Dialectics in action. Thesis: Trumps inauguration. Antithesis:  the Women’s March, uniting millions against Trump’s bigotry. What turned out today was the coalition against Trump that we need. The scramble then becomes who will lead this coalition, the Bernie progressives or the neoliberals. The progressives definitely have the momentum right now, a huge coup for Bernie to get appointed to Senate leadership in alliance with Schumer. Plus he’s more all over the news than he was when he was running for president. We haven’t heard about the DNC chair business for a while, not a good sign. It looked like Ellison was favored last time I heard, but so was Hillary in her election. The neolibs may maintain control for a while because they’re incumbent and more familiar with the complex web of party rules designed to prevent grassroots insurgencies like Bernie’s.

But the coalition is a united front, subject to the dialectical principle of struggle-with–struggle-against. The march was a struggle-with event. The DNC election is a struggle-against event, however the f that works. Wait. Let me google that. Okay, as I figured the process of selecting the DNC is draconian and capricious. It may take a few years to win a majority. The main thing would be to control the committee outright by 2019. Revolutions do not happen overnight.

People ask what will marches do? The Trumpistas don’t care. They use silicone ear plugs. The marches are not primarily designed to get the policy makers to change policy. It’s about us. It’s about us realizing our power when we’re unified. Another dialectic principle is quantity turns into quality, which means if you can reach a critical mass of people, a qualitative change will happen, like we’ll be winning all over the place. The marches, big as they were, probably don’t represent the tipping point yet. But it’s coming, sooner than we think.

Good old Wikipedia has all the information about the march already, on the night of the marches, including all the crowd estimates.  Also how it got organized. Pretty damn grassroots  start, developed into a real coalition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women’s_March_on_Washington

Look at the honorary co-chairs:  Gloria Steinem, Harry Belafonte, LaDonna Harris, Angela Davis and Dolores Huerta. These are all people I like, I’d guess about half Hillary and half Bernie.

It remains to be seen if the coalition will stay together and find a way to give the unified movement an on-going voice. The greatest danger is that the struggle-against pole will once again eclipse the struggle-with pole.