Structurally, the new groups are more oriented to state and district-based efforts than national efforts — though they have national aims. They are more focused on getting people elected to smaller state-level offices — territory that is cheaper and more accessible to political newcomers, but also critical in an era where Democratic bench needs desperately to be repopulated. Driven by the expertise and passion of older millennials, they alternate between massive marches and small-group meetings, between targeting existing members of Congress and seeking to elect new ones, all under the broad banner of the anti-Trump resistance movement.
And yet despite a level of passion not seen in generations, the jury is still out on whether they can be as deft in electing Democrats nationwide as in thwarting what they see as the most objectionable parts of President Trump’s agenda. But the intensity and sense of urgency shared by millions of progressive voters is a good place to start.
If the Women’s March on Washington the day after Trump’s inauguration was the thunderclap that announced the storm, it was the presence of women’s marches outside of Washington, in cities from Anchorage, Alaska, to Tallahassee, Fla., that first suggested what was coming would be more akin to climate change than a passing squall.
The new power that would rise in opposition to President Trump would be as geographically distributed as the nation’s population itself.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member