The spectacle of Trump’s ascension to immense power is nothing if not unprecedented. Just as candidate Trump’s presidential campaign, built on lies, ridicule, cruelty, racism, paranoia, revenge fantasies, misogyny and insane messianic promises, was unprecedented in how it completely degraded the electoral process, so too did he degrade the tradition of the inaugural address yesterday by making what was in essence yet another extraordinarily divisive and insulting campaign speech; one which made no attempt whatsoever to even acknowledge the profound concerns of the majority of Americans who did not vote for him. It is as if millions of Americans simply do not exist for this man. Instead, Trump babbled about “transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American People, ” and how “America will start winning again, winning like never before,” and othersuch nonsense, even as he fills his cabinet with the most anti labor, pro corporate degenerates in the land. He then balled his hand into a fist as if addressing, not the nation, but a mob.
Indeed, the speech was so degrading that even Ur- conservative George Will called it “the most dreadful inaugural speech in American history.”
My daughter, who attends an excellent public school in the inner city, watched the speech with her class and was astonished to learn that she and her classmates were the victims of “an education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of knowledge.”
Such unprecedented assaults on any semblance of decency and truth call for unprecedented response, and today, one day after the swearing in of President Trump, such responses came in extraordinary numbers, in the nation’s capital and all over the country.
I marched in New York. It was the most poorly organized march that I’ve ever been to – and I’ve been to many. At the same time it may have been the most inspiring. For some reason, thousands were made to stand almost immobile in penned areas for hours with no idea of what was happening. But so we did. And at last the march began. And then everywhere you looked you saw more people coming. And more and more and more. Hours later, more were marching. And you knew it was worth it.
Nothing like this has ever happened before in American history: one day after the swearing in of a new president, a massive nation wide revolt and rejection.
No American president has ever inspired such a response, but then no American president has so repulsed and frightened and insulted the American people as deeply as does Trump.
But many more such marches will be needed. And much more than marches. We will need to build a true opposition party that is NOT the Democratic party.
Raginghorseblog 
January 22, 2017 at 11:10 am
Agreed Patrick – it was really poorly organized. I didn’t take well to being penned in and I worried that things could go horribly wrong, but luckily everybody else remained calm and positive. I couldn’t believe that thousands of New Yorkers were patient, courteous, respectful and helpful under such conditions. But that is what made it so inspiring. The fact that hours later the police wouldn’t let us anywhere near the golden tower, did not dampen the spirit of the crowd. We did not need to be in close proximity to our illegitimate leader’s throne to feel that this was the beginning of his end.
January 22, 2017 at 9:47 pm
Let us to all we can to hasten that day, Michele.