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Episode: From Resistance to Reflection

Author: The New York Times
Duration: 00:25:27

Episode Shownotes

Warning: this episode contains strong language.For the past two weeks, Lynsea Garrison of “The Daily” has been talking to people who were part of a movement, known as the resistance, that opposed Donald Trump’s first term as president.With Mr. Trump preparing to again retake the White House, she asked those

past protesters how they might react this time.Background reading: Was Mr. Trump’s election a setback for women? Even women do not agree.Nonprofits have vowed a new resistance. Will donors pay up?For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Summary

In this episode of 'The Daily,' Lynsea Garrison analyzes the sentiments of individuals from the resistance movement during Trump's presidency, particularly focusing on women. Vanessa Rubel shares her perspective on the 2016 election's emotional aftermath and the subsequent mobilization that formed a grassroots movement. The conversation transitions to the ongoing struggles for women's rights and reflects on the disillusionment felt as protests seem to have limited impact, especially in light of generational challenges highlighted through personal anecdotes. The episode concludes by emphasizing the need for introspection within the movement as Trump prepares for another presidential run.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (From Resistance to Reflection) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:07 Speaker_04
You have the capacity to do extraordinary good in the world. And so to everyone who is watching, do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves.

00:00:28 Speaker_04
This is a time to organize, to mobilize, and to stay engaged. for the sake of freedom and justice and the future that we all know we can build together.

00:00:49 Speaker_03
From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. When Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, it prompted an outpouring of protests, particularly by women, a movement that came to be known as the Resistance.

00:01:06 Speaker_03
For the past two weeks, Daily producer Lindsay Garrison has been talking to people who were part of that movement, asking them what they're doing after Trump's win this time.

00:01:19 Speaker_03
Today, what they said about the state of the resistance in the next Trump era. It's Tuesday, November 19th.

00:01:46 Speaker_06
Hello? Hi, Vanessa. Hi, how are you? Hey, I'm good. I'm good.

00:01:52 Speaker_05
A few days after the election, I called Vanessa Rubel. She lives on five acres of desert in Southern California. So what is that?

00:02:04 Speaker_06
It's making noise right now.

00:02:06 Speaker_09
You're hearing in the background, you're hearing Byron who is a parrot. Oh, really? We run a animal sanctuary. Well, actually it's a sanctuary for humans and animals. And we have a ton of different kinds of animals.

00:02:20 Speaker_09
So there are like emus roaming around and then we have a ton of dogs and pigs and And we have a zebra. That's pretty intense. It is intense. It's a very different life.

00:02:35 Speaker_05
It's a very different life than the one Vanessa was leading eight years ago, when she was living in New York City, running a company in the music industry, and thought the country was about to elect its first woman president.

00:02:46 Speaker_09
I had been watching the election with friends. There was already a party planned in Brooklyn, and we had expected to go roll out to that party and celebrate with everyone.

00:02:58 Speaker_09
And when things started going south, I just kept saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, this can't happen. This is no way, there's no way. You know, it felt like there had been a death in the room, you know, like someone had died.

00:03:15 Speaker_09
And that feeling, there was nothing like it. I could not believe that that was the world we are living in. And I could not believe

00:03:27 Speaker_09
someone who had been accused of rape and sexual harassment and so on and so forth, people would rather have that person in the White House. And I really do think it was because she was a woman.

00:03:45 Speaker_09
And then I woke up the next day and I was like, well, either I'm gonna lay down and die or I'm gonna do something about this. And that anger was very motivating.

00:03:57 Speaker_09
So, you know, women everywhere were so incredibly upset and everyone gathered on one Facebook page. First, it started as just a Facebook group. It started so small. It would be like 20 members starting a Facebook group.

00:04:15 Speaker_09
And I became one of the readers of that page in what you could call a women's march at first. And I started pulling people in to organize who I knew could make this happen. At that time, they were looking for leadership positions.

00:04:31 Speaker_09
And I felt like, OK, this is what I served. This is the oath I took to this country.

00:04:39 Speaker_05
Team Marie Hannibal served in the Marine Corps for 20 years. She's a retired gunnery sergeant.

00:04:45 Speaker_09
I didn't go into combat for nothing. And now I'm in a space where I feel like our rights are being taken away, even here on the homeland. So what was the purpose of my military service? I felt like I had to do something.

00:05:04 Speaker_10
I think at that time, for me, it was really about the women's rights. And I'm a black woman. So not just the veteran, the black woman in me. The woman in me.

00:05:21 Speaker_09
Prior to coming into the Marine Corps, I was that 17-year-old who had an abortion. I was that child in the abortion clinic. That was me. That's my story. So for me, it was more so the women's rights, if that makes sense.

00:05:40 Speaker_06
So you thought under a Trump administration, there was a real possibility that abortion access could be denied.

00:05:48 Speaker_09
I knew it. I knew it. That's all he pushed. That's all he talked about. And so let's talk about these things now so that it doesn't happen. Let's make sure we're advocating for these things now so that, you know, it won't happen.

00:06:06 Speaker_10
And then I'm getting word of, OK, maybe we can protest.

00:06:10 Speaker_09
OK, maybe we should protest. Now what? And then from there, I started calling people that I knew in different states to kind of help me, because this was definitely new to my little house.

00:06:25 Speaker_09
And lo and behold, women veterans started stepping up and it just grew legs. It just grew into something I don't think anyone foresaw.

00:06:37 Speaker_07
You know, I was on Facebook and I started seeing all the posts because it just had started going viral. What is this?

00:06:44 Speaker_08
What is this march? And when I got the call to action, you know, we're going to march. I was just like, wow, I know what to do with this. And I started Women's March Pennsylvania.

00:06:54 Speaker_08
I'm down to mobilize my state of South Carolina and not take on getting Rhode Island together.

00:07:00 Speaker_07
At some point, it just took a life of its own. It was like this wave. particularly amongst women, but also with our male allies, because we don't do this without our male allies.

00:07:12 Speaker_01
People felt like they had to try and do something about this. People are indignant. People are furious.

00:07:18 Speaker_09
I think it was rage. It was just absolute rage. It was just a sense of fire, like everybody was ready.

00:07:27 Speaker_07
It was that the ride at midnight type of feel. Failure wasn't an option, right? Like you just I don't know, it's just like a bulldozer and we were going to get this done.

00:07:45 Speaker_09
On the day of the march, you know, I stood on that stage and I looked out, you know, and I had been kind of critical of the Pussyhats because that wasn't like directly us, that was the Pussyhat Project.

00:07:56 Speaker_09
And I had been like, oh, well, that's, you know, a pink hat that's kind of lame. And like, people felt that it wasn't inclusive because not all pussies are pink, you know, became a little contentious.

00:08:10 Speaker_09
But when I got on, you know, when I stood on the stage as people came in, it was like an absolute wave of pink coming over, you know, Capitol Hill. It was astonishing. I mean, just imagine looking out at miles and miles and miles of people.

00:08:40 Speaker_09
It was amazing. It was just amazing just to see.

00:08:44 Speaker_06
Just to see. Did it feel like the country was kind of on your side?

00:08:53 Speaker_09
I mean, it felt good to be able to say, OK, most Americans feel that way. So I would say, yeah. It feels good to feel like, OK. For the most part, when I meet somebody else, I can still hold my head up high. It was just, it was otherworldly.

00:09:17 Speaker_09
It was sublime. And I stood on the stage that day, and I thought, like, this is absolutely incredible. But we need to take this energy and harness it and create a movement. This is just the beginning.

00:09:53 Speaker_03
We'll be right back.

00:10:17 Speaker_09
This is just the beginning. We need to take this energy and harness it. And so the question is, what does that look like?

00:10:26 Speaker_09
And I think ultimately what it looked like was different groups forming different organizations to ensure that Trump did not have a second term.

00:10:39 Speaker_05
After the Women's March, a number of women's rights organizations sprouted up across the nation. One of those was MarchOn, a nonprofit that Vanessa ran.

00:10:49 Speaker_09
Women win was basically one of our slogans.

00:10:52 Speaker_05
Part of the work they did was also raise money and campaign for women running for office.

00:10:57 Speaker_09
And we were successful.

00:10:58 Speaker_05
And two years later, women got into office in record numbers in the 2018 midterm elections.

00:11:05 Speaker_09
Women running and women winning was a direct result of the Women's March.

00:11:10 Speaker_05
And in 2020, when Trump lost the election to Joe Biden, it felt like a triumph to activists. Things were swinging back in the right direction.

00:11:19 Speaker_09
When, you know, Biden stepped down.

00:11:22 Speaker_05
And then this year, when Kamala Harris was announced as the new Democratic nominee for president, for many of the Women's March organizers, the feeling was electric.

00:11:32 Speaker_09
There was this burst of hope and movement again. and energy, and I felt that deeply. Yeah, it gave us all hope again.

00:11:44 Speaker_04
The outcome of this election is not what we wanted, not what we fought for, not what we voted for. But hear me when I say, hear me when I say, the light of America's promise will always burn bright.

00:12:07 Speaker_09
So it felt again like there had been a death. And I was sitting with, you know, a couple other women, and it was just like, how has this happened again? How has this happened again? How is this the world we live in?

00:12:30 Speaker_09
Like, why would we ever go back to what happened? We saw what happened. I was so extremely hopeful. I even hosted a watch party for other women veterans this year. And we decked out the whole basement, put up little decorations, everything.

00:12:57 Speaker_09
And I hosted a watch party in 2016, and this year it felt the same way. Now that night during Hillary's, I cried. This year I did not cry. There was no tears. But I was so very disappointed. So we wound up, I think we closed up shop at about 11.30.

00:13:23 Speaker_09
They left this house so sad. So very sad. But yeah, it was... It didn't hit me as bad because maybe I mentally prepared for it. Maybe I kind of knew it, but at the end of the day, women are still looked at as not worthy.

00:13:46 Speaker_09
No matter what their resumes look like, no matter how many degrees, it does not matter. So I think this year, I was just defeated in knowing that, yep, we really have not progressed.

00:14:09 Speaker_06
You know, you said in 2016 there was a fire. There was a fire. There was a fire.

00:14:14 Speaker_09
I feel like this year, I feel like this year, I feel like there is a defeat. I feel like before there was hope and now it feels very dark. We were all stunned. I mean, the first time around we were stunned. Now it's like people are catatonic.

00:14:39 Speaker_09
I feel like 2016, we were mad as hell. I'm not saying we're not mad as hell now. So I felt like this time was more as a slap in the face, and more particularly for Black women.

00:14:56 Speaker_09
Because the first time, and I can say my military background has allowed me to see up close and personal how people felt about Hillary Clinton. and these potential emails and the mistrust they had of her.

00:15:13 Speaker_09
But now it's somebody, now you didn't have any kind of conspiracy or email gate to contend with. So now what's your excuse?

00:15:25 Speaker_09
And people gave the damnedest excuse from, I just don't know enough about her, to nobody in Oakland really likes her, to she's locking up our own people.

00:15:40 Speaker_09
So it was such a mirage of excuses that tells you in a nutshell, it really wasn't about any of those things. So this one hurt a little bit more. America did what America did. And so what do you do with that?

00:16:11 Speaker_06
I mean, what do you do with that?

00:16:15 Speaker_10
My daughter, my youngest is 20 and she voted for the first time this year.

00:16:20 Speaker_09
And the first thing I got back from my youngest was I'm literally sick right now, like physically sick.

00:16:28 Speaker_10
Like, how did this happen twice, mom? Like, mom, what do we do next? I have no idea. So many people have asked me, are we protesting what we do with teeth? for being coached, but I don't know what to put them into.

00:16:43 Speaker_10
I don't even know if I want to get back out there and protest.

00:16:49 Speaker_06
And why don't you know whether you'd want to get out there and protest again this time?

00:16:55 Speaker_10
Because what did I change the first time? I don't know if I can really say we achieved a goal. We may have slowed some things down, But I don't know if he really changed history.

00:17:13 Speaker_10
I don't know if, had we not done that, would that have changed the trajectory of what happened during his presidency? Would it have been worse? So those are questions I'm trying to ask myself. But did he really accomplish things? I honestly don't know.

00:17:33 Speaker_10
And I'm just tired. I got to ask myself, what is protesting? What is putting on that cape again and getting my big old blow horn out again? What is that going to do for us this time around when it did not in the first place?

00:18:04 Speaker_07
I really believed that protests was the way to affect change. I mean, I was, I got into Moms Demand Action, really active in that, for, you know, responsible gun ownership. And I was there protesting for the Kavanaugh hearings. And guess what?

00:18:24 Speaker_07
It still all happened, right? Kavanaugh still got election. Kids are still getting killed in schools. Roe versus Wade still got reversed. Here we are, eight years later, And not only did Trump win, but he won the popular vote. America spoke and he won.

00:18:45 Speaker_01
I mourn for the America that I thought I knew. I thought our country wanted different things than him. But by a free and fair election, this is what they want.

00:19:01 Speaker_01
Whereas before we can say we were the majority, this is not what the country wants and we will stand against it. We don't have that mandate this time around. And at this point, fighting this administration is fighting a Democratic election.

00:19:19 Speaker_08
Honestly, my first reaction was, you know what, America? Pardon my French, but fuck it. If that's how you feel about it, have it, America. You voted for this. Buckle up. It's going to get bad, and I'm going to say, I told you so.

00:19:34 Speaker_06
Would you consider marching again? Is there talk about marching?

00:19:37 Speaker_08
Yeah, and it's not going over real well.

00:19:41 Speaker_07
I know Women's March is planning a march on January 18th. They're saying it's the People's March. Well, you know what? In my mind, the people voted for Trump.

00:19:55 Speaker_00
When I watched Kamala Harris' concession speech, people were saying how inspiring it was. Don't ever give up if she says that. I'm like, no, I don't. No, no, no, no. At a certain point, no, you have to give up.

00:20:08 Speaker_00
Like, I don't have the energy or any battery left in me to do anything other than to fight for myself.

00:20:14 Speaker_08
And to answer your question for me personally, no, I don't know any organizer from the original Women's March that thinks marching right now is a good idea.

00:20:22 Speaker_06
And why don't you think it's a good idea?

00:20:27 Speaker_08
To me, it kind of feels like trying to recreate something that should never be recreated or should have never had to have been recreated.

00:20:35 Speaker_07
I don't know. Have you ever, this is probably a stupid analogy, but let me just bring it up. Have you ever gone to a restaurant with your partner and had like the best meal and then you go back and it's like, it sucked.

00:20:55 Speaker_07
That's kind of the way I feel about the Women's March right now. It's like I can never recreate for me what that moment was in history and in my life. And I don't want to. And now, now I'm going to just do something else.

00:21:14 Speaker_07
I'm going more, a little more inward. So that, yeah, I guess I'm, I guess I'm trying a different restaurant.

00:21:27 Speaker_09
there needs to be some time to reflect and regroup and really look at ourselves and say, what are we doing wrong? Like, where do we go from here?

00:21:42 Speaker_06
And what, what do you plan on doing instead?

00:21:45 Speaker_09
I mean, that's really hard. That is the question, right? Like, well, what do you do? I don't know. But, The answer is probably not right before us.

00:21:59 Speaker_09
If we jump to the conclusion right away and say, okay, well then we need to do X, Y, and Z, like, are we not doing a disservice to the lesson that we should learn from this?

00:22:12 Speaker_09
Like, maybe we need to be more thoughtful about it and examine how we may have played a role in it. It's the time to reflect and regroup, but it's not the time to march. I don't think that marching will do us any good.

00:22:38 Speaker_09
That's not the direction we should go in.

00:23:15 Speaker_10
We'll be right back.

00:23:21 Speaker_03
Here's what else you should know today. On Monday, President-elect Donald Trump confirmed that he intends to declare a national emergency and use the U.S. military in some form to assist in his plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

00:23:38 Speaker_03
Trump was responding to a post made by the head of the conservative group Judicial Watch that said Trump's administration would, quote, declare a national emergency and use military assets to address illegal immigration through a mass deportation program.

00:23:55 Speaker_03
On his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump responded with the comment, true. Congress has granted presidents broad power to declare national emergencies at their discretion.

00:24:10 Speaker_03
And Trump nominated Sean Duffy, a former Republican congressman from Wisconsin and Fox Business host, and whose wife, Rachel Campos Duffy, is a Fox News host, as his choice to lead the Transportation Department.

00:24:26 Speaker_03
Trump continued to deliberate over candidates for several high-level positions, including Treasury Secretary, a post that will be crucial to his economic agenda.

00:24:39 Speaker_03
Today's episode was produced by Lindsay Garrison, with help from Sydney Harper and Eric Krupke. It was edited by Devon Taylor, Ben Calhoun, and Lexi Diao.

00:24:50 Speaker_03
Research Assistance by Susan Lee, contains original music by Dan Powell, Rowan Nemisto, Alishba Itup, and Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily.

00:25:18 Speaker_03
I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.