Embroiled in controversy and losing big donors and backers, the Women’s March has attempted to keep its head above water with this year’s march. However, although Women’s March organizers anticipated hundreds of thousands to show up for their third annual march in DC, this year’s march garnered only “thousands,” according to reports.
As a frame of reference, the first Women’s March in 2017 was widely touted as the “largest single day march in U. S. history.” This year, not so much.
Women from across the country were marching through the nation’s capital Saturday for the third annual Women’s March on Washington, which has been dogged by controversy in the months leading to the event.
Organizers weeks ago expected hundreds of thousands to attend — a number similar to the 2017 march the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration — but it appeared thousands had joined the march as the event got underway. A National Park Service permit issued Thursday indicated about 10,000 were expected in Washington as similar marches were planned across the country.
The 2019 march is taking place amid turmoil surrounding the national Women’s March organization, including allegations of anti-Semitism, secretive financial dealings and disputes over who gets to own and define the Women’s March. Some organizers have called for its national co-chairs to resign.
Here are some of the signs spotted at the women’s march.
Senator and 2020 Democrat hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is still a big fan of the Women’s March . . . in Des Moines, not DC.
Meanwhile, at New York City’s women’s march, twitter-banned Jewish conservative Laura Loomer rushed the stage and yelled “The Women’s March hates Jews”:
Apparently feeling the pressure from lost sponsors, celebrity disapproval, and dwindling interest among former marchers, the Women’s March national leadership is attempting to distance itself from their own anti-Semiticism at the DC march.
WaPo continues:
Since then, the march’s national leadership has tried to quell the outrage — reaching out to the Jewish community, denouncing anti-Semitism, meeting with rabbis and unveiling a new steering committee that includes three Jewish women.
Women’s March leaders this week said they’re taking the fallout in stride. National co-chair Bob Bland said it’s part of the growing pains of building an intersectional movement.
“We unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and we don’t want anyone to be confused about that,” she said. “We’ve been fighting against the exact type of hate that we have been accused of, and we understand that there is a lot more work to be done before the march, during the march and after the march.”
In a symbolic gesture, Women’s March leaders Tamika Mallory and Carmen Perez helped to carry the “Jewish Women of Color” banner at the very front of the march Saturday, beside Rabbi Mira Rivera and other Jewish women singing “we will build this world with love.”
These gestures are not quelling the outrage on social media, however.
And a closing question from Charlie Kirk:
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