Francis Wilkinson, Columnist

Protesters Deliver Body Blow to Trump's Populism

If the president claims to speak for "the people," who were those people in the street?

January 23, 2017 at 12:30 PM UTC

Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US politics and policy. Previously, he was executive editor for the Week and a writer for Rolling Stone.

Strength in numbers.
Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images

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The White House can't get over the disparity between Donald Trump's modest inaugural crowd on Friday and the massive protests that took place the next day.

But what matters most is not how the numbers of marchers across America surpassed the numbers celebrating the inaugural. What matters, now and over the long term, is how those protesting bodies challenged the words of Trump's inaugural address, and neutered them.