Leadership Crisis and Digital Social Movements: Intersectional Contention Among Twitter Followers of the 2018–2019 Women’s March Movement

Grounding our research in Bennett and Segerberg’s logic of connective action and building upon previous analyses of the Women’s March Movement, we address the extent to which connective action movements can discursively resolve membership disagreements, leadership struggles, and intersectional tensions. Our thematic analysis revealed that members responded to the leadership controversy not by defending the leaders’ involved, but by supporting the Women’s March Movement’s values and reinforcing its collective identity. Members’ attempts to resolve the leadership crisis quickly by calling for leaders’ resignations represented a missed opportunity for members to acknowledge, articulate, and understand messages aligned with women of color within the movement, threatening members’ and nonmembers’ belief in the movement’s commitment to intersectionality.