The women’s movement that wasn’t

The Women’s march was the largest protest in U.S. history with an estimated 2.9 million people across the country. Millions more stood in protest against Donald Trump’s presidency around the world.

As soon as the march ended in Washington D.C. on Saturday night, March leaders called for a networking session. Consequently, Planned Parenthood, “held a training session for 2,000 organizers to try to turn mobilization into political action,” while activist David Brock pulled together 120 leading liberal donors to plan lawsuits against Trump, among other actions.

In other words, even the protestors are admitting that this isn’t an organic movement sparked by pockets of female outrage over Trump’s remarks. It’s just identity politics.

As David Brooks wrote in the New York Times:

On Friday, Trump offered a version of unabashed populist nationalism. On Saturday, the anti-Trump forces could have offered a red, white and blue alternative patriotism, a modern, forward-looking patriotism based on pluralism, dynamism, growth, racial and gender equality and global engagement.

Instead, the marches offered the pink hats, an anti-Trump movement built, oddly, around Planned Parenthood, and lots of signs with the word “pussy” in them. The definition of America is up for grabs. Our fundamental institutions have been exposed as shockingly hollow. But the marches couldn’t escape the language and tropes of identity politics.

But that’s because the women’s movement revival is about keeping Planned Parenthood flush with cash. Hollow language and pink hats are fine for marketing– they just won’t do much to help women in places like Saudi Arabia where they face real oppression.