100 days of Donald Trump: An unhappy electorate has taken to the streets to resist

Donald Trump has the lowest approval rating at 44 percent in history of all former US presidents at the 100th day mark. According to a report in The Independent, Trump has broken Bill Clinton’s record of 55 percent approval rating at this point in his presidency. That Trump stands so unpopular within such a short span is no coincidence. While on one hand, such an underwhelming performance could be because Trump simply failed to achieve anything of note within this short span, especially when compared to the lofty claims he made in his 100-day-plan speech. All his promises are a mesh of to-do list or unfulfilled promises. For instance, where is the wall he promised, or the funds for it, or the easy replacement of Obama’s healthcare bill, is Islamic State already uprooted, and whatever happened to launching a probe over Hillary Clinton’s alleged email scandal. Trump’s promised policies are either stuck in the Congress, are quashed by the courts or simply never existed in the first place. What he has earned instead is a track record of dilly-dallying and reshuffling his stance on what he pledged he believed in, to his voters. However, on the other hand, many might argue that Trump’s failure on most fronts is a wonderful stroke of luck, given his egregious, divisive policies, except that it wasn’t just luck. What it took was the persistence of thousands and thousands of men and women to dissemble Trump’s divisive agenda, brick by brick. They wore funny costumes, held placards with hard-hitting messages, took to the streets, even made speeches laced with profanities - anything to grab eyeballs and direct media attention towards what they believed was wrong. What they achieved was a voice against Trump’s “silent majority” that’s often heard talking loudly about chasing out immigrants and banning Muslims. They also managed to create enough pressure on their representatives to block bills that aren’t in accordance with the spirit of America, at least in their opinion. Trump now not only holds the record to have the lowest popularity rating, but is perhaps also the only President against whom protests have raged out every other day, right from his inauguration day. Trump may have still have One Thousand Three Hundred and Sixty more days to turn things around, the activists who have picked up the baton against him don’t seem to be going anywhere. Here is a look back at some of the key protests held since Trump came to power. Inauguration Day Protest The very day Trump was sworn in as the 45th Potus was marred with protests all around the United States. Just few yards away from where the ceremony was taking place, another group of people protested with signposts reading #Resist, #NotMyPresident and #NoToTrump. According to a report in  The Washington Post, protesters gathered at almost every checkpoint that inauguration ceremony ticket holders will have to pass, and each group at each junction spoke to a different cause. If some reports are to be believed, the crowd that rallied behind the protesters outnumbered the people present at Trump’s inauguration ceremony. Women’s March [caption id=“attachment_3415198” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] In this Jan. 21, 2017 file photo, a crowd fills Independence Avenue during the Women’s March in Washington. AP[/caption] On the second day of Trump’s presidency, more than one million women marched on the streets of Washington DC, protesting. The event even gained global prominence as people poured out on streets, sent wishes and expressed solidarity with the protesting women in US. The one message that so brought many people together was, “Women’s rights are human rights” in the backdrop of Trump’s comments on a wide range of groups, including women’s reproductive rights, Mexican immigrants, Muslims and the disabled. And of course there were those notorious allegations of sexual assault, which were widely reported on, in the run up to the US presidential polls. A number of celebrities, including actors Charlize Theron, Drew Barrymore and Lena Dunham, attended the demonstration, according to The Independent.  Madonna also made her appearance in Washington DC and her speech on the event was widely circulated on the internet.   Anti-immigration ban protests [caption id=“attachment_3266654” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Demonstrators participate in a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel ban in the Brooklyn borough of New York. REUTERS.[/caption] In second week of his presidency Trump signed an executive order arbitrarily banning immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering US. The order exhorted much outrage from people within and outside US. People joined the cause with banners proclaiming ‘Muslims are Humans too’, ‘I love immigrants.’ Protest rallies were seen in the US capital, in all major cities and airports as people rallied up to pledge their support to refugees. Luckily enough, US Federal court has blocked the order as of now, restoring travel for refugees and immigrants. Resist Trump Tuesdays The term ‘resist’ has become associated with anti-Trump campaigns in a broader sense. The word first came to be associated with this, when days after Trump’s taking office, Greenpeace, an international environmental NGO,  hung a banner with those words to a crane in close vicinity to the White House. Since, then scores of Centre-Left and liberal activists hold weekly events to review and protest against Trump’s  policies. They have vouched to resist the President at every turn whenever his policies will sideline the vulnerable. Grab Your Wallets  This happens to be a one of its kind protest, which actually makes the Trump family feel the pinch of it, if only in a symbolic sense. The campaign, which was launched in October 2016, was a response to “Trump’s infamous boasts that his fame allowed him to sexually assault women,” encourages people to boycott companies that are tied up with the Trumps, according to a report in  The Guardian. The impact of the campaign was such that online stores like Shoes.com, Shopstyle and Nordstrom have dropped Ivanka Trump’s clothesline. Not My President A simplistic, poignant way to outrage against Trump with a strong message. Protesters in cities across US took to the streets in February just to register the sheer number of people who stand opposed to Trump’s policies. According to a report in CNN,  people in New York swarmed the streets with placards stating No. That one word was imprinted thousand times over in countless languages, poignantly pointing out the multi-ethnic society that United States of America is. “In  Los Angeles, protesters gathered and held signs at City Hall, chanting ‘No ban, no wall!’, " the CNN report said. Climate marches [caption id=“attachment_3415210” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Demonstrators march on the State Street during “100 Days of Failure” protest and march, Saturday, April 29, 2016, in Chicago. Thousands of people across the U.S. are marking President Donald Trump’s hundredth day in office by marching in protest of his environmental policies. AP[/caption] This brought Trump’s inauguration day protests to full circle, marking the president’s 100th day in office. “Thousands of people across the US marched in rain, snow and sweltering heat to demand action on climate change,” a report in AP states_._ “Organizers said about 300 sister marches or rallies were being held around the country, including in Seattle, Boston and San Francisco, AP reported. In Washington DC, Hollywood megastar Leonardo DiCaprio took part in the rally, walking with a group of Native Americans. “Climate change is real,” read a sign he carried. DiCaprio, who is a climate change activist, also took to Twitter where the actor said the Climate March has “inspired” him to hope for a better future. Trump had vouched to roll back US commitment to the Paris commitment in the run up to the elections. Later, he softened his stance a bit but lamented being treated unfairly. “It’s not a fair situation because they (China, India, Russia and other countries) are paying virtually nothing and we are paying massive amounts of money,” he said. he has refused to clarify what his next step would be but it is likely that Trump administration may be looking at weakening the US pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions, according to  Hindustan Times.  Protests against newly elected Presidents is not unheard of, one can deem it fairly common even. What is unprecedented is the sheer size and momentum these activists have managed to gather and sustain over the course of 100 days. They have no unifying agenda, no shared political statement to make in totality, and most of them have never ever worked together like this for a cause. Yet they have a single message to send to the White House: NO!