The Women's March Rebranded and Reorganized. Now They're Ready for 2025

[marmar]

(Time) When activist and organizer Raquel Willis spoke at the inaugural Women’s March on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2017, the organization was very different.

At that time, Willis was a burgeoning leader in social justice and activism, and she says the conversation around trans experiences was limited. “It was a time where there was more visibility than ever before, more trans folks engaged in social justice movement than ever before,” Willis says. “And yet there was a tension between, particularly cis women and trans women, but also women of other experiences too.”

....(snip)....

Now nearly eight years later, Willis and the Women’s March organizers say the group has evolved, absorbed past criticism, and is dedicated to including more voices as they prepare for Trump’s second term.

To wit, the protest planned for the weekend of Trump’s second inauguration isn’t being called another “Women’s March,” but rather the “People’s March.” The march, scheduled for January 18th, is an attempt to bring all people who are fearful of a second Trump Administration, including some women, LGBTQ+ people, and immigrants, under the same umbrella. .................(more)

https://time.com/7203169/womens-march-donald-trump-protest-change/

[JI7]

3. It's useless. What is important is voting in elections

[JI7]

6. The way to show support is by voting during election time

[JI7]

8. I do what will help and the protests aren't helping

and actually hurting.

[lapucelle]

45. Where did they go?

[JMCKUSICK]

13. 3 reasons to protest

1. Reinvigorate our party from the ground up. We have two years to determine what regular America is talking about in '26.(Things that matter, poverty, sorry lack of services all over Rural America etc...)
2. Demand representation that matches the party, not the party leaders, and dictate its voice. (Protest is one method)
3. (Most Important) Get out from our computer screens and start connecting. Imagine what we can do together
if we work together. Our passions deserve names and supporters names deserve recognition and our goals deserve Public Exposure Locally!

[JustAnotherGen]

39. Did this in 2017

Did this work for 7 years. So glad you are leading on this!

If you want any tips or advice reach out!

[lapucelle]

44. "Demand representation that matches the party, not the party leaders, and dictate its voice."

What does that even mean?

The Democratic Party's policy goals are articulated in our platform. Exactly which part of our "voice" would you prefer to dictate?

2024 Democratic Party Platform

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2024-democratic-party-platform

[JMCKUSICK]

47. This might take a couple of responses and

Please know I'm not a strategist. I'm a simple voter with a GED and a little college.
There's a big difference in my eyes, between a 92 page document that outlines everything the party stands for and reads more like a promotional prospectus than what a lot of us face in real life.
It mentions working families and lowering costs, what it doesn't address at all is how many working families are in fact in poverty because all the things our party stands for hardly address the real life pain that many families feel.
It's one thing to celebrate incremental steps towards any given goal, it's a whole other thing to ask me to enthusiastically jump for joy when it's the poor whose needs are the greatest that get left on the cutting room floor during final negotiations on this bill. Or how about all the goals for immigration that we've been talking about since Clinton was President, and yet, DACA recipients are just as afraid of the fragility of their status today as they were eight years ago.
I am a Democrat through and through. I want a party that is fighting for the little guy, somehow that means people earning less than $400,000 per year.
I stated in an earlier post that no one in the Democratic Party in Illinois has reached out to any Democrats that I know here in Fayette County IL.
The problem with bad messaging is that we've been discussing all of our major issues on the Republican parties terms for 40 years now.
When was the last time Democratic messaging controlled the water cooler conversation?
Even here, in a place as supportive and issues driven as DU is, the insensitivity on display towards the poor or health challenged can be stunning.
We need to simplify our messaging to focus on three or four primary issues and learn to bring everything back to them again and again and again.
Very few mothers or fathers are sitting at home tonight hoping they will have the time to read those 92 pages and where exactly it speaks to them. If that's where I'm supposed to find how the party represents me, we have a HUGE problem.

Please let this be seen as part of a conversation, not a condemnation. I think we have to start really looking at who we want to be and share that with one another.

[paleotn]

17. Both perhaps?

I can chew gum and walk at the same time.

[LeftInTX]

15. It costs $$$$

You need permits and people need to travel. Protesters also have jobs. Effective protests utilize the media. An unsuccessful protest is one that fails to attract the media. Anyway, every few days is not feasible. However every few months is workable.

However, don't ask me to organize it!
Also my response to requests: "Will you organize it?"

[LeftInTX]

27. You are welcome to organize it yourself!!

Roll your sleeves up! You can do it!

[LeftInTX]

30. I'm a full time volunteer. I'm not a millionaire.

This is the second time in this thread, you told me to organize mass protests every few days. I don't take orders from people over the internet.

[lapucelle]

46. Maybe third party voters and the Abandon Harris folks can organize it.

[JI7]

2. These protests are not helping and becoming a problem

it's easy for people to infiltrate and cause problems. Then you have people that just want to go becsuse of the crowds and cause trouble. When opposition groups show up it causes problems.

The whole thing is pointless. Just go fucking vote during election time. I would bet a good number oud these people that attend these events don't vote or complain that both candidates are bad.

[JI7]

11. No, many people did not vote or they voted for Trump

[Wiz Imp]

10. What protests are those?

I can't even think of any significant large scale wide spread protest in this country in several years.

[LeftInTX]

16. Women's March in DC

[paleotn]

20. Yes. We have such short memories.

[Wiz Imp]

24. I don't think that's what the person I was responding to was referring to.

The "march" in 2017 was massive, and a follow-up one in 2018 was pretty big, but any such protests since then have not been very big (I'm finding estimates of 10000 at most) and they weren't wide spread. The person said "These protests are not helping and becoming a problem". Becoming a problem makes it sound like there have been many significant protests they are referring to which happened recently, but I'm not aware of any. There was a women's march in DC just before the election but it attracted a small crowd and I see no evidence it created any problems.

[paleotn]

19. 2017 women's march caused "problems"? Really.

And how do you know "a good number of these people" didn't vote? Where'd that data come from?

[lapucelle]

43. It did indeed cause problems right from the get go.

Hillary Clinton’s Omission from Women’s March on Washington’s Honoree List Draws Ire

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/hillary-clinton-omission-women-march-124718561.html

Why is the creator of the Women’s March on Washington blacklisting Hillary Clinton’s name?

The Women’s March on Washington is set to take place on Saturday, with tens of thousands of women and men turning out to march in solidarity in protest of Donald Trump’s illegitimate election and inauguration. The event should be all inclusive and highly influential, considering the media coverage it’s likely to get. But a controversy has exploded in which the creator of the march listed dozens of women as honorees, but made a point of leaving off Hillary Clinton.

The backlash against the Women’s March creator, Linda Sarsour, who has offered up one bizarre excuse after another in various social media posts and comments for omitting Clinton’s name. But the bottom line appears to be that she simply hates Hillary Clinton because she’s a die hard Bernie Sanders fanatic, and she’s looking for one more opportunity to rub Hillary’s nose in it. This has caused backlash from Hillary supporters and Bernie supporters alike, who view Sarsour’s petty symbolic move as a needless distraction at a time when all who stand against Donald Trump are attempting to come together.

https://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/creator-womens-march-washington-blacklisting-hillary-clinton/1013/

https://x.com/hashtag/AddHerName?src=hashtag_click

===========================================


And then, of course, there is the Linda Sarsour problem...

Link to tweet

[Jose Garcia]

14. Hopefully they can out the Antisemites this time

[JustAnotherGen]

26. Whatever happened

To Linda Sarsour anyways?

[lapucelle]

31. She was recently full of praise for Donald Trump's outreach to the Muslim-American community

on Theocracy Now!

Linda Sarsour: Harris’s Embrace of Pro-Israel Policies at Odds with Democratic Base

Again, Donald Trump engaged in outreach in the Muslim American community. He went and visited mosques. He met with religious leaders. He had billboards all across Dearborn that were multilingual, in the language — in Arabic languages, in Bangla, in Urdu. And whether or not people agree with Donald Trump or whether or not — and you know me, Amy. I’m having déjà vu of 2016. I was a frontline organizer when Donald Trump was president, so I’m not looking forward to the next four years. But the Trump campaign did the outreach. They filled in a gap that was left by the Democratic Party.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

In other words, it's the same old toxic bullshit.

Can You Be a Zionist Feminist? Linda Sarsour Says No
The prominent Palestinian-American feminist responds to claims that anti-Zionism has no place in the feminist movement.
March 13, 2017

https://archive.ph/ILO6k#selection-1165.0-1195.15

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[LeftInTX]

32. Theocracy Now? More like Hypocrisy Now!

[lapucelle]

34. How right you are.

They do, however, have an affinity for right wing authoritarian theocracies.

[JustAnotherGen]

40. Anything

Affiliated with her - I'm not going to engage. I don't do anti Semitic anything.

[lapucelle]

28. Sarsour and Perez still appear to be affiliated with the Women's March Foundation.

And while HRC remains invisible to the group, its members are still comfortably entitled enough to coopt her words without attribution.

Hard pass.

https://www.womensmarchfoundation.org/about-wmf

[JI7]

36. When I read this I already felt like whatever takes place

will be about Israel/ Palestine.

Like those anti Iraq war rallies which were just dominated by anti Israel crap.

[lapucelle]

37. It wouldn't be the first time that a rally was coopted by bad actors.

It was happening even before October 7.

Remember when the DC branch of the Sunrise Movement refused to speak at a voting rights rally because Jewish groups were also participating? They called for the Jewish groups to be "ejected".

National climate, voting rights groups try to keep movements unified after dispute about Israel
October 21, 2021

Leaders of two national liberal groups — one focused on climate, the other on voting rights — on Thursday issued statements aimed at trying to keep their diverse movements unified after a controversy erupted related to Israel and accusations of antisemitism.

It centered on a voting rights rally scheduled for late Saturday morning near the U.S. Capitol.

On Wednesday, the D.C. branch of Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate organization, issued a statement saying it was declining a speaking spot at the Freedom To Vote rally due to the presence of three Jewish groups that “are in alignment with and in support of Zionism and the State of Israel.” The three groups include the policy arm of Reform Judaism, the largest denomination of Jews, and the National Council of Jewish Women, another prominent progressive Jewish advocacy group.

Sunrise DC also asked in its statement for organizers of the Saturday rally to eject the three Jewish groups from their coalition.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/10/21/voting-rights-climate-declaration-for-american-democracy-antisemitism-israel-sunrise-progressive/

[JustAnotherGen]

41. Exactly

They are saying one thing - but it will NOT be about the American people. They are not for us.

[Codifer]

22. In 2017

I was horribly depressed after the absurd turn of the election of such an incompetent shithead. With my wife I attended the march in my states capitol and it brought a tear to my eye as well as sparking a bit of hope and a devout defiance. So many others were there doing same.

Pardon the language, but if you doubters are plexed about attending such functions please just put aside your hopeless shit and do it for a fucking old man. Let him smile again.

Thank you.

[JustAnotherGen]

25. Black womem

Are letting the white folks lead on a go forward basis. Until I see the level of danger of the Civil Rights movement -

Its just a feel good thing.

Democracy and freedom weren't enough in November.

We are dead center in the fascists crosshairs. Amerikkka hates black women. They HATE us. Not you - you are an American. We have to shore up our families and community.

Some of us might be the lucky ones.

[JustAnotherGen]

23. This is at best: Performative

It would mean something if they did it on MLK Day - got loud, incurred the wrath of the men with dogs and guns.

The 92% won't be there. Our parents and grandparents did things like Integrate schools, March under duress on the Edmund Pettis bridge, hurt their finances and caused themselves discomfort on the bus boycott . . . I could go on and on. If there's no danger and you ask for permission -

What good is it?

Are they wearing their little blue bracelets?

[lapucelle]

38. It was performative the first time around as well.

- Hillary Clinton was blacklisted and erased

- Michael Moore got a speaking slot to mansplane what we women were all doing wrong

- everyone bought and wore the merch, a cute pink pussy hat

- and the three anti-Semites who co-opted the march and trademarked its name went on the media circuit to signal their virtue and further their careers, the odious Linda Sarsour among them.

[BannonsLiver]

33. A classic "let's not but say we did" moment.

[snot]

42. What about a convention to identify a limited set of issues to work on together,

make realistic plans for making the changes happen including interim goals and timelines, and actually assign tasks & exhange contact info among those who will work together?

I feel this could get just as much publicity and be just as energizing as a march, just as much or more fun and social in terms of forming working connections for going forward, and perhaps be more likely to yield particular, concrete successes.

Nothing against marches and protests, especially around causes that most people aren't even aware of; but at this point I think most people have at least some awareness of a lot of the issues that might be raised by a Women's March, and I think a lot of us feel that what we need is a realistic plan of action. We need to copy ALEC, and write draft model legislation, interview candidates about our issues prior to elections and get those questions into public debates, send delegations to representatives' offices, etc. etc.

It's fine to protest against things; it's better to also offer something specific and concrete to replace it with.

You can’t counter institutional power with good intentions, or charisma alone…. You have to build your own institutional power.

– Mike Gecan, recorded by Studs Terkel, Hope Dies Last: keeping the Faith in Troubled Times, p. 238 (The New Press, 2003).

Imho, it would be best to say up front, we recognize that all issues are interrelated, but however much we care about them, for the sake of getting things done and not breaking into factions, we're limiting this particular effort to women and gender-related issues, rather than also trying to fix other kinds of inequities, urgent as those may be.

I also think we should focus on the goals that are most do-able; e.g., I think most Americans of all parties at least secretly agree that the government should not be interfering so much with adults' decisions re- abortions and that gay marriage and in vitro fertilization should remain available. If on the other hand, we allow ourselves to get pulled into taking positions on too many different issues, or on the most controversial onces, such as gender-affirming surgery for minors or late-term abortions, I'm afraid we'll accomplish nothing other than exacerbating existing divisions.