SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Activists are engaging in protest without purpose

Jan 10, 2017, 1:40 PM

Columnist Maureen Dowd has coined a useful description of the left’s hysterical overreaction to Donald Trump’s upcoming inauguration, calling it “Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Determined to protest his presidency before it even begins, a group of activists secured commitments from more than 200,000 women who plan to march on Washington to express their rage at Trump taking power.

Related: Multiple days of anti-Trump protests planned in Seattle

Unlike other great Washington protests — for Civil Rights, against the Vietnam War, for the cause of human life — this one has no discernible goal. It’s not aimed at a policy, but at a person — and that person has been duly elected to the nation’s highest office. A protest without purpose is a pathetic exercise — displaying unfocused, paralyzing anger and allowing participants to wallow in their perceived victimhood.

The prospect of hundreds of thousands of women marching to the Capitol with no particular goal in mind only makes the left even more irrelevant, not more powerful.

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Activists are engaging in protest without purpose