Why the massive Women’s March will fail

Like Mark Twain, “I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute.” I do support Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington and its offshoots around the nation and the planet.

Such protests are the only semblance of democracy in the nation, and the only times I’ve felt I was part of democracy in the Land of the Free was when I was a drop surrounded by an ocean of protesters. It is an exhilarating feeling to be part of such an event.

But within such protests, if one could go into the minds of participants, one would find that each person has their own idea of that which is being protested, and what would constitute a solution to that which offends.

Watching the coverage of this protest, I noticed that the common thread of unity for protesters was opposition to the election of Donald Trump to the presidency. While I agree that there are hundreds of millions of people in the nation who are better qualified than The Donald, I disagree that this should be the primary concern.

But it is the solution to that which offends, mouthed so often that I could hear echoes, which disheartened me most—to elect a Democrat, meaning any Democrat.

There was a brief moment when Michael Moore suggested reforming the Democratic Party as a priority, but it was like a piece of straw in the wind, ignored by the grievous masses.

The real problem got almost no air time throughout the protest, and that is the thing which caused Donald Trump to take the Oval Office. That would be a Democratic Party which stands for pretty much the same things as the Republican Party—bankster bailouts, war, and “free” trade agreements which send American jobs in search of slave labor, prison labor and child labor around the world.

So, many working class voters rebelled, having had enough of Democrats whining, “I feel your pain,” as they label the Trans Pacific Partnership the “gold standard” of trade agreements, without a wit of concern about its daggers plunging into working class backs.

I heard few say the Democrats need to be blown up and completely rebuilt to actually stand for something the American people want, like peace and living wage jobs with which to feed their families.

Speaking at the rally, rock star Madonna said “It took this horrific moment of darkness to wake us the fuck up,” entirely missing the point, if her point is to only oppose a Trump who, after all, was spawned by Democrats who don’t address the hopes of these working class voters who brought us the pussy-grabber-in-chief.

Where were these thousands of protesters when President Obama was doing this?

Rather than clean up its own act, the Democratic Party is concentrating on doing opposition research with which to attack Republicans during the 2018 Senate races. Once again it will be to offer nothing but opposition, saying the “Republicans are bad and you should vote for us because we are not Republicans.”

The Dems are tumbling toward another race in 2020 in which we will be asked to vote for an establishment Democrat who stands for nothing higher than pig vomit strained through a dirty sweat sock.

Over my lifetime I’ve seen this every four years, and I understand why so many working class people said this time, “I can’t take it any more—why vote for a fake Republican when you can get the real thing?”

Jack Balkwill has been published from the little read Rectangle, magazine of the English Honor Society, to the (then) millions of readers USA Today and many progressive publications/web sites such as Z Magazine, In These Times, Counterpunch, This Can’t Be Happening, Intrepid Report, and Dissident Voice. He is author of “An Attack on the National Security State,” about peace activists in prison.