What happened to the anti-war movement ?
President Obama inherited two wars, neither of which has ended—and the United States is now involved in military action in Libya—yet the anti-war movement has all but vanished. Why?
The answer, according to a new research article, has to do with the complex relationship between non-partisan activists and those who identify as Democrats. In short, many antiwar Democrats saw the election of President Barack Obama as a sufficient victory for their cause and withdrew from the streets.
The researchers conducted 5,398 surveys at 27 antiwar protests from January 2007 through December 2009. They also interviewed movement leaders and conducted ethnographic observations. The largest protest during that period occurred on Jan. 27, 2007, and drew over 100,000 people, by the researchers’ count. By October 2009, however, protests were drawing mere hundreds (which is about where they’ve remained).
What changed? During the period studied, the proportion of protesters who identified themselves as Democrats dropped from about 50% to roughly 20%. The rest of the protesters identified with no party or, less often, a third party. The proportion of third-party activists grew over time.
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