4th Annual Women’s March—Righteous Rage and the Challenge Before Us All

January 20, 2020 | revcom.us

 

People took to the streets in some 250 cities across the country for the 4th annual Women’s March on Saturday, January 18. Protesters brought creative homemade signs demanding full reproductive freedom, an end to the separation and caging of children, an end to climate change, and the removal of Trump from power. Everywhere, people gave voice to their deep outrage and the many crimes of the Trump/Pence regime and gave expression to their deep longing to see a better world for future generations. In some places, including in Washington, DC, in front of Trump Hotel, women performed the feminist dance and anthem that has swept the world in recent weeks, “The Rapist in Your Path.” This energy and righteous anger was important, and much more of this is needed.

At the same time, it must be noted that these marches were significantly smaller than previous Women’s Marches. At a moment like this, when the fascist in the White House is now actively facing a trial in the Senate over whether he should be removed from power, there should’ve been hundreds of thousands clogging the streets. It was also a problem that the main message of many of the organizers was to point people towards the 2020 elections. As RefuseFascism.org pointed out in their message which they mass distributed at the Women’s Marches in several cities, we cannot “rely on the 2020 election. An election which is likely neither to be ‘fair’ nor whose verdicts will necessarily be honored by Trump. His threats to ‘lock up’ political rivals, massive voter suppression and the racist Electoral College are real. In addition to horrors Trump inflicts on humanity in the time between now and the elections, we cannot gamble the future on Trump’s willingness to peacefully leave office even if voted out.”

This makes it all the more important that in several cities, RefuseFascism.org was out in the marches with impactful #OUTNOW contingents calling on people to join the fight to drive out the whole Trump/Pence regime. Hundreds at a time joined with the defiant chant, “Trump/Pence #OUTNOW!” And the broad desire to see Trump removed, even beyond the #OUTNOW contingents, was felt so deeply, the New York Times noted in the first sentence of its coverage that “demands for equal rights competed with an inescapable subtext: President Trump had to go.” As the RefuseFascism.org message made clear, “OUR power is the power of the people acting with determination in the streets. But not by protesting one day and going home. We must flood the streets in mass, sustained, nonviolent protest, with people of many different points of view acting together to stop a catastrophe for humanity. Starting in our hundreds, soon becoming thousands, and ultimately millions! Refusing to stop until the whole Trump/Pence regime, including the Christian fascist Pence, has been removed from power! All, with the single unifying demand: Trump/Pence #OUTNOW!”

It was also extremely important that in several cities, contingents of the Revolution Club marched, raising people’s sights to a whole better world that can be brought about through an actual revolution based in the new communism forged by Bob Avakian. In DC, a whole section of the march joyously joined in singing the Revolution Club chant, “There’s a whole better way that the world could be. Make revolution, get humanity free!” Everywhere, the Clubs mass distributed copies of Bob Avakian’s challenge to “Free Yourself from the Great Tautological Fallacy!” of American chauvinism. In some places, when the Clubs agitated about America’s many crimes and called on people to get into the leadership of Bob Avakian and the real revolution, sections of people—especially young people—burst out in cheers, and some came forward to get connected.

Many who turned out to the Women’s Marches were attracted to these messages, and work needs to be done to build on this in the days and weeks to come, including through building protest to demand “Trump/Pence #OUTNOW!” in the midst of the Senate trial about to begin over whether Trump should be removed from office.

Washington DC

Washington DC

Washington DC

Chilean anti-patriarchy anthem “Un violador en tu camino” (A rapist in your path). In front of Trump Hotel in DC

Trump/Pence #OutNow! pic.twitter.com/BashZ9aCO2

— Trump/Pence Must Go NOW—#OutNow (@RefuseFascism) January 18, 2020