Rebranded Women’s March returns before Trump inauguration

By CHRISTINE FERNANDO, Associated Press

When Elisabeth Bramble and her sister stepped off the Washington Metro to join the massive crowds during the 2017 Women’s March, she counted it as one of the most powerful moments of her life.

On Saturday, she will board a 2 a.m. bus full of North Carolinians headed to the nation’s capital as the Women’s March returns before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration under a new name: The People’s March.

“We’re marching once again for our daughters and our granddaughters,” Bramble said. “We’re marching for our immigrant community. We’re marching for our LGBTQ community.”

Organizers say the rebranded and reorganized march has absorbed criticism and moved past the internal tumult that consumed the movement after the hugely successful march eight years ago on the day after Trump’s first inauguration.

Now, with Democratic political leaders across the country searching for ways to reconnect with voters after the party’s devastating election losses last fall, People’s March organizers are hoping to broaden their base, stake out a new direction and move beyond a single day of action to help progressive voters find a political home.

Saturday’s march is expected to draw as many as 50,000 people, far fewer than the Women’s March in 2017. It’s one of several protests, rallies and vigils focused on abortion, rights, immigration rights and the Israel-Hamas war planned in advance of inauguration Monday.

The People’s March will focus on a broader set of goals around women’s and reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, immigration, climate and democracy, rather than more narrowly on Trump himself, as the Women’s March did before his first inauguration, said Tamika Middleton, managing director of the Women’s March. Under the protest’s new name, the group also is attempting to broaden support and reflect the priorities of a larger coalition of organizations.

“We’re recognizing the necessity of having a really broad-based coalition that is bringing people in,” Middleton said. “We’re asking ourselves how we build a big tent that allows for the kind of multiracial, multi-class, multi-gender mass movement that can make a difference politically in the coming years.”

The Women’s March launched in 2017 as a grassroots group of women outraged over Trump’s 2016 presidential win. The rally brought over 500,000 marchers to Washington with millions more demonstrating in cities throughout the country, marking one of the largest single-day demonstrations in U.S. history.

Photos of women in pink pussyhats and with megaphones announcing calls for public action became the enduring image of the inaugural march. But this year, organizers and political analysts have described a more somber moment of reflection after Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss. Middleton acknowledged exhaustion among many progressives.

The pre-inauguration period in 2017 was a time of “anger, frustration, disbelief that someone who was so intentional about flouting our political norms and disparaging women, people of color and immigrants could get elected,” said Basil Smikle, a political strategist and professor at Columbia University’s school of professional studies.

“And that disbelief played itself out in more outward-facing resistance like the Women’s March,” he said.

This year is a quieter moment of introspection and building support for communities that will be most affected by Trump’s policies, so lower protest attendance makes sense, he said.

“People are tired,” Smikle said. “This resistance has lasted for eight years, and there’s a sense that things haven’t gotten better.”

The general malaise on the left is felt across the country as Democrats and progressives enter a period of political soul-searching following Trump’s decisive win and Republicans winning control of Congress.

A post-election ebb in enthusiasm for politics and government has led about two-thirds of U.S. adults to say they have recently felt the need to limit media consumption of both topics because they were feeling overloaded, according to a December survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The drop-off is more pronounced with Democrats but also is reflected among Republicans, according to the poll.

Democrats also are less likely than Americans overall to be feeling “happy” or “hopeful” about 2025, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in December. Instead, about 4 in 10 Democrats said “stressed” described their feelings extremely or very well, while roughly one-third of Democrats said that about “gloomy.”

Middleton said recreating the numbers of the 2017 march is not the goal. Instead, it’s to energize voters and attract new members for the movement after what she termed a brutal 2020 election season.

“We need to keep bringing in new people for a movement to be sustainable and to relieve some of the pressure off those who need to rest,” she said.

In the years after 2017, the Women’s March fractured internally as the group faced allegations of racism and antisemitism. It also came under scrutiny for being more focused on the voices of straight white women over women of color and the LGBTQ+ community, a rift that caused sponsors to pull support and leadership to shift.

Raquel Willis, a transgender activist and co-founder of Gender Liberation Movement, was anxious before speaking at the 2017 march because she “knew the history of trans exclusion within feminist movements.”

“There was a particular focus on white women and their concerns,” she said. “And there was limited discussion about white supremacy, capitalism, queer and transphobia.”

Since then, the Women’s March has become a “key collaborator” with her group and Willis will return this year as a speaker, she said. Willis said she’s seen the organization undergo a “leadership transformation.”

“The Women’s March is in a different era and deserves a chance to show us what their expanded vision is,” she said.