In January of 2017, more than 500,000 people flooded Washington, D.C., to march in support of women’s issues, with more than a million marching nationwide.
The movement, which was recently accused of being led by anti-Semites, only expects to draw about 10,000 women to the nation’s capital this year.
The public gathering permit provided by the U.S. Department of the Interior’s National Park Service shows just how far the march has fallen, stating that the “anticipated number or participants” is roughly 10,000. In 2017, the first Women’s March attracted between 500,000 and 1 million people from around the country, according to official estimates.
Women’s March ATTENDANCE FALL —
• Only 10,000 people expected for Saturday’s DC Women’s March• That’s according to latest NPS permit
• 500k – 1 m people were estimated in DC for the 2017 march
Story and permit HERE:@WUSA9 #WomensMarch #breakinghttps://t.co/iKiSMcchFp pic.twitter.com/B5lj7OoWOe
— Mike Valerio (@MikevWUSA) January 17, 2019
Right on cue, the co-chair of the movement, Tamika Mallory, refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.
“I feel everyone has a right to exist. I just don’t feel that anyone has a right to exist at the disposal of another group,” she added.
“In your view, does that include Israelis in Israel?” Hoover followed up.
“I believe that all people have the right to exist and that Palestinians are also suffering with a great crisis, and that there are other Jewish scholars who will sit here and say the same,” an annoyed Mallory replied, before ordering Hoover to “move on” from her question.
Hoover, expressing dissatisfaction with Mallory’s dodging of the question, noted that “scholarly knowledge” isn’t required to understand Israel’s right to exist. “Again, I believe everyone has the right to exist,” the Women’s March co-leader shot back.
The list of notable Democrats and liberals who have abandoned the march grew yesterday as former DNC chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz pulled her support:
At “almost every turn,” she wrote, Women’s March co-leader Tamika Mallory “has failed to clearly denounce” Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam group, who has a “long history of antisemitism.”
“Instead, she has attended Farrakhan’s speeches and posted her support for him on social media, referring to him as the ‘GOAT’ — or, the Greatest Of All Time,” the congresswoman wrote.
“While I still firmly believe in its values and mission, I cannot associate with the national march’s leaders and principles, which refuse to completely repudiate antisemitism and all forms of bigotry.”
Another prominent Democrat and presidential hopeful, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, also declined to participate.
Given that a majority of Democrats agree pretty much with Tamika Mallory, why are there so many fewer marchers this year?
This version of the women’s movement has lost its core constituency: the average, ordinary women who thought the march represented hope for change in 2017. Instead, it became just another partisan political tool of the left. The anti-Trump hysteria ginned up by the leaders of the movement — who said that Trump would take away their birth control pills and ban abortion — is now seen, in retrospect, as an exaggeration. The embrace of hate by many prominent leaders proved to be too much for the majority of women.
And I think the #MeToo movement and its over-the-top reaction to harassment (which no one denies is a problem) and sexual assault being ludicrously redefined has scared many women more than Donald Trump. They fear for their husbands, sons, lovers, and boyfriends who might say the wrong thing or have some innocent gesture deliberately misinterpreted.
All women deserve and should demand respect in a workplace free from harassment. But the frightening turn taken by #MeToo that left a trail of ruined lives and careers may also have discouraged many women from marching this year.
Will women’s marches continue after 2020 if a Democrat wins the presidency?
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