Women's march and counterprotests spark heated debate at Supreme Court

Video: women's march and confrontations at the Supreme Court 2 min

The Oct 17 Women's March targetted both Trump and Amy Coney Barrett as unfit for office, and had as its focus the efforts to vote Trump out of office(if possible...). The march drew both Trumper and antichoice counterprotesters. These in turn drew a counter-counter protest by young activists. Heated debates ensued, with right-wing signs blocked and at least two antichoice signs painted over.

The counterprotesters seemed broken into two factions: the antichoice theocrats were more numerous and were on the north side of the Supreme Court plaza. A smaller number of pro-Trump/Barret MAGA types were on the south side of the plaza, with the anti-Barret youth rally serving as a counter-counter protest and positioned between them. As the Women's March went by, they initially stayed in the street passing the ugly and garish fetus posters waved by the theocrats. They did not close the distance and engage this faction point-blank. Instead, many diverted from the Women's March onto the plaza after passing the theocrats and seeing the pro-choice youth rally. This grew and grew, soon giving the counter-counter protest a huge advantage on the plaza.

The pro-Trump and antichoice factions were outnumbered perhaps 100-1 by Women's March participants, who would likely have been drawn into any seriously nasty messes on the plaza. Due possibly to this numerical disadvantage, the far-right refrained from escalating verbal and sign-blocking confrontations to fistfights and assaults. The Women's March participants had no interest in initiating a physically violent scene. The far-right may have feared being stomped by 100 times their numbers if they chose to start trouble. Thus, things stayed peaceful no matter how heated. Escalation did not exceed two signs painted over and people blocking signs with signs of their own.

The Women's March organizers seemed uninterested in engaging the antichoice and MAGAt counterprotesters, at one point attempting to direct people off the counter-counterprotest on the Supreme Court plaza back onto 1st to to march to the Mall. At the Mall was their "text-a-thon" effort to send millions of text messages urging people to vote for Biden. Others felt that dealing with fascists and theocrats face to face was more effective than text messages that may be dismissed as spam. The effectiveness of the text messages will depend on to whom they were sent.