Don’t make them angry
by Tom Sullivan
Anniversary Women’s March on Asheville – 2018. Photo credit: Jill Boniske, a.k.a. Arty Chick of Chickflix.net
You won’t like them when they’re angry.
Jennifer Mosbacher cried in her doctor’s office the day after Trump’s election. McClatchy reports her anger quickly turned into activism:
I don’t think you come out of that experience of awakening and close your eyes again, right?” she said. “I don’t know how you can do that.”
Mosbacher’s transformation is at the heart of an unprecedented movement inside the Democratic Party. Dubbed “The Resistance,” it has — in the year since Donald Trump’s inauguration — turned countless apolitical women and men into firebrand activists set on remaking the political system.
Like Mosbacher, thousands of others cannot close their eyes again. More than 22,000 women have contacted Emily’s List about becoming candidates. Over 120,000 people across the country protested misogyny, racism, xenophobia and Donald Trump Saturday on the one-year anniversary of his inauguration. Protests continued into Sunday.
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards addressed the rally in Las Vegas, “When our country was in free fall, the Women’s March got us out of our despair and out of our homes and into the streets, and ever since that day, women have been shaking the foundation of America.”
This level of activism is likely to mold our politics “for the foreseeable future,” McClatchy’s Alex Roarty believes:
“What we saw in 2017 was an unprecedented revival of grassroots democracy,” said Joe Dinkin, spokesman for the liberal Working Families Party. “People want to participate, not just in protest, but in changing who holds power. That’s everything from knocking on doors to stepping up to run for office. That newly awakened spirit won’t just shape 2018 — it could shape the identity, beliefs and activism of a generation of voters.”
Let’s hope Dinkins is right. After the weeks we’ve had, read the rest for a little inspiration. It has been in short supply.
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