WASHINGTON -- Nuns in white habits and kids cuddling rabbits.

A president, riled up, whose words really mattered. Though virtually present, a precedent shattered.

The 45th annual Right to Life March was the antithesis of the recent spate of Antifa quasi-riots to protest against, well, almost everything, but especially Donald Trump. The marchers on the National Mall had only one enemy -- legalized abortion.

And while thousands of school kids were bused in to the event, giddy with joy at their sanctioned day off from school, there were many, many more here who came because they cared, or maybe, were scared.

"There were so many young people, " exulted David McGettigan, a Lutheran pastor from Ocean City, N.J. "They are part of a new generation that has been -- ironic, isn't it? -- born that see the empines of the culture of death that their parents and grandparents created."

Exuberant and with no noteworthy conflicts or incidents, the throng came to a near-reverential hush as an image of Trump appeared on a Jumbotron. Once an avowed pro-choicer, Trump, not for the first time, changed his mind.

He also became the first sitting president to address the March live, albeit via satellite. Typically, he wasted no time trashing the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

"As all of you know, Roe v. Wade has resulted in some of the most permissive abortion laws in the world," Trump said. "It is wrong. It has to change."

For Pastor McGettigan, it was a transformative moment. "There was a sense of momentum here today, that progress has been made."

Trump probably wonders why all this speeches -- and tweets -- aren't met with equal rapture.