Resistance to Trump hardening
One day after Donald Trump's investiture hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated across the globe against his presidency and for women's rights, tolerance and peaceful coexistence. The protests were among the largest in US history, with up to half a million people gathering in Washington. What can this opposition accomplish?
Women establishing themselves as political force
Polityka predicts great things for the protest movement against Trump:
“The number of participants in the women's marches are proof that a new political force has emerged that has the potential to become a universal movement. … Women have all the instrument they need to exploit their growing strength in the political arena too - in the same way the working class did a hundred years ago. This is evident not just in their numbers but in the fact that their role in society and the business world is growing. It will enable them to shape a new progressive form of politics that offers an alternative to today's society and to the new right. The fact that Saturday's march achieved such international resonance reaffirms this. It's just a pity that none of the voices on the international stage are Polish ones yet.”
Wars aren't won with pussies
The women's marches against Donald Trump can't be taken seriously because they are based on extreme feminism, the daily 24 Chasa argues:
“Some call it 'pussy', others refer to it more academically as 'vagina'. But whatever you call it, it has become the emblem of the mass protests against Trump and has led the resistance of the left-wing opposition into the dead end of extreme feminism. … 'Possessing a vagina is a matter of biology, not a political argument,' Katie Hopkins, columnist for the UK's Daily Mail wrote. So the protest by millions of women in the US and all over the world is only partially justified. Quite apart from the fact that those who paint angry vaginas on their banners can't necessarily rely on support from the men. And without men no one in the history of mankind has ever won a war.”
Trump's enemies are a danger to democracy
The anti-Trump protests have done more harm to democracy than the newly sworn-in US president, Observador criticises:
“Is Trump an instability factor for US democracy and the world order? Without doubt. But what has formed on the other side of the barricade is no less dangerous. Part of the population is simply being marginalised, its political legitimacy denied, with mass protests against the election results. … This is not just a demonstration of bad losers but a clear challenge to the rules, institutions and conventions that define our free democracies. And it is simply anti-democratic. So far all the hue and cry, supposedly in the name of democratic values, had done more damage to democracy than Trump. … Because the stability of a democracy is not judged by how you win but first and foremost by how you lose.”
Angry masses will triumph
The demonstrations send a very positive signal, De Morgen contends:
“It doesn't look like the protests will die down soon. And history teaches us that change is mostly brought about by angry masses. It is also just as probable that the media too will become empowered under Trump, at least if it isn't distracted by presidential feuds. The New York Times, for example, has already pumped an extra five million dollars into research on the Trump presidency. And as history shows, the other US leader who waged a war against the media - Richard Nixon - actually boosted investigative journalism and brought about his own downfall with the Watergate scandal. Sometimes history repeats itself not only in a negative way.”
Hate is stronger than Trump's opponents
Trump is triumphing against all the protests because he is mobilising a new force, the hater, author Roberto Saviano explains in La Repubblica:
“There was something old and dusty about the anti-Trump rallies. They harked back to the protests against the Vietnam War, the peace marches of the 1970s. … Donald Trump's inaugural address also took a tone we thought was passé. But unlike the protest marches his speech contained a new message. It was a call for all the frustrated to join forces. … Because Trump has understood a key point as regards television and the social networks. The winner is the one who manages to charm the 'haters', the losers, those who have been left behind and blame the others for excluding them. … This is the new thing about Trump and it is terrifying. It is based on the logic of turning the citizen into a hater and that hater into a voter.”