The week after Election Day in 2016, Shirley Morganelli, a women’s health nurse and lifelong Democrat, invited a dozen friends into the living room of her home in Bethlehem, Pa., for a glass of wine. In fact, many glasses.
“Misery loves company,” he said.
Friends of Ms. The Morganellis, most of whom were women then in their 50s and 60s, were teachers, nurses, musicians and ardent supporters of Hillary Clinton. Some of them wore white suffragist clothes to vote that day, hoping to celebrate the election of America’s first female president. Instead, they had spent the night comforting their college-age daughters.
“When he called me at three o’clock in the morning — I just let it go now, because it was the first time I said, ‘Everything’s going to be okay,'” said Angela Sinkler, also a nurse. former member of the school board in Bethlehem.
The meeting – which Ms Morganelli called an “unpleasant hour” – became a regular event. By the end of the month, fun had turned into planning. They started by writing postcards to elected officials asking them to oppose Donald J. Trump’s agenda, then moved on to fundraising for the local Planned Parenthood chapter and participating in public protests.
Local political candidates began showing up at their rallies, and the group, now called Lehigh Valley ROAR, turned to campaigning. In 2018, several members were elected to the Bethlehem City Council, and Susan Wild, a city attorney from nearby Allentown and a longtime friend of Ms. Morganelli, was elected to Congress with the party’s support.
Lehigh Valley ROAR was one of more than 2,000 similar grassroots groups that formed after Mr. Trump’s first election. , a Harvard University professor of government and sociology who has studied both movements.
Most of the groups were led by women, and many followed the same path as Ms. Morganelli, their shock at the election of Mr.
But then there was the defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
As Mr. With Trump returning to the White House on Monday and winning the popular vote and the governing trifecta in Washington, there are few signs of the kind of mass public protest that sparked the “opposition” when he finally took office.
The inauguration of Mr. Trump in 2017 was met with the largest one-day protest in American history. Although thousands marched in Washington on Saturday and there were smaller protests in other cities, their numbers were far lower than the hundreds of thousands who gathered eight years ago.
Organizers of the 2017 effort say the change reflects lessons learned from the street protests that took place early in Trump’s first presidency, that tactics were quickly abandoned for strategy — and that opposition to Trump’s second term is unlikely to take off. similar forms.
But others agree that the objection is less certain than before. Members of Congress Democrats and governors are now openly arguing about the wisdom of arming against Mr. Trump’s plan. And Democrats are still scarred from last year’s conflicts over Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, their embrace of identity politics and the nomination of President Biden.
In 2017, “everything felt bigger, more important,” says Krista Suh, a screenwriter in Los Angeles. When the Women’s March was announced the day after Mr. Trump, Ms. Suh, a novice knitter, came up with a pattern for a pink cap with cat ears to be worn at the protest and posted it online.
Within days, “pussy hats” became a common anti-Trump symbol.
Ms. Suh has always been involved in politics; campaigned Ms. Harris in Arizona. But he wasn’t about to protest this weekend.
“I feel like I’m very angry right now,” she said.
‘Popular Vote Winner’
When the members of Lehigh Valley ROAR reunited in the living room of Ms. Morganelli this month, days before Mr. With Trump back in the White House, few were sure what to do next. They campaigned and called Ms Harris. “You name it, we did it,” said Ms. Morganelli.
Mrs. Wild had lost her seat, too.
In the corner of the living room of Mrs. Morganelli, a cardboard cutout of Mr. Obama is still wearing a pink hat from the 2017 Women’s March, which most members of the group attended. But none of them went to Washington to complain about the appointment of Mr.
Some members came to question the effectiveness of the Women’s March. Others were now more concerned about the safety of the exhibits. Last fall, one member’s car was broken into by someone who also tore the Harris yard signs off the back seat.
Four years after the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2021, Mrs. Morganelli had the opposite views about contesting the results of fair elections.
“This time, you won the popular vote,” he said, referring to the president-elect. “As good Americans and good Democrats, you have to accept that, right?”
Instead of protesting, the group planned to meet to drink wine and write to Mr. Biden’s thank you notes. “Moving forward, all we can do is try to be good citizens,” wrote Ms. Morganelli on the group’s Facebook page.
Resisting Some Regrets
In its early days, the opposition of Mr. Desperate liberators poured their energies into whatever ship was available. People who had never organized a protest in their lives were transformed into leaders of demonstrations on a historic scale, sometimes overnight, as was the case with Naomi Lindquester.
Aggrieved by the election of Mr. Trump, Ms. Lindquester, then a 42-year-old elementary school teacher in Denver, created a Facebook event called the Women’s March in Denver. He thought he would have to ask his friends to go there.
Instead, after the day of the inauguration of Mr. Trump, a crowd estimated at more than 100,000 people came to the State Capitol to criticize the new president. It was probably the biggest show in Colorado history.
The Women’s March protests drew about 500,000 people to Washington and hundreds of thousands more across the country. But the groups that seemed to be organizing them, often led by young urban professionals with news savvy, soon found themselves struggling to maintain momentum and, at times, fighting.
The national Women’s March movement has been disbanded after one organizer accused others of illegality. Some groups are torn between prosaic arguments over priorities and egos.
“It got really bad, very quickly,” said Ms. Lindquester, who has not spoken to her fellow Denver march organizers since they fell out in late 2018.
Many such groups, he believes, have fallen victim to their celebrity. “I’ll be honest with you,” he said, “I really enjoyed my 15 minutes of fame.”
Since November, Ms. Lindquester has found herself questioning the impact of her planned march. “The thing is that we did that big march again and again was he re-elected for the second time?” he said.
He has largely retreated from public politics — a shift that was part of his move from Denver to a violent small town elsewhere in the state, and scrutiny of teacher politics in recent years.
Although he is proud of his role in the 2017 protest, “I don’t talk to anyone about that, because I will hear about it if I do,” he said.
In a Facebook post this month, he suggested a list of actions he said would make a bigger difference now than marching: Plant trees. Volunteer in the community. “Connect with people who think differently than you and find common ground.”
New Message: ‘This Is Hard.’
Some say the power is still there, but the goals are different. Ezra Levin, the executive director of Indivisible, an organization he founded in 2017 to express deep opposition to Mr.
In a new action plan released shortly after the election, Indivisible urged its members not only to focus on Mr. Trump and Congress but also local elected officials – especially Democrats in green states who may be a bulwark against Mr. Trump’s policies. .
It acknowledged that “too often in Trump 1.0, we embrace the beauty of protests instead of using them as part of a strategy.”
“You shouldn’t start with a strategy,” said Mr. Levi. “You have to start with a goal.”
In the living room of Ms. Morganelli, members of Lehigh Valley ROAR spoke of interdependence as other family members have drifted away from politics in recent years: children who grew up favoring right-wing survivalism or opposition to vaccines during the coronavirus. epidemic, or open mr. Biden and Ms. Harris for their support of Israel.
“I lost my liberal, progressive son to Joe Rogan,” said one, as others nodded in sympathy.
They felt alienated from young Democratic activists who seemed to see the fight against Mr Trump as more important than issues of ideological purity.
“If you’re not left out enough, they’re willing to give up their vote and throw it away,” either by not voting or voting for a third party, said Lori McFarland, who is now a member of the party. chairman of the Lehigh County Democratic Committee. “And they just set us back.”
Ms. Suh, the creator of the “pussy hat,” did not want to reprise her role in the protest movement. He thought something as inclusive as his hat would still happen – but the message now has to be something different than the defiance of early 2017.
“I think,” he said, “it should be something like: ‘I can hear you. This is hard.’”
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