Trump inauguration protests underscore how the resistance has changed

Protesters are set to descend on Washington, D.C., on Saturday ahead of President-elect Trump’s inauguration, an event that will lay bare how the resistance has changed in the eight years since he first took office.

Organizers of the People’s March, which is being put together by a diverse coalition of groups including the Women's March, expect roughly 50,000 attendees Saturday — a stark contrast to the 500,000 that marched on Washington in 2017.

Experts say the difference reflects a shift in strategy in how they oppose Trump, as well fatigue among some advocates. But the numbers also point to how things have changed on the grassroots level as Trump returns to the White House.

“A lot of things are different,” said Tamika Middleton, managing director of the Women’s March.

Middleton said the reaction to Trump’s second win feels different from 2017, with emotions ranging from outrage to grief and feelings of isolation.

“Our work as organizations this time around has been not to capture the energy of all these people who are being activated, but this time actually, our work has been to keep people from being demobilized, to keep people engaged and to give people something to hope for,” she said.

Protesters are set to gather at different kickoff locations in D.C. this weekend and will ultimately converge on the Lincoln Memorial in what organizers have described as a “day of joyful resistance, community building, and powerful action.” Other cities are planning similar demonstrations.

But Saturday’s march isn’t expected to have the same fervor that galvanized the party in 2017 when more than a million people took to the streets in Washington and elsewhere to protest his 2016 victory.

That election shook many women in particular who had hoped to elect their first female president and who loathed Trump for comments he made about groping women following a leaked “Access Hollywood” tape.

Democratic operatives and advocates alike attributed the difference in numbers to a variety of factors, with some noting that organizers are adopting a whole host of strategies to counter Trump, with protests being just one part of that.

Keya Chatterjee, a co-founder and executive director of a group called Free DC that’s launching at the People’s March, said her organization has been offering orientations since November where “hundreds of people are showing up.”

“I see, actually, more energy than I've ever seen,” she said. “But it's not just to do the same thing again that took us to where we were. It’s actually to learn and do better, and this time, I think that we know what it takes, which is, frankly, you know … it is, yes, to gather at protests sometimes, but it makes more sense for us to do that in ways that build our community and that are focused on our community.”

Chatterjee said organizing takes different shapes, such as having conversations with neighbors about political issues.

Kelly Dittmar, director of research and scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, suggested we’re not likely to see the same level of unity around gender that we saw in 2017 in part because we’ve seen “persistent” divisions among women.

“The idea that there's not one singular women's movement or set of agendas — a set of priorities among all women, so it makes it hard to engage in collective action among all women as an entity or as an identity,” Dittmar said. “And so I think that you know that that complexity is probably reflected in the People's March, right, vs. the Women's March, and also, more generally, just kind of how women will organize.”

She also suggested some advocates might have different views on the best way to counter Trump at this point and noted that “a lot of advocates and activists are already exhausted.”

“I think there are activists and advocates who, you know, might be mobilized by Donald Trump's election, but don't see this particular march ... as the most effective way to push back,” she said.

Some experts also see the changing numbers as indicative of the fact that some people are waiting to see how Trump’s second term in office unfolds.

But organizers are quick to dispute the idea that a smaller attendance this weekend represents any kind of setback to the broader resistance movement to Trump.

“Seeing a smaller turnout than the largest single-day protest in this country’s history would not signify a downturn or weakness of the movement,” according to one of the coalition’s answers to a question on its FAQ page about what marches accomplish.

As advocates have navigated the changing political landscape over the last eight years, some have also grappled with turmoil within their own ranks. The Women’s March over the years has been rocked by allegations of antisemitism and concerns over inclusivity, and three of its leaders have stepped down.

While the Women’s March has handled the logistics of this year’s event, the People’s March also includes a number of other groups like Planned Parenthood, Sierra Club and Popular Democracy in Action, according to the coalition.

“We are sharper about our political values, and even with that, have been able to, with this march, build a coalition that is broad,” Middleton said about this year’s event, noting it includes both centrist and progressive groups.

The People’s March and its starkly different presence in Washington this time around come amid a broader mix of reactions to how Democrats and advocates alike are handling Trump’s returns to the White House.

Several prominent members of the party, including former first lady Michelle Obama and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), are expected to skip the president-elect’s second inauguration. Some Democrats, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), are already positioning themselves as a bulwark against Trump.

But other Democrats have suggested they’re willing to work with the Trump administration but won’t be afraid to fight back when needed, including Govs. Gretchen Whitmer (D) of Michigan and Wes Moore (D) of Maryland.

“I think it's a fairly meaningless thing to say, since we have no idea what Trump's going to do,” said Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg, speaking about some of Democrats’ messaging on working with Trump.

“I do think that for the next two years in particular, what we need is actually a lot of party unity, and, in particular, in the House,” she said. “And so far I've seen it.”

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