Even in NYC, Anti-Trump Women's March Draws Lackluster Crowd
The 2020 edition of the Women’s March in New York City proved to be a pale shadow of the original.
In 2017, the New York Daily News estimated that 400,000 marchers descended upon Trump Tower.
On Saturday, The Associated Press reported that the New York City crowd numbered in what it termed “hundreds.”
The crowd for the Washington march was reported as “several thousand” by the AP, well below last year’s reported 100,000. In 2017, march organizers reported that their crowd numbered 500,000, according to The Washington Post.
Marches were held around the country, with anti-Trump protesters citing a variety of issues.
“It’s all about Donald Trump,” said Laurie Kaczanowska, 66, of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, said during the Washington march on Saturday, according to The New York Times.
“This march is about the many issues that face women and families, so climate change, of course, is up front. But here and now we have to pay attention to protecting our republic’s democracy. Because I think that’s in danger,” she said.
The Women’s March has been shadowed by the anti-Semitism of past leaders.
Women’s March Leaders Won’t Acknowledge Last Year’s Anti-Semitism
Read @JennieSTaer’s latesthttps://t.co/RFCGjooMq1
— Sara A. Carter (@SaraCarterDC) January 17, 2020
“There are 16 new women leading the Women’s March as a volunteer board,” Rinku Sen, a co-president of the Women’s March board of directors, told The Times.
“We’ve fixed what we could fix on the anti-Semitism front. We’ve acknowledged the mistakes we’ve made, and the harm people have felt.”
But in its coverage of the march, the Washington Times noted, “In many ways, however, the Women’s March has been its own worst enemy, beset by shrinking support amid criticism over alleged anti-Semitism that culminated in September with the resignations of three of four co-chairs: Bob Bland, Tamika Mallory and Linda Sarsour.”
Writing for The Federalist, Erielle Davidson said the event is nothing more than a glorified anti-Trump protest.
“I have always been tremendously critical of the Women’s March, and my experiences today added a new layer of disappointment with the entire enterprise,” she wrote. “The radical political positions the organization espouses are obviously tangential to the Trump hatred that has become the group’s raison d’être. Look no further than where the march itself ended — right in front of Trump International Hotel. The significant gap between the march’s purported mission and its actual focus is not lost on me.”
Then she got to the point of her piece.
“In order to justify the march’s obsession with Trump, there would have to be some noticeable reduction of women’s rights under the Trump administration, but such a reduction simply doesn’t exist. “It’s possible that former marchers realize that, which might explain why today’s numbers were a pitiful showing compared to 2017’s attendance. There was so much anger in 2017, motivated by frankly hysterical predictions that never actually came to fruition, predictions peddled by the Women’s March.
“We’re not wearing handmaiden’s dresses, and we’re not marching around in chains. In other words, the sky never fell, but Chicken Little is still hollering — albeit, as today showed, fewer people are listening,” she wrote.
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