

The Women's Marches maybe the largest in US history

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