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Women's Marches this weekend will push power of the polls

Posted at 4:48 PM, Jan 18, 2018
and last updated 2018-01-18 16:49:49-05

A year ago this weekend, the Women's March on Washington dwarfed the turnout for President Trump's inauguration when more than 500,000 women crowded the national mall a day after Trump took the oath of office.

But this weekend's Women's Marches are less about force in numbers as they are about force of action.

"It isn't like, 'Oh my God, what's happened to me, let's go and scream.' It's like, 'we know what happened to us, we're not going to let this happen again, and we're doing something about it,'" said Nuchhi Currier, president of the Women's National Democratic Club.

That something is to take power to the polls, which is also the theme of the more than 250 events this weekend scheduled across the country and in cities around the world.

"Women must run, women must vote, women must win," Currier said,

Last year's march set a new record for a single-day protest in American history. The large crowds were fueled by President Trump's victory in the 2016 election, despite the release of the Access Hollywood tape and sexual assault allegations against him by more than a dozen women.

But now that Trump has been president for nearly a year, the marchers are focused on challenging the policies he has enacted or attempted to enact — including his "Muslim ban" and his cancellation of the DACA program.

But despite the bitter partisanship surrounding the president and the policies he champions, Currier insists that this weekend's march will be inclusive.

"If you're a Republican, if you're a Democrat, if you're male, if you're female ... old, young, black, white, brown, everyone belongs here," she said. 

The reality of the current political moment, though, ensures there won't be too many conservatives coming out to carry any of the marches' inevitable anti-Trump posters.

"The more galvanized force is the progressive, Democratic force because they are the ones who feel beleaguered, they are the ones who feel attacked, they are the ones who feel excluded," Currier said.