Author: Nanadadzie Ghansah

I Told You So

When the first president, George Washington, was sworn in as president in April of 1789, no political parties existed.
About 3 years later, bankers and businessmen in the North, supportive of the policies of the then Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, would start the Federalist Party. The Federalists believed in a sound fiscal policy and nationalism and really reflected the interests of the commercial North.
In 1793, Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State, formed the Democratic-Republican Party. Jefferson was against the centralizing policies of the Federalists. He wanted “states rights” for the agrarian South.

Even though Washington didn’t belong to either party, he tended to be sympathetic to the Federalist positions.
Over time, a deep animosity developed between the two parties based on ideology. This animosity really reared it’s head during the French revolution (1789 – 1799) and in Washington’s second term.
The French revolution ultimately led to a war between France and Great Britain. Hamilton wanted the US to support the Great Britain while Jefferson supported the French revolutionaries. Washington stayed out of the fray, keeping the US neutral. However, when Britain captured US ships trading with France, Washington was forced to negotiate with Britain. This galled the Democratic-Republicans.
The rancor that ensued forever tainted the view Washington had about political parties.Even though he was asked to lead the nation for a third term, he refused. He wanted to escape the hate in the capital to the solace of his farm in Virginia.

In early 1796, with the help of Hamilton, Washington started working on his Farewell Address. It was published in the Daily American Advertiser, a Philadelphia newspaper, in September, 1796.
In it, he advised American citizens to view themselves as a cohesive unit and avoid political parties and issued a special warning to be wary of attachments and entanglements with other nations.
These words from the address are quite poignant even today, even prophetic:
“They (political parties) serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

I wonder what the first president would say if he was to come alive in 2017 America. Probably he would utter these words that the writer Gore Vidal said are the four most beautiful words in the English language: “I told you so!”

The New King

The new King was different. As soon as he ascended the throne, he banished all the wise men. He didn’t need their counsel, he claimed.
The strangest thing though were his pronouncements. A week after he was made king, he claimed that the old queen had tried to poison him. The only problem was that the old queen was blind and deaf and could hardly walk.
The he announced that the men from the Northern Province were planing a revolt. What made this astonishing was that the Northern Province had the most loyalists to the monarchy and so the whole nation wondered why he said that.
Then shortly after that, he claimed that the people of the Ajia Kingdom to the east were bringing disease into his kingdom. The King of Ajia were angry and pulled his envoy.
Over all in the kingdom, everyone wondered why he said the things he did. They all feared what he might say next or which other kingdom he might anger.

One afternoon as the King walked through the royal gardens, he saw a beggar hunched near a tree. He wondered how the beggar got into the royal gardens and asked his guards to remove him. As the guards headed towards the poor man, he started crying out loud:
“O King, have mercy on a hungry and suffering soul. All I want is some food.”
The guards grabbed him and started hauling him away but his cries got louder.
“Stop!’, ordered the King.
The guards stopped, dropping the poor beggar like a sack of potatoes.
“Now why should I give you anything?”, asked the King haughtily.
“O My King, because I have a gift for you”, the beggar answered.
“You have a gift for me?”, the King asked, sneering.
“Yes, I do”, the poor beggar answered.
“Well then, let me see it. If it is worth my while, I’ll feed and cloth you. If not, you are in deep trouble”, the King barked.
“It is a story, my Lord, a wonderful story indeed”, the beggar said fearlessly.
“A story! A story!”, the King said as he burst out laughing. “Well, let me hear your story then, you wretch”. The King’s curiosity got the better of him.
And so the beggar began to tell the story:
“There was a Shepherd Boy who tended his sheep at the foot of a mountain near a dark forest. It was lonely for him, so he devised a plan to get a little company. He rushed down towards the village calling out ‘Wolf, Wolf,’ and the villagers came out to meet him. This pleased the boy so much that a few days after he tried the same trick, and again the villagers came to his help. Shortly after this a Wolf actually did come out from the forest. The boy cried out ‘Wolf, Wolf,’ still louder than before. But this time the villagers, who had been fooled twice before, thought the boy was again lying, and nobody came to his aid. So the Wolf ate all the sheep in the boy’s flock.”
There was total silence in the garden after the beggar finished speaking.
“That is the story, my Lord”, he added.
The King looked sternly at the beggar, opened his mouth to speak and then thought better of it. Finally he said to the guards, “Feed him, clothe him and throw him out of the kingdom like all the other wise men”.
Then he turned and walked back into the palace.

Some claim that after that encounter, the King made no more incredulous statements. Others claim that nothing really changed and that he angered the King of Ajia with his claims so much so, that war broke out between the two nations. Yet there are those who claim that the encounter never happened.
Whatever the case is, those who have ears, let them hear.

A New Ghanaian

As Mother Ghana turns 60, can we ask for a new Ghanaian? An angry and restless Ghanaian? Not the pseudo-humble and meek type but the confident and demanding species with an aggressive genotype? The type who gets angry at mediocrity, harvests that anger, like Kojo Anan Ankomah says, and uses it to build our nation? Whose creativity knows no bounds, is unfettered and roams like an angry and hungry lion in the Serengeti? Can we?
That restless, angry, demanding, aggressive yet creative Ghanaian will have a mantra. It will be that remixed verse from the famous 1997 “Think Different” Apple campaign:
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push Ghana forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change Ghana, are the ones who do.”
God, as you bless our homeland Ghana, please give us that Ghanaian too!

Find A Bush

Dear Ghana, 5000 miles away, the echoes of the ongoing and heated debate about the plan of the government to implement free senior high school education reached my ears.
One would think that it is a great idea and would be welcomed by all. Besides, free education is written into the constitution. However, over the years, Ghanaians have grown rather cautious over the use of the word “free” and so a number of them are asking a rather poignant question:
“Can we afford it?”, and that question is resounding across the country.
Plans to dip into the country’s Heritage Fund, one of two funds created for posterity and funded with oil revenue, have been scrapped. Some analysts think it is going to be funded by a combination of government spending cuts and higher taxes. The only problem with the latter is that one of the present administration’s campaign promises was not to raise or institute new taxes. (Another was to institute free senior high school education).
Other analysts think the plan should be scrapped for now since higher taxes will not be good for the economy.
I say, find a way. Please find a way. If it means revamping the whole educational system, please find a way.

Many years ago, when I lived in Berlin, I went out bike-riding in the woods outside the city with a friend. Sometime in the late afternoon, we got hungry and decided to take a detour through some trees to get to a restaurant.
About 100 m into the trees, something caught our eyes. A little ahead we both stopped and looked back. We couldn’t believe our eyes. Behind a bush was a couple going hard at it in the late afternoon chill. I was about to burst out laughing when my friend put her finger over my lips, shutting me up. They were totally oblivious to our presence a few feet away and the cold. We got back on a bikes and rode away. When I was sure we were out of earshot, I stopped, got off my bike and burst out laughing. My friend looked at me quizzically and then drawing on a popular saying, she spun it into these words that I have never forgotten:
“Wo ein Wille ist, da ist immer ein Busch”.
Translated, it goes:
“Where there is a will, there is always a bush.”

So to my dear nation of Ghana, I say,
“If the will is there to give every child in Ghana the gift of education, you will find a bush.”
You will find that bush behind which you can achieve your aim, damn the cold, damn any nosy bike riders, damn whatever V8s those parliamentarians need, damn expensive celebrations, damn corrupt deals. Look at those ledgers and get creative. Look at the system – tweak it. Make it a national effort not a partisan push.
Yet no matter what you do, don’t give up on the idea of free education, then education is truly the great equalizer. I can vouch for that. Like the 19th century US congressman from Massachusetts and educational reformer, Horace Man, once said:
“Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.”

Imagine 20-25 years down the line. Imagine that generation of kids looking up and asking:
“So what did you all do with all that money you borrowed and the revenue you got from oil, gold and cocoa?”
Imagine the answer being:
“See all those doctors, scientists, engineers, authors, artists, coders, executives, architects, geneticists, teachers, accountants, lawyers? That is what we used it for”.
Would that be so bad?
Remember, where there is a will, there is always a bush. Find it and get busy!

His Greatest Quality

Abraham Lincoln would have been 208 years old today. The 16th president is seen by many as probably one of this nation’s greatest presidents. What made him remarkable was his empathy. In all his biographies, it seems to be the running theme.
In a piece for Time magazine, the historian and biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote:
“Perhaps the most important of his emotional abilities was empathy–the gift of putting himself in the place of others, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires.”

In 1916, Lord Charnwood, a British aristocrat and admirer of Abraham Lincoln published a bio of the great leader. Among other things, he wrote this about Lincoln:
“For perhaps not many conquerors, and certainly few successful statesmen, have escaped the tendency of power to harden or at least to narrow their human sympathies; but in this man a natural wealth of tender compassion became richer and more tender while in the stress of deadly conflict he developed an astounding strength.”
In his day, he recognized the evil of slavery, yet sought to understand the position of the slaveholder. He mourned the loss of his soldiers and gave speeches that comforted a nation at war.

His empathy is often attributed to his bouts of depression and the losses he suffered – the loss of his mum when he was 9, the loss of his first sweetheart, the 22-year-old Ann Rutledge when he was 24 and the loss of his 11-year-old son Willie when he was 53.
As a young man in Illinois, he often had to write letters for people in the community who couldn’t write. Hearing the stories of these people may also have helped him developed the ability to walk in others’ shoes.

Nowhere is this empathy more demonstrated than the letter he wrote to the daughter of his friend, William McCullough, who was killed during a night charge near Coffeeville, Mississippi during the civil war.
Below is the letter he wrote to the then 22 year-old Fanny McCullough who was near a nervous breakdown after hearing of her father’s death. Remember Lincoln had lost his own son 10 months earlier:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, December 23, 1862.
Dear Fanny
It is with deep grief that I learn of the death of your kind and brave Father; and, especially, that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer and holier sort than you have known before.
Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother.
Your sincere friend
A. Lincoln

Fanny found inspiration in that letter and went on with her life. She fell in love with a soldier who unfortunately, died in action too. She held up though and finally married, dying at the age of 80. That letter from Lincoln was found among her possessions.
On this day like every other day, I pray this country would be touched by the Spirit of Empathy that possessed our 16th president and made him such a tower of humanity.

Beware of Reichstag Fires

“This is a God-given signal, Herr Vice-Chancellor! If this fire, as I believe, is the work of the Communists, that we must crush out this murderous pest with an iron fist.” – Adolf Hitler to Franz von Papen

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of the Weimar Republic (this was how Germany was referred to after WW I) by the President, Paul von Hindenburg. No party had an outright majority but Hitler’s National Socialist Party entered into a coalition with the National-Conservative Party, giving them 33% of the seats in the German legislative assembly, the Reichstag. The National-Conservatives thought they could tame Hitler. However he had other plans. He wanted to abolish the constitution and democratic rule and establish a nationalist-dictatorial regime. He wanted to do this legally and to this end, he planned to exploit the German constitution. He needed the Enabling Act.

The Enabling Act was a special law that gave the Chancellor the power to pass laws by decree, without the involvement of the Reichstag during states of emergency. These special powers could stay in effect for four years after which they could be renewed. It had been used just once since it was instituted and that was when Germany was hit by hyperinflation shortly after WW I.
Hitler needed to get a two-thirds majority in the Reichstag to enable him to pass the Enabling Act.
The way he went about achieving his vision is worthy of study.

As soon as he was appointed Chancellor in January, 1933, he petitioned President von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and schedule new elections since there was so much fragmentation. Elections were scheduled for the 5th of March, 1933.
The only other party that stood in Hitler and the Nazis’ way was the German Communist Party. He had to get rid of them. He also had to generate a state of emergency that would justify passing the Enabling Act. He achieved both aims with one blow.
The Reichtag Fire of February 27, 1933.
There is a school of thought that the Nazis set the fire. Even if they didn’t, Hitler exploited it expertly.
On that fateful Monday, a fire broke out in the Reichstag building. It gutted most of the building. Shortly, a young Dutch immigrant, Marinus van der Lubbe, who had arrived recently in Germany was arrested as the culprit. Van der Lubbe was an unemployed bricklayer and a communist. That was all Hitler needed. He declared that the fire was the first in a series of attacks planned by the Communist Party to take over the country through a coup. He called it a “sign from God”.

The day after the fire, he got the president to enact the Reichstag Fire Decree. This basically abolished all civil liberties – habeas corpus, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right of free association and public assembly, the secrecy of the post and telephone. It would be years (after the WW II) before they would be reinstated. Newspapers not friendly to the Nazis were banned.
The narrative that the Communist were planing a coup spread like wildfire, helped on by the amazing Nazi propaganda machine and supportive newspapers. A purge of communists ensued and soon, there were none left to contest the elections on March 5, 1933.
The Nazis increased their share of the Reichstag seats. They also received the support of the other right-wing parties like the National People’s Party and the Centre Party. To get to two-thirds, the final step was intimidating the Social Democrats and preventing them from taking their seats in the Reichstag. This they did with ease.

On March 23, 1933, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act and the rest like they say, is history.
Beware of Reichstag Fires!

To WeyGeyHey With Love

“Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.”
– Margaret Thatcher

Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, economist and banker, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for founding the Grameen Bank and innovating the concept of microfinance and microcredit. By giving loans to the poor, he managed to help thousands break out of poverty. Soon after he started the bank in 1976 in Bangladesh, he made some important observations.
The first was that women who received loans used the money not only to generate income but to make the lives of their families healthier and better. As an example, some women bought chickens thus getting meat and eggs to feed the family. They generated income by selling the eggs and the chickens they raised. The men on the other hand, tended to use the loans for things that benefited only them – alcohol, gambling and personal luxuries.
He also noticed that women were more apt to repay their loans than the men. While the repayment rate for women was about 97%, the men repaid about 77% of the time.
Then was the observation that the woman in Bangladesh were an untapped pool of hard-working entrepreneurs who could turn the smallest opportunity into significant gains. The small loans seemed to really empower the women to reach for more.
These observations soon caused him to direct the bulk of his efforts towards women.

170 years before Muhammad Yunus won his Nobel Peace Prize, a woman named Harriet Wrigley, the wife of a Methodist missionary, must have known this too. That if you give women the smallest opportunity, they will build something great out of it. In a coastal town in the then Gold Coast (now Ghana), some 10,000 km from Bangladesh and 8000 km from her home in England, she started a school for young girls who most probably had no chance at ever receiving an education. She taught these girls housekeeping, religious education, writing and reading.
Mrs Wrigley would succumb to malaria a year later but in 1837, another missionary’s wife, Elizabeth Waldron, would take the girls under her care. Under her guidance, the brilliance of these girls would attract the attention of the Methodist Church. Using a core group of these girls being tutored in housekeeping, reading and writing, a secondary school was founded – Wesley Girls High School.
From these humble beginnings in 1836 has grown a secondary school for girls that occupies one of the premier spots in pre-university education in Ghana. A school that epitomizes what secondary education should be. A school that year after year occupies the top spot in most rankings. A school that over the years has produced women who have contributed immensely to Ghana’s slow but steady progress.
Wesley Girls High School! WeyGeyHey! Debu for us from Mfantsipim.

What is it about the female sex that allows them to make so much out of so little? What drives this wish to succeed and magnify? What is it about them that evokes such efforts to make the lives of those around them better even as they rise – their families, their friends and the community?
Maybe the answer lies in the time when humans were hunter-gatherers. The men hunted and the women stayed home and raised a family. If the men did not return , the women still had to raise those children. They developed a survival instinct that is unmatched. Or is it that extra X chromosome? Does it give them extra power? Or the ordeal of carrying a child for 9 months? Or is it the constant flux of progesterone ad estrogen waxing and waning? Maybe when God took that rib out of Adam, he took out the best rib!
Whatever the reason, the products of Wesley Girls, like the poor women of Bangladesh epitomize this amazing trait to the highest degree.
Mfantsipim and Wesley Girls have histories that started intertwining back in the 1880s. Not only have both schools supported each other but there exists a healthy rivalry between them too.

Being a product of Mfantsipim School, it is coded into my DNA to always take digs at anything and anyone Wesley Girls’. However, beneath all that wisecracking is a deep respect and admiration for the school and it’s products. I should know – I am married to one of them. My sister, cousin and several friends are products too.
They are smart and classy. They do not suffer fools at all. They are hard-wired with the ability to lead and are visionaries.To the world, they proffer an aloof and polished veneer which hides wonderful and caring hearts of gold. Their desire for independence and autonomy runs deep and this can often set them on a path of conflict, in a society as misogynistic as ours is.

So as they celebrate 180 years of educating girls, let’s all celebrate with them. Let’s celebrate the strength that allows a woman, in the words of the author Erick S. Gray, “…to make a baby out of a sperm, a home out of a house, a meal out of groceries, a heart out of a smile…”. Let’s celebrate perseverance, strength, family, love, wisdom, opportunity and the future.
Let’s celebrate the Woman.
Today let’s all Live Pure, Speak True, Right Wrong and Follow the King!

Brünnhilde hasn’t sang yet

The last part of Richard Wagner’s opera “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (Ring of the Nibelung) is titled “Götterdämmerung” (Twilight of the Gods). In it, the Valkyrie, Brünnhilde, a rather voluptuous lady, sings her aria to end the opera, even as she rides into flames.
Hence the saying, “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings”.
The German word “Götterdämmerung” is a translation of “Ragnarök” (old Norse), which in Scandinavian mythology refers to the destruction of the Gods in a battle with evil, resulting in apocalypse!

For any Falcon’s fan, it feels like Apocalypse now!
Let’s rewind to February 8, 2008. Superbowl XLII. The undefeated New England Patriots were playing the 12-pont underdog New York Giants. It was the 4th quarter and the Patriots were up by 4 with 75 seconds to go. The Giants had the ball on their 40-yard line for a third-and-five. Eli Manning, the Giants quarterback, avoided a sack and floated the ball to Tyree who made an improbable catch against his helmet for the first down. The Giants went on to win. It was an improbable upset!
Just before the ball was snapped by the Giants on the third-and-five, the Patriots players (who already thought they had the game won) were talking smack to the Giants players on the field. They were so sure of their win, they even invited the Giants to their after-game party! They had forgotten one important lesson in sports:
It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings!

The Falcons were up 21-3 at the half. Somehow, they relaxed. They lost their fire. Sure the Patriots played better in the second half but did the Falcons have to play worse? Did they forget the cardinal law in sports? Did they forget “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings”?
That is a lesson Brady hardly ever forgets. Sure, his team forgot that in 2008 but in his 16 year career with the Patriots, this has not happened often. It is an unfortunate human tendency to get complacent and let one’s guard down when victory is nigh. Brady has this uncanny ability to recognize this weakness in his opponents and exploit it quite well. He did tonight and has done it all through his career.
Also, he was picked in the 6th round in the 2000 draft. He has the mentality of an underdog. Underdogs pick their chances and never ever give up because they know it’s never over till the fat lady sings.

Events this past year or so seem to drum this lesson home – Cleveland pulling the upset over Golden State, Brexit, the Cubs win, Trump and now this. In my home country Ghana, 72-year-old Nana Akufo-Addo’s landslide win in this past December elections fits in this category too.
For the winners as well as the losers, the lesson is clear:
It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings!

However it is like all of humanity is being taught this one important lesson – DO NOT GIVE UP! Do not give up on peace, love and empathy. Do not give up on this earth, on one another, on making things better for all. Do not give up on fighting bigotry, racism, poverty, disease, inequality and homelessness. It is like humanity is being told to fight and keep fighting, even if things look so dark and bleak.
Then, the fat lady hasn’t sang yet and as long as that hasn’t happened, we as humanity have one more play to win it all.
DO NOT GIVE UP!

Who’s Your Daddy?

“When the Grim Reaper comes to call, words fail – they’re just too small.” – Dixie Lyle, To Die Fur

Harriet Tubman may be one of the most admired figures in all of American history. Her bravery is the stuff of legends. Besides my personal admiration for what she did, I’m also saddened that her ancestry goes back to the Akan people of Ghana. I am an Akan.
She will forever be remembered for her use of the underground railroad to free over 300 slaves after she escaped slavery herself. In about 19 trips, she never lost a single passenger.
I often think of Ms Tubman when life rears it’s ugly head.
I also find myself comparing what she did to what I do. To what doctors and nurses who take care of critically-ill patients in either the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or the operating room (OR) do.
Please do not get me wrong. I am in no way setting the two jobs on the same footing. Not at all. I dare not. I wouldn’t survive for a minute in the conditions she thrived in.
What I aim to do is compare only an aspect of what she did to what we as critical care providers do.
Ms Tubman used her wiles, intuition, courage and the underground railroad to snatch men, women and children from the clutches of slavery.
Doctors and nurses who work in the critical care setting, either in the operating room or the ICU, use their acquired skills, intuition, advanced monitors and drugs to snatch men, women and children from the clutches of the Grim Reaper.
Whereas Ms Tubman never lost a passenger, we are not so lucky. Sure, modern medicine allows the most amazing stories of healing. A series of these successes makes one forget that, like Ms Tubman, we are really trying save people from a really powerful enemy.
Her enemy were the slave owners and the States . Ours is the Grim Reaper.
The fact that we succeed is often not so much due to our abilities but also to luck or chance or fate or providence, whatever you want to call it. Then every so often, just when you think you have reached a safe spot with your ward, the Grim Reaper shows up unexpectedly and snatches him or her back. That is when one realizes who really is the more powerful. That our knowledge, monitors, intuition and drugs are really feeble attempts to hold off the might of Mr Reaper.
So as the futility of the moment hits and chest compressions are halted, a flat line on a monitor screen is all we are then left with. In the silence that ensues, one can often hear his faint but powerful voice as he escapes with the soul of a patient who was alive only a few minutes ago. One can usually hear his chuckle as he asks, “Who’s is your daddy?”
No answer is needed, then those moments remind us all of the frailty of life and our powerlessness. One can then only sigh, get back the composure and march off to the next battle, hoping this time to get the upper hand. Then as old as life itself is this dance with the Grim Reaper. A truly macabre yet rewarding dance indeed. We get better at it each day and I’m sure Ms Tubman would be proud.

Vox in Mulieribus

Democracy is cumbersome, slow and inefficient, but in due time, the voice of the people will be heard and their latent wisdom will prevail.
– Author unknown but often attributed to Thomas Jefferson.

The reactions to the Women’s Marches in several cities in the US and many other countries this past Saturday differ. One’s view really depends on which side of the political divide one stands. Some perspective is sorely needed.
The ability to demonstrate is a right that most democratic nations enjoy and must always be upheld. It is an integral and very important part of the democratic process. In the US, demonstrations are as old as the Union itself. To illustrate my point, I’ll dwell on examples from 2002 to the present day.
Starting in 2002, there were demonstrations in the US and across lots of other countries against the plans of President Bush to invade Iraq. This biggest one was on February 15, 2003. Over a million people demonstrated worldwide. The Republican administration never listened and invaded Iraq. The whole world is still reeling from the consequences of that war.

A month or so after President Obama took office, the Tea Party demonstrations started. The group was protesting run-away government spending as exemplified by the bail-out programs (TARP and the Stimulus Package). Later, other protests were organized against Obamacare. The Democrats never took the Tea Party serious until it was too late. The party played a consequential role in the trouncing of Democrats in elections in 2010, 2014 and 2016.
So if shortly after President Trump’s inauguration, over 3 million women are out protesting to raise awareness about women’s rights, isn’t that par for the course? We’ve seen from the two preceding administrations that the people know they have a voice and they want that voice to be heard.

Maybe instead of the name-calling and shaming, these protesters need to be listened to. Maybe they need to be engaged. Maybe instead of writing them off as liberals and feminists, one needs to work with them to find a common goal. The fact that they may have voted for the losing candidate does not matter. Remember the Tea Party!
History tells us that disregarding such protesters can have dire consequences. Just as the Tea Party did, they could organize themselves into a grassroots movement that could influence elections for years.