By Karen Rubin, News-Photos-Features.com, [email protected]

The pink pussy hats are back, though not nearly the sea of pink of the 2017 Women’s March, the largest mass protest in history. This time, the hats and the signs demanding reproductive freedom and women’s rights were mixed in with the litany of protests that marked Trump’s first term.

Hundreds turned out for the Peoples’ protest at Foley Square in front of the U.S. Courthouse to hear demands for women’s rights, protection against mass deportation of immigrants, workers’ rights, climate action, gun violence prevention, universal health care. They railed against the rising oligarchy – capitalism run amok – fascism and White Christian Nationalism, spiced with a return to imperialism and colonialism and the deadening of democracy – in essence, they were protesting the entire Trump Project 2025 Agenda and his handpicked sychophants and henchmen. A cornucopia of the greatest hits of the 2017-2021 term, with anticipation, recognition and outright fear that Trump 2.0 is far worse, more unhinged and more dangerous.

“We march for many reasons but all for the same cause: defending our rights, our freedom and our future,” the organizers declared. “We are not going backwards.”

“If you believe that decisions about your body should remain yours, that clean air and water are rights andnot privileges, that libraries should hold knowledge and not censorship, that gun violence must end, that healthcare and economic dignity are fundamental human rights—then this march is for you.

“This is about our collective power and centering the communities that have always been at the frontlines of change: Black and Brown voices, Women, Trans & Queer youth, immigrants and working-class people have always been the backbone of resistance. Today, we rise together to demand a future where everyone is free to exist & thrive.”

They marched

 • To demand racial justice and honor the leadership of frontline Black and Brown communities.

 • To defend women’s rights and reproductive freedom – the right to decide if and when to have children.

 • To fight for economic justice, fair wages and the right to retire in dignity.

 • To demand action on climate justice and ensure future generations have clean air and water.

 • To uphold the freedom to live without fear of gun violence or police brutality.

 • To protect our democracy and ensure every vote counts.

 • To stand in solidarity with trans and queer youth and defend their freedom to live their true selves without fear.

 • To guarantee healthcare & education are rights for all.

 • To recognize that people with disabilities face discrimination, lack of access and exclusion.

“This march is a bold demonstration of resilience and resistance, to unite the people who’ve been the backbone of justice for generations, and to welcome even more voices into the movement. We march to demand accountability from civil servants and remind them they answer to us. We march to inspire, energize, and drive change..This is our moment to remind Washington elites—and every American—where the power truly lives: with the people.”

The timing was significant – Saturday, January 18, before Trump is inaugurated (installed) by his facilitator, Chief Justice John Roberts, despite being an insurrectionist ineligible to hold federal office, instead of January 21, the day after as in 2017. Could it be because Trump has indicated he would order protesters shot, as he wanted to do to the Seattle protesters demanding justice for George Floyd, but was told then by one of his “guardrails” that it would be illegal. Trump 2.0 no longer has “guardrails” or even restraints – his pick to run the Defense Department, sex abuser Pete Hegseth, would not say he would refuse an order to shoot protesters, while Justice Roberts and his Imperial Supremes have granted Trump virtual immunity from criminal activity as long as Trump, even retroactively, labels it an “official act.” “Could he assassinate a political rival?” his attorney was asked? “Well, why yes,” was the reply.

Trump will use any sort of protest to call out the National Guard with instructions to shoot, beat up, arrest, prosecute, imprison – or worse, seize powers under the Insurrection Act and declare martial law, which would give him further excuse to clamp down on the press along with protest, dissent of any kind. Because that is who he is and who is backing him – the Heritage Foundation and WhiteChristoFascist authors of Project 2025.  

So it is likely that future protests will have to undergo a “benefit versus risk-reward” analysis, especially when people are right to be skeptical about what such protests even accomplish. After all, millions turned out in 2017 and over and over again during the course of his four years, protesting his family separation policy, his refusal to address climate change and his disdain for science, the explosion in gun violence literally promoted by his hate speech and call to violence and his nod to neoNazi extremists (he calls them “evangelists”) and for his impeachment, while politicians have proved they cannot be shamed and no longer even care what constituents want or need, only that the oligarchs continue to back them.

Nonetheless, there is still an important reason to show up: it is to build community, to know you are not crazy for feeling your head will explode and the earth has tilted off its axis, to form new coalitions, and yes, to find new, better, more effective ways to resist and ultimately take back power.

The strategy now seems to be for all the movements – women’s rights, gender and trans rights, workers rights, climate and environmental justice activists, gun control activists, criminal justice and immigration reform activists, and those who oppose autocracy, oligarchy, fascism and White Christian Nationalism – to unify.

My question is: where were they BEFORE the election?

What will happen when – as Trump promises as soon as the day after inauguration – he unleashes “the biggest mass deportation in history,” uprooting parents and siblings from the 4.4 million U.S. citizen children who live with undocumented family? What will happen when raids are unleashed in workplaces, factories, hospitals, churches, courthouses, funerals, schools?  

At the protest, there was a call to stand up, stand together “with our siblings” but how, exactly?

At the rally in Washington Square Park, NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams pointed out that Hitler, who was democratically elected Chancellor and within 53 days had turned Germany into a fascist dictatorship, started with mass-deportation of Jews. Jews had lived in Germany for 1000 years, but it took just 10 years for Hitler to go from election to his Final Solution, the extermination of 6 million Jews. The Germans did nothing as Jews were forced from their homes into the streets where they were beaten and loaded onto cattle cars to concentration camps.

What will people do when they see their neighbors being hauled out of their homes, from their workplaces, from church into “deportation” camps?

With an executive order, Trump can (and will) impose the Comstock Act and cut off access to abortion medication – the lifeline to pregnant women in the two dozen states that now ban abortion, while his hand-picked Texas judge has restarted a case, brought by three other states, to ban mifepresone and the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued a New York doctor for sending the abortion medication to a 20-year old Texas woman, even as the rate of maternal mortality spikes in Texas, pregnant women are dying for lack of access to emergency care, and 26,000 women have had to birth their rapist’s child.

But apparently, too few women have suffered or died for women (or the men who love them) to vote for Kamala Harris.

Throughout the rally, there were calls for workers to defeat the capitalist oppressors, and to recognize that women’s reproductive rights are also workers’ rights, a matter of economic as well as social justice. Yet the meme is that Trump had great appeal to working class because of the cost of a dozen eggs and a gallon of gas. But how does Arnold Palmer’s cock, sharks, windmills have anything to do with the cost of eggs or gas, except that he also calls climate change (and disasters, including California’s wildfires) a “sham” and his answer to grocery and gas prices is to “drill, drill, drill” (at the same time, pay back Big Oil for the $1 billion paid into his election).

Universal health care? The closest thing to that in history was President Biden’s campaign to end the COVID pandemic. Trump is intent on obliterating any notion of public health; he has threatened to withhold federal aid to schools that mandate children be vaccinated. One million people died from COVID-19, hundreds of thousands of whom could have been saved except for Trump’s mishandling and then the MAGA crusade against masks and vaccinations. What will happen when the next deadly pandemic hits especially with Trump naming RFK Jr as Health and Human Services Secretary and his interest in decimating the CDC?

New York’s People’s March (peoplesmarch.com) was only one of some 300 held around the country, including Washington DC where thousands turned out, Los Angeles, San Diego, Detroit, Chicago, Austin, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Boise, Spokane, Columbus and Raleigh.

Here are highlights of New York’s People’s March.

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