The March took place exactly eight years after the first major Tea Party rally to protest Obama policies on April 15, 2009, which was widely credited as the beginning of the far-right Tea Party movement. Saturday’s Tax March was superficially similar to that first Tea Party in some ways: many of the protesters were older than the millennials who flocked to earlier anti-Trump rallies, and there were more conspicuous displays of patriotism than one normally sees at liberal rallies.
Older people generally tend to care more about tax issues, and the Tea Party was made up mostly of older Americans: three-quarters of self-identified Tea Party members are over 45, according to a 2012 CBS News poll, and almost a third are over 65. Similarly, the Tax March tended to attract a slightly older set of protesters than other anti-Trump marches have. Many said they had protested against the Vietnam War and segregation in the 1960s and 1970s.
“It seems older than the Women’s March was,” says Betsy Klein, 69. “Because a lot of younger people haven’t had experiences like we have, paying our taxes every year for 40 years. Every other president since we’ve been adults has released his tax returns.” Her friend Kate McMullan, 70, chimed in: “Even Nixon.”
Retired woodworker Ellin Rothstein, 72, said the scene looked familiar.
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