Women's March Los Angeles: The Gaze of History

We didn’t march in Los Angeles on January 21, 2017, we shuffled a foot or two at a time because the crowd was so massive. Along the entire march route, which was less than 10 blocks, it was wall-to-wall people -- young, middle-aged, gay and straight, black, white, Asian, Latino, Muslim -- holding signs aloft, chanting, and talking. From Pershing Square to City Hall I saw very few police and not one act of violence or destruction. This was a march of solidarity and controlled outrage at the strange turn America has taken with the election of Donald Trump.

During the shuffle we heard estimates of the turnout. First it was 250,000, then 500,000 and then 750,000. From within the throng there was no way to guess because no perspective is available. Only the people in the helicopters hovering in the sky above the march route could make a guess. All I know is that it took nearly three hours to cover 10 blocks. All I know is that the lines for the porta-potties were 30, 40, 50 people deep. All I know is that my legs ached.

And all I know is that I had to be there, with my wife and her female colleagues from the Santa Barbara Independent, because I believe in social justice, human rights, reproductive rights and immigrant rights. Trump’s twisted vision of white privilege and supremacy isn’t mine -- the orange man is on the wrong side of history. Trump and his stooges, including the detestable Paul Ryan, will do everything possible to wind the clock of history backwards, and the people that I marched with in Los Angeles, and millions more in other American cities, will resist, of this I have no doubt. The spirit I saw yesterday, the diversity, reminded me that people are better than their government.

Trump assumed office with a dismal approval rating of less than 40 percent; it’s likely that this figure will be his apex, and that from here out Trump will become more despised. A narcissist like Trump wants to be loved, adored, and obeyed, and I imagine he has no clue the extent to which he is already hated -- and how that hatred will increase when some of his cruel policies kick in.

Trump is under the misimpression that dissent is unpatriotic. While it won’t happen easily, quickly or without pain, I think we will teach him otherwise. In a real democracy, dissent is essential.