Episode Details

The Women’s March 2020 was held in cities across the country on January 18. What began as a conversation on social media has evolved into a network of groups and organizations that are united in opposition to the Trump administration.

From 2017-2019, Dana Fisher and her research team interviewed participants at Washington, D.C. protests, including the Women’s March, March for Our Lives, and the People’s Climate March. They asked protesters about their motivations and how marching in the streets translates into longer-term political action. Fisher argues that the groups in the Resistance are the “connective tissue of democracy,” bringing together people who are working to make their voices heard and advocate for the environment, reproductive rights, and other causes.

But will the connective tissue hold through the election in November? What about beyond that? Fisher shares her thoughts based on her research on the Resistance and collective organizing more broadly.

Fisher is Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland and author of American Resistance: From the Women’s March to the Blue Wave, which chronicles the birth and growth of the anti-Trump resistance following the 2016 election.

This episode is a nice follow up to our conversation with Theda Skocpol last week about how the Tea Party transformed Republican politics.

Additional Information

Dana’s book, American Resistance: From the Women’s March to the Blue Wave

Dana’s website

Related Episodes

How the Tea Party and the Resistance are upending American politics

Grassroots organizing to reboot democracy

Tracing the past, present, and future of protests

Episode Credits

This episode was engineered by Democracy Works host Jenna Spinelle, edited by WPSU’s Chris Kugler, and reviewed by WPSU News Director Emily Reddy. Additional support from Democracy Works interns Nicole Gresen and Stephanie Krane.

Thank you to Meredith Howard at Columbia University Press for sending us a copy of American Resistance and helping arrange an interview with Dana.

Interview Highlights

[8:25] How do you define the Resistance?

I think of the resistance as a counter-movement to the Trump regime. So, it involves people working individually and through organizations to challenge the Trump administration and its policies. And because it’s specifically about targeting and the Trump administration and its policies, people in the administration who are writing anonymously in the New York Times or publishing books anonymously calling themselves the resistance don’t fit into my definition of resistance.

[10:05] Is there anything that unites the Resistance beyond opposition to the Trump administration?

Well, I think that we could say that this movement is unified also in its progressive ideals. One of the things that unifies all the people who participated is their concern about a number of different progressive issues. And depending on the event where I’m collecting data, different issues take precedence. So obviously, women’s rights, reproductive rights are very prominent in the Women’s Marches. But at the People’s Climate March, climate change is obviously a prominent feature. At the March for Racial Justice, racial justice and Black Lives Matter tends to be a prominent issue.

[12:50] Does the initial