The Women’s March on Washington, and in many other mostly liberal cities, is being portrayed as the launch of a new “resistance” to Donald Trump and Republicans.
The use of the term “resistance” is not by accident.
It conjures up the heroism and selflessness of the French Resistance and the Resistance movements in other Nazi-occupied countries. Since Trump is equated to Hitler in so much of liberal rhetoric, it is — in their minds — the appropriate analogy.
“Resistance,” not coincidentally, also is the English translation for the group Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya (“Islamic Resistance Movement”), better known by its acronym, HAMAS.
This plays into the regressive left’s bizarre affinity for Islamist movements, something put on display at the Women’s March through the high profile role of Linda Sarsour and the widely-distributed posters of women in Hijabs made from American flags created by the same artist who created the Obama “Hope” poster.
The word “resistance” thus plays into many important places in the liberal psyche.
But in reality, the Women’s March was more a mass group therapy than the launch of a new “resistance” movement. It was a way to try to stave off a demoralization of a once hopeful liberal electorate.
We have seen such demoralization play itself out in the crying, group cry-ins, and generally hysterical reaction to Trump’s victory.
It’s likely to get worse before it gets better.
Trump is fast out of the gate, and throwing out so much change so fast, it has liberals demoralized.
First came cabinet nominations which, to liberals, are an abomination going to the heart of liberal control of the culture — the education bureaucracy, environmental regulation, and the Justice Department as political tool.
Barring something startling, it’s unlikely liberals can stop any of Trump’s nominees.
That sense of demoralization is witnessed in the reaction to Trump’s decision to move forward on the Keystone and Dakota access pipelines. One environmental activist group tweeted out that “Trump is pushing DAPL and Keystone because they were stopped by our movements. He wants us demoralized. It won’t work.”
But in reality, it likely will work. Liberals will become demoralized.
There have been reports that Trump will seek to cut funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. From reactions I’ve seen on Facebook and elsewhere, that move — if it takes place — is seen as a mortal threat to an important part of the Democratic base which depends on federal largesse for their artistic and political livelihoods.
Trump also has signaled that he would act forcefully against a form of protest movement important to liberal self-identification, so-called sanctuary cities. Trump’s press secretary made clear that the administration would look to cut off federal funding streams for cities that defy federal authority on immigration.
And next week Trump will nominate a Supreme Court justice who almost certainly will be a conservative unacceptable to the liberals. Despite Chuck Schumer’s taunts that he will block any such nominee, in reality there is little Democrats can to do stop it without provoking a Republican nuclear option.
In the age of Trump, liberals are anti-change. They liked the status quo, and seeing it slip away is demoralizing for them.
It is in this context that the Women’s March needs to be understood. They put on a heroic face, but I don’t think they believed it.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY