cover of episode From Resistance to Reflection

From Resistance to Reflection

2024/11/19
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Key Insights

Why did the women's resistance movement against Trump gain momentum after his 2016 election?

The movement was fueled by anger and disbelief over Trump's election, particularly due to his history of sexual harassment allegations and the perception that his presidency would set back women's rights.

What was the primary focus of the women's resistance movement during Trump's first term?

The movement focused on organizing protests, advocating for women's rights, and raising money for women running for office to counteract Trump's policies and influence.

How did the women's resistance movement respond to Trump's victory in the 2020 election?

The movement felt a sense of despair and questioned the effectiveness of their protests and advocacy, leading to a period of reflection and reevaluation of their strategies.

Why do some women's march organizers believe that marching again is not a good idea?

They feel that recreating the same protest may not yield the same impact and that it's time to reflect on what went wrong and explore new strategies.

What is the sentiment among some women's march organizers regarding the future of the resistance movement?

There is a sentiment of needing to reflect and regroup rather than immediately organizing protests, with a focus on understanding their role in the election outcome and planning more thoughtful actions.

Chapters

The Women's March began as a response to Donald Trump's election in 2016, driven by anger and a sense of urgency among women. It grew into a massive movement with significant participation, particularly among women, but also included men. The march aimed to protest Trump's policies and advocate for women's rights, particularly concerning reproductive rights.
  • The Women's March was sparked by Trump's election and the fear of losing women's rights.
  • It involved significant organization through social media and grassroots efforts.
  • The march saw massive participation, with people gathering in various locations to protest.

Shownotes Transcript

After the movie free Willy became a hit, word got out that the star of the film, a killer well in cao was sick and still living in a tiny pole in a mexican amusement park. Fans were outraged. Kids demanded his release in a lot.

Gone from serial productions in the new york times comes the goodwill ale, a story about the wildly ambitious science experiment to return. K go to the ocean, listen to new episode thursdays. One early access to the whole show subscribed to the times at N Y. times. That com slash podcast to list on apple podcast and spotify.

You have the capacity to do extraordinary good in the world, and so that everyone who is watching do not despair. This is not a time to throw our hands. This is a time to roll bar leeves. This is a time to organize, to mobilize and to stay engaged for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together.

From the new ork times, i'm supernatant renny and this is the daily when Donald trump won the presidency in twenty sixteen. IT prompted an outpouring of protests, particularly by women, a movement that came to be known as the .

resistance for the .

past two weeks, daily producer linsey garson has been talking to people who were part of that movement, asking them what they're doing after trumps win this time today, what they said about the state of the resistance in the next trump era.

It's tuesday.

never ninety th.

Hello.

hi venessa.

hi. How are you?

Hey, i'm good. I'm good. A few days after the election, I called Venus a rubel. SHE lives on five acres of desert in southern .

california.

Um so what is that speaking? Is right .

now your hearing in the background who is a parent, really, we run a animal things, sorry. Well, actually the sincerity for humans and animals, and we have a ton of different kinds of the animals, so they are like emotions run around. And then we have a turn of dogs and pigs and and we have a zebra.

That's that's pretty intense.

It's intense. It's a very different life is a .

very different life than the one venesta was leading eight years ago when SHE was living in new york city, running a company in the music industry, and that the country was about to elect its first woman president.

I had been watching the election with friend. There was already a party plan in bricklin, and we had expected to go roll out that party and till date with everyone. And when things started going sell, I just kept saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this can happen.

This is no way. There is no way. You know, IT felt like there had been a debt in the room, you know, like someone had died. And that feeling, there was nothing like IT. I could not believe that that was the words we are living in.

And I could not believe someone who had been accused of rape and sexual harassment and so on, until people would have rather have that person in the White house. And I really do think IT was because he was a woman. And then I woke up the next day, and I was like, well, I ve been lay down and die, or i'm gonna do something about this.

And that anger was very motivating. So, you know, women everywhere were so incredibly upset. And everyone gathered on one facebook page, first started as just in facebook group.

I started, so small would be like twenty members starting a facebook group. And I became one of the readers of that page, nobody, because women's market first. And I started pulling people in to organize who I knew could make that happen. At that time, they were looking for leadership position, and I have felt like, okay, this is what I, sir, this is the old. I set this country temari .

handle certain the marine core for twenty years. She's a retired general sergeant.

I didn't go into combat for nothing. And now, I mean to faith what I feel like our right to be and taken away, even here on the homeless. So what was the person of my military? everything? I felt like I had to do something.

At that time, for me, I was really about the woman's right, and I am a black woman. So not just the the black woman in me, the woman in me prior to coming into the merino, I was that seventeen you who had in the, I was that child in the a voicing clinic that was made that to my story. So for me that was more sort of women, right, if that makes me so .

you thought under a trip administration, there was a real possibility that abortion access could be denied.

And I know IT, that's all he push, that's all he talked about. And so let's talk about these things now so that IT doesn't happy. Let's make sure we're advocating for these things now so that you know IT won't happy and then i'm getting word of, okay, maybe we can prove.

Okay, maybe we should prove. Now, what and if from there I started call on people that I know what their first state that kind of help me. Could this definitely new to my world house and lamb, how women veterans started to think up? IT is Green.

IT just grew and is something I don't think anyone possible. I was on facebook. I started seeing all the post because I just had started going by a road.

What is this? What is the smart? And when I got to call the accident, you know, we're gona march.

I would just like, wow, I know what to do with this. And I started women's march pental. Daniel, i'm down to mobilize my state of line, getting bright together at some point. IT decide, took a life of its owned. IT was like this way, particularly amongst women, but also with our male Alice, because we don't do this without our male people.

Felt like they had to try and do something about this.

because I think the rich IT was just absolute rage. IT was just a sense of fire, like everybody was ready IT was that the ride at midnight type of fail, failure was an an option, right? Like you just, I don't know, just like a bulldog, and we are gonna get this done.

On the day of the march, you know, I stood on that stage and I looked out, you know, and I had been kind of critical of the party had because that wasn't like directly us. That was a pretty heart project. And I ve been like, well, that know a pink cat that's kind of like him.

And like people felt that IT wasn't inclusive because not all of these, their things, you know, became a little contention. But when I got, when I stood on the stage, as people came in, IT was like an absolute waves of take coming over, you know, capital hill. Was astonishing.

I mean, just imagine looking out at mild and mild and mild of people. IT was amazing. I was just amazing. Just say, just to see.

Did IT feel like the country was kind of .

on your side and is good to be to say OK? So I would say, yeah, I feel good to feel like, okay. But the most poor with when I meet somebody on, I can still hold my head of I.

IT was just IT was other worldly IT was the blind. And I still on the change that day, and I thought, like, this is absolutely incredible, but we need to take this energy and harness IT and create a movement. This is just the beginning.

I'll be right back.

OK, i'm opening the new york times up.

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This is just the beginning. We need to take this energy and harness IT. And so the question of what does that look like? And I think ultimately what IT looks like was no different groups forming different organizations to ensure that trump s did not have second term.

And after the women's march, a number of women's rights organizations sprouted .

up across the nation.

One of those was margin, a nonprofit of a us.

Around women win, basically one of our slogan.

Part of the work they did was also raise money in campaign for women running for office.

and we were successful.

And two years later, women got into office and record numbers in the twenty eighteen mintern .

elections and running, and women winning with a direct result of the women's march.

And in twenty twenty went trump. The election to joe by in IT felt like a triumph to activists. Things were swinging back in the right direction.

stepped. And then this year.

when coming, herr's was announced as the new democratic ominous for president. But for many of the women's march organizers, the feeling was electric.

Up, up. There was the first of hope and movement again, and energy, and I felt that deeper. Yeah, he gave us all hope again.

The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for. But hear me when I say, hear me when I say, the light of america's promise will always burn bright.

So IT was IT felt, again, like this, like there had .

been in stuff as we never give up.

And I was sitting with, know, a couple other women. And IT was just like, how has this happened again? How has this happened again? How is this the world we live in? Why would we ever go back to what happened? We saw what happened.

I was so extremely hopeful. I even hosted a watch party, but other women veteran, this year we dug out the whole basic, put up the decorations, everything. And I was a large party at two thousand six, and this year itself the same way.

Now, that night during here, is I crime? This is you. I didn't not like there was no pair, but I was not very disappointing that.

So, uh, we wanted, I think we closed up shop at about eleven party. They left. You have so so, so very sad. IT didn't hit me as bad because maybe I actually prepared for IT, maybe I can admit. But the end of the day, women are still looked at is not worthy, no matter what their resume is look like, no matter how you degree IT does not matter. So I think this year I was proceed IT in knowing that yet we we really have not to grow.

Now you said in twenty sixteen there was a fire.

fire, no fire like this. I feel like this year I saw like there is in the feed. I feel like before there was hope and now IT feels very dark.

We were all stunned. I mean, the first time around, we were stunned. Now it's like people are catatonic. I I feel like twenty sixteen, you were made a sale and must they were not medicine, man. So I felt like this time was more as a slap in the day and more particularly for blackland.

Because the first time and I say my military background has allowed me to see close and personal how people felt about heavy equity and if potential email the this trust ahead of her but now is the mind you didn't have any kind of special email gate to contain IT. So now with your excuse and people gave the band dance excuse from, I just don't know, on that of the hoder to nobody oakland really likes her, to she's locking up our own people. So IT was such a lot of excuses that tells you in a nut file, IT really wasn't about any of those things. So there is one heart a little a bit more. AmErica is what amErica is, so what do you do with that?

I mean, what do you do with that?

My daughter, my Youngest, is twenty, and SHE daughter is for the first time this year. And the first thing I get back from my Young just was, i'm literally sick right now, like physically fit. Like how did this happen twice? More like, mom, whether we be neck, I have no idea.

So many people have asked me, are read, protesting what we do want to put me in coach, but I don't know what to put them into. I don't even know. I want to get back out for that.

And why don't you know whether you'd wanna get out there in protest again this time?

Because what did I change the first time? I don't know about the very thing we achieve a goal. They may have cloth and things bail that will be changed this through.

I don't know if had we not done that, what I have changed the trajectory of what happened during the president, but IT have been worked, although the questions I can ask myself. But did we really accomplish something? And understand.

So I got that myself. What is protesting? What is putting on the case again and in my big blow board out here, what is that way to do for us, mary, when I did nothing in the first time.

I really believed that protest was the waiter. But that change, I mean, I was, I got into month demand action, really active in that first in a responsible gun ownership. And I was there protesting for the cabinet hearings.

And guess what? It's still all happens, right? Kevin is still got election.

Kids are still getting killed in schools a row versus wait still got reversed. Here we are eight years later. And not only did true win, but he won the popular vote. AmErica spoke, and he won.

And morning for the amErica that I thought I knew. I thought our country wanted different things than him.

But by a free and fair .

election, this is what they want more before we can say we were the majority. This is not what the country wants, and we will stand against that. We don't have that Mandate this time around.

And at this point.

fighting this administration is fighting a democratic election.

Honestly, my first reaction was, you know, in america, part of my french, but fuck IT, if that's how you feel about a habit. AmErica you voted for this bucked up is going to get bad and i'm going to say, I told you so.

Would you consider marching again? Is there talk about marching?

Yeah, it's not going very well. I know women's smart t is planning to march on january teeth. They're saying it's the people's march.

Well, you know what the people in my mind, the people voted for trump when I watched commons concession things people are saying, like how and fire IT was, don't ever give others. He says that i'm like, no, this I don't. No, no, no, no, at a certain point. No, you have to give up like I don't have the energy or any battery left at me to do anything other entire from itself. And to answer you your question, and for me personally, no, I don't know any organizer from the original women's march that thinks marching right now is a good idea.

And why don't you think is a good idea?

To me, IT kind of feels like trying to recreate something that should never be recreated, or should have never had to have been recreated. I don't know. Have you ever disp a stupid and ality? And let me just bring them.

Have you ever gone to a restaurant with your partner and I had, like, the best meal and then you go back and like, it's sucked. That's kind of the way I feel about the women's march right now. I can never recreate the what that moment was in history and in my life and I don't want to.

And now now when I just do something else, i'm going more a little more inward so that yeah I guess some I guess some trying a different restaurant. There needs to be some time to reflect and regroup and really look at ourselves and say, what are we doing wrong? Like where do we go from here?

And what what do you plan on doing instead?

I mean, that's really hard. That is the question like what what do you do? But the answer is probably not right before us.

If we jump to the conclusion right away and say, okay, well, then we need to do x fine v like, are we not doing a disturbance to the lesson that we should learn from this? Like maybe we need to be more thoughtful about IT and examine how will they have played a role in IT. So it's the time to reflect and regroup, but it's not the time to march. I don't think that marching will do up any good, does not the direction we should go in.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today. On monday, president elect Donald trump confirmed that he intends to declare a national emergency and use the U. S. Military in some form to assist in his plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Trump was responding to a post made by the head of the conservative group judicial watch that said trump's administration would, quote, declare a national emergency and use military assets to address illegal immigration through a mass deportation program on his social media platform, truth social. Trump responded with the comment true congress has granted president's broad power to declare national emergencies at their discretion, and trump dominated sean duffy, a former republican congressman from wisconsin and fox's business host, and his wife, Rachel campos duffy is a fox news host. As his choice to lead the transportation department, trump continued to deliberate over candidates for several high level positions, including treasury secretary, oppose that will be crucial to his economic agenda. Today's episode was produced bylines y garrison with help from sydney harper and aircraft key IT was edited by devin Taylor, van cahoon and lexi dl. Research assistance by Susan lee contains original music by damp roanne to alex ba e youtube and marian luzano and was engineered by Chris wood r the music is by jan run berg and by landsburg of wondering.

That's IT for the daily i'm spring ever and you see see you tomorrow.