The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

by Robert D. Putnam

According to research by sociologist Dana Fisher there are signs that today’s “resistance” movements are beginning to take on these characteristics. She has shown that since the Women’s March on January 21, 2017, the first mass protest in the Trump era, there has been significant overlap in the various marches, movements, strikes, and coalitions in which protesters are taking part. Participation in demonstrations, which is often prompted by online organizing, also seems to be a catalyst for more localized action when citizens-turned-activists return to their communities. And this movement has so far been led not by far-left political operatives, as many have supposed, but by everyday people working on problems central to their own lives23 and—in a particularly striking echo of our nation’s last upswing—primarily middle-class, middle-aged, college-educated women.