Postmodern protests: why modern marches matter only to those who march.

• Author: Larson, Christina

On a blisteringly cold Inauguration Day, an assortment of liberal women's groups gathered to stage a counter-inaugural protest in Dupont Circle, three miles out of sight and earshot from the president's swearing-in on Capitol Hill. A few hundred marchers stood in the snow to mourn the "death" of 11 civil liberties, each symbolized by a cardboard coffin draped with an American fig. Wearing what was apparently the standard uniform of protest--a North Face jacket, wool scarf, and duck boots--the protesters chanted about Social Security fraud and an unjust war in Iraq before forming a boisterous procession down an unusually deserted Connecticut Avenue. Many carried hand-painted signs, but the tiny handful of spectators--a half-dozen shopkeepers who momentarily stopped to watch--had to squint to read them; sticks to hold the signs had been defined as security threats and were prohibited along the parade mute.

The march halted in McPherson Square, a downtown park where several different counter-inaugural marches were to coalesce that afternoon for a further round of rousing speeches. While they waited for the others to arrive, one of the organizers, Sarah Long, declared the morning's "Women's March and Funeral Procession" protest a success. "I think we had a great turnout; we looked good ... the coffins were all in order ... Today is a small victory for us"

Victory might seem an odd word choice, considering that the day's counter-inaugural protests were relatively isolated events in a city celebrating the reelection of George W. Bush and larger Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. But in the self-referential world of modern protests, Long was correct. As with most demonstrations today, the march wasn't planned to accomplish a concrete result by demanding the passage of a particular piece of legislation. Instead, its organizers had focused largely on two things: affirming

Christina Larson is the managing editor of The Washington Monthly. the protesters' right to protest, and enriching their experience of the protest. While in the past a march was judged successful if it affected a political outcome, today's protests are judged on how they affect a protester's sense of self.

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