The American majority speaks. Tens of millions of Americans braved all manner of weather to let the world know what it thinks of the change of American government. Millions more around the world joined voices with the Women's Marches.
There were many cities drawing more than that SLO's total population, but every voice counts. 7,500 registered for the San Luis Obispo March, crowd estimates put the number at 10,000 people-huge for a city of 46,000.
read the signs
the vocal majority is being heard
We marched for our daughters and our grand daughter on her first birthday.
On this day the American Majority drowned out the Trump fringe and minority. But the messages heard from LA to Washington, Seattle to Miami were echoed around the world.
Photo from the New York Times
This kind of "greeting" of a change of American government is without precedent. One presumes those reading these signs include Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.
Those old lyrics come to mind-
Come gather around people
wherever you roam
and admit that the waters
around you have grown
accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
And if your breath to you is worth saving
then you better start swimming or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changing.
It appears the majority of Americans will insist on it.
Great pictures, and I loved the reactions around the country, but I'm left wondering where all this was in the months and weeks before the election, and on election day.
ReplyDeleteI was interested to hear Trump today deny that the crowds at Obama's inauguration and today's women's march were larger than his crowd. He called the press liars, and said they'd falsified the pictures.
Our new reality is a 'president' who does not know what the word truth means.
"...where all this was in the months and weeks before the election, an on election day."
DeleteExactly.
too many people under estimated trump-but he is such a first class jerk and reprobate no one, including himself, thought he would win. can't make that mistake again, but I can't help but think once those of his most needy and sad supporters understand who he really is and evaluate people like minuchin and ross, who may have foreclosed on their homes, they'll drop trump.
DeleteA great vision of democracy in action. We have the right to have free speech and to protest and that's one of the things that makes me proud to be an American. Thank you for sharing the movement, up close and personal. Great pictures Tom.
ReplyDeleteA lot of spirit and a lot of patriotism on display. thanks Angela.
DeleteThank you Tom. And thank you to you, Lana, Catherine, for marching for the integrity of our country, the rights of all people and the support of the values of our humankind. We were in LA where the count was 750,000. Me, too, with my daughter and my grandsons and, of course, my husband. Many of our women of Women Like Us Foundation marched along with us. Together...helping women change the world.
ReplyDeleteLinda-
DeleteWe are proud of what good you are doing with the Women Like Us Foundation. I was amazed at seeing the size of the LA march. There is something very special in marching with your family.
Oh TC .... the conflation of grievance here is astounding. Listening to speeches yesterday -- including Madonna's reference to blowing up the White House, which I dare say you would be updsidedown about (as would I) had it been uttered 8 years ago by some skinhead -- I am struck only by the level of confusion. The ideas expressed in sign and from the stage were mostly aimed at self-righteous religious conservatives. That ain't Donald Trump. His political life for 20+ years has been harmonic with the ideology I heard expressed yesterday. Total airball, so much so that it only helps Trump as the left defines itself into a smaller and smaller political corner.
ReplyDeleteThose of us "establishment" Republicans -- with political activist wives, not surgery altered Playboy trophies -- stand firm against Trump and align ourselves with the two links below. Gerson's ref to the Game of Thrones Red Wedding is wickedly perfect. And Will's characterization of Trump as a Gatsby-for-our-time is delicious. This too shall pass. But the contrived angst of yesterday's "revolutionary" cadres is easily one of the most ill-aimed, even bizarre, demonstrations I have ever seen. Love ya, ML
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-funeral-oration-at-the-death-of-reaganism/2017/01/21/4fc8bef6-dffb-11e6-918c-99ede3c8cafa_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/01/20/a-most-dreadful-inaugural-address/?tid=pm_opinions_pop&utm_term=.270abe4d73c9
Mark-thanks for your eloquence. What is important about the Women's Marches is the volume of those participating and its diversity of attitude. Several strands of political thought marched together. They came with multiple agendas and grievances. It was not all about Trump, though he is a common enemy.
DeleteWhere I stood and listened the over arching expression was equality, women's privacy and health. The villains here include those who would participate in schemes and policies that that affects availability of health services and those who behave in misogynistic or predatory ways. That would certainly include the "predator in chief." Congressmen have discussed ideas and legislation offensive to women. They were saying so.
If you are putting credibility in the utterances of Madonna I am sorry for you. I think what we witnessed is a loud voice of aggrieved and concerned women. This was first and last a women's march. To fail to understand the historical context and import is to be as insensitive to the shifting political powerscape as were the Republicans and Democrats. Trump shepherded voters who the parties and pollsters missed. The predator in chief after years of bottom feeding mass media and tabloid trash saw those "ignored" and he swindled them into believing he was real and could do something. Two of his cabinet appointments in particular and his bevy of goldman sachs alumni should tell those "ignored" that people who screwed them-financial operators-were now going to help them and make America great.
How will Republican leadership adapt to Trump? Is he the new heart, soul and intellect of the Republican Party?
Yea there may have been a bit of that in the sentiment of the march, but who the hell knows how the vulgarian will affect a lot of things.
It was the first time I marched, though I've covered marches and demonstrations since I masked against tear gas. From where you stood in the 60's it may have been contrived angst--but to black citizens who did protests and marches and to those opposed to the morality, wrongness and politics of the Viet Nam war it was not contrived and it was more than angst. Laws were written and a bad war was ended and if you define that as revolutionary, then so be it.
As I walked between my wife and my youngest daughter I thought also about my eldest and my grand daughter. I want nothing less than full liberty, freedom and dignity for them. There is an attitude and consciousness about feminist ethos that struggles still to be understood. As it is difficult to winnow out the effects of racial and ethnic history, so it is with sex and gender. BTW, Black Americans, Muslim Americans, LGBTQ Americans, Native Americans and Mexican Americans also expressed their concerns with the new president and his majority party.
In his 20 plus years in politics I have not heard the vulgarian being "harmonic" with any of the issues expressed and demonstrated in the Women's marches.
Don't miss the point of the March and the integrity of many voices and hot button causes. Could a movement or a political drive evolve? Who knows.
We live in an age of disruption and dysfunction?
What do you Establishment Republicans have? What kind of game are you coming with?
A final thought. The LA march was huge. Our march was around 10 thousand in a city of under 50K. San Luis Obispo Police Chief Deanna Cantrell was eloquent in her support of the Women's March and the voices for rights, equality and dignity.
You say all of this was ill aimed. To whom should it have been pointed?
I have two daughters and two granddaughters. I'm with them every step of the way.
ReplyDeleteThe marches and the millions marching have driven Trump crazy..crazier than he is. Spicer's whining yesterday was just the beginning of the unraveling and it happened on day two. There is no alternate reality, no alternate facts. The march was just the beginning.
I wouldn't be surprised if Spicer doesn't last long. He will not be able to please his boss, plus he's already behaved like an angry intern-a lot of steam when he has no sense of the rules of the game. Way over his head. Plus he cut his own throat on credibility. The Carnage the vulgarian spoke of is his legacy. This group needs to run out.
DeleteTC, thanks for the pics. I am troubled at this moment is an understatement. We have an idiot in the White House who is an embarrassment to this great nation. This fool is more concerned about the number or people who showed up for his inauguration vs. Obama's and promoting fake news. How sad. Only sadder followed by his puppet Pence. Indianapolis Monthly this month had a real take down article on Mike Pence and his poor leadership while Governor of Indiana concerning women's rights, education, rising drug abuse and McBride rights. Joe C.
ReplyDeleteLgbt rights.
ReplyDeleteJoe, he is a sick and pathetic narcissist who lies and cheats. We can not expect decency from him though it is our cultural tradition to expect a person to "grow into the office." That is highly unlikely! It is all about him and I can only hope the good American conscience will run him out. He is the monster in the castle. It is a cruel hoax on history that sanctimonious Pence, on his way of to be rejected by Hoosier voters, gets tapped by the most unfit and least qualified idiot to occupy the White House. It is also worrisome that while only a minority of voters that still so many million actually voted for the jerk.
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