Unite, ReSisters!

Women's Day in Westport

On the windiest day of winter, hundreds of women (and men) stood several layers deep along both sidewalks of the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen bridge in Westport, holding handmade signs protesting everything about the Trump-Musk maladministration and mismanagement, from the firing of tens of thousands federal workers to the rounding up and imprisonment of undocumented immigrants. Just before departing for the rally, I decided to add my voice: I found a lawn sign in the garage and covered it with newspaper. Defend Democracy, Reject Tyranny was the messy result (above) but I was proud to hold it up.

Why didn't we start a national Women's March this year like we did four years ago, on January 21, 2017, the day of Trump's first inauguration? We knew how dangerous he was then; are we now too defeated and exhausted to mobilize again? Starting from Day One this year when he issued 89 executive orders, we knew we were in for far worse. He had learned from his first term not to appoint principled public servants to his cabinet; only loyalists now pass his litmus test of absolute loyalty — qualifications and integrity be damned.

Far worse is his giving carte blanche to Elon Musk and his minions to "restructure" government agencies, fire thousands of federal workers, storm offices and access personnel and financial records with impunity.

All of this evil is illegal but who can stop the president when the Supreme Court gave him immunity to do whatever he liked. Such power is already turning our democracy into an oligarchy or autocracy. My hope is that in 2026, voters will kick out the Republican congressmen who caved - and didn’t they all? Voters in both parties are suffering.

The wind that day on the bridge was brittle but we withstood it. Come what may, our resilience will not be extinguished. If it comes to that, resilience may lead to resolve, reform, restoration or (hopefully not) revolution.