No incoming president in United States history has seen anything like it: not just a record number of people, one half million protesting a presidential inauguration in D.C., but more than 600 similar marches around the world, totaling in the millions in Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York City, Los Angeles, and cities worldwide.
In London, Manchester, Paris, Berlin, Cape Town, Sydney, across Europe, Africa, Asia and even in Antarctica; in more than 50 countries, those millions took part in the kind of unified repudiation of a single leader and his agenda that is historically unprecedented.
According to NPR, in Washington, D.C., "The National Mall has flooded with pink."
Speakers included celebrated feminist Gloria Steinem who told a wildly cheering audience "This is an outpouring of energy and true democracy I have not seen in a very long time. We've elected an impossible president. We are never going home. We are staying together and we are taking over."
Steinem also provided a taste of the kind of civil resistance that waits for Donald Trump if he tries to institute his litany of despotic campaign promises.
"If you force Muslims to register, we will all register as Muslims," she said.
At the New York City march, actress and talk show host Whoopi Goldberg noted that "this is not even the beginning."
In London, British press estimated the numbers to be more than 100,000 who marched from the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square to Trafalgar Square.
One marcher told The Independent, "When I heard the march was [happening] I couldn't not come out today and join it. I don't want to look back on Trump's presidency in years to come and think I'd not done what I could do resist it."
The mass of people in Paris who wanted their voices heard against hatred—even as France has seen the rise of far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen—stretched into the distance from the Eiffel Tower.
"The rights of women are in danger and also in France," one protestor tweeted.
Chicago's march numbered more than 250,000.
In total, those who turned up to denounce Trump far overshadowed those who appeared in support of his Jan. 20 instillation.
Instead of acknowledging the astonishing international display of voices raised in defiance on just his first day in office, Trump used the occasion to talk about his Jan. 20 attendance numbers in a tirade that began at the CIA and continued with a brief press briefing at which Trump spokesman Sean Spicer threatened to hold the media "accountable."
Yet, in Boston, it was Sen. Elizabeth Warren ( D-Massachusetts ) who encapsulated each of the messages in each of the events spanning the globe.
"I'm here to fight back," she said.
See Chicago March coverage here: www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/RISE-UP-Womens-March-on-Chicago-draws-more-than-250K/57853.html .
