As gloomy of a day as Jan. 20 was, Jan. 21 was its polar opposite.
An estimated 3.5-million people around the globe took to the streets to demonstrate support for equality — whether it was women’s rights, racial justice, LGBT rights, immigration rights, environmental rights or rights of the disabled, the nation and our allies around the world joined forces to send a message to Donald Trump and his administration. The biggest takeaway for our new president seemed to be the dazzling size of the Women’s March protests, which dramatically dwarfed his own inauguration. Immediately Trump’s team went on the defensive to shift the narrative and the visuals away from the immensely powerful photos from Saturday’s marches.
Trump has shown time and time again that he has a petulant-child obsession with being the biggest and best. Last weekend, he very clearly was not, and that appeared to shake him.
While the schadenfraude of the moment alone may be worth it for activists, the depth and breadth of the marches also sent a message to other power brokers in Washington. While he may be preoccupied by the size of the resistance because of his own ego, despite what he might think, Trump is not running this country alone — and it’s imperative that the entirety of the Trump administration and any allies it may amass understands just how many Americans are willing to fight back against oppression.
Within this resistance movement, the spirit that led so many women and their allies to the streets last week is not only the antidote many of us needed for the political culture in which we now find ourselves, but it was also a call to action. No longer can the communities who came together last week ignore one another’s causes. Countless Americans are at risk of being further marginalized by this administration, and giving the president and his supporters a pass to attack one community validates an attack on the next community and the next and so on.
We’re all in this together, so we all need to fight together — and for one another.