In this time of national conflict, those of us who have remained genuinely libertarian find ourselves part of a large, national coalition of liberals, moderates, true conservatives (where the state is not used for authoritarian and bigoted ends), libertarians, and those eschewing any ideology.
(When this conflict ends, and when America enters a Third Reconstruction, there will be time for libertarians to consider how we have allowed others to misuse free-market terms for state-capitalist ends, and why some of us wrongly thought that they could sit neutrally between the larger forces engaged in this conflict. For now, for those of us from old, movement libertarian families, there is only an obligation to play a role in a large coalition of opposition and resistance.)
When one looks at this coalition, one sees (and surveys confirm) the role that women have played as the heart of opposition to Trumpism. They exercise a key role not merely numerically, but in intensity: among them, one finds a notable fortitude, and a worthy ferocity, that belies the conceit that those in opposition are ‘snowflakes,’ ‘easily triggered,’ or otherwise weak. (These conceits are, so to speak, Trumpism’s whistles in the graveward.)
Dana R. Fisher reports on the composition of rallies in opposition to Trumpism, in an article entitled Who came out in the brutal heat to the ‘Families Belong Together’ march? Here’s our data:
As part of my ongoing research on the resistance to the Trump administration, I have been working with a team to survey attendees at all the large-scale protest events in Washington since Trump’s inauguration. So far, the complete data set includes surveys collected from 1,946 protest participants.
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Like other protests we’ve sampled, the Families Belong Together march attracted more women than men; in this case, 71 percent were women, compared with 85 percent at the 2017 Women’s March. Participants were highly educated; 84 percent had a BA or higher. More than half of the participants this weekend — 56 percent of the crowd — had completed a graduate degree, the highest percentage so far. The Families Belong Together march was also predominantly white, with 70 percent white compared with 77 percent at the Women’s Marches in 2017 and 2018. Overall, we found the crowd was 9 percent Latino, 7 percent black, 5 percent Asian/Pacific Islander and 8 percent multiracial.
Anecdotally, one can say that online, in email correspondence, in meetings, at rallies, and in conference calls about events, women play a key role among organizers and are notably resolute.
Why that is I’ll leave to others; it’s enough that one finds formidable & stalwart allies.