So apparently there were at least three times as many people protesting Trump in Washington, D.C. Saturday 1-21-2017 than attended Trump’s inauguration the day before. The National Guard has confirmed it the largest single-location protest in American history. If you count all the *other* protests in the US and worldwide, participation numbered in the millions.
This would be moderately interesting, if not for Trump’s thin-skinned, totally size queen reaction.
Trump Twitter and Facebook armies immediately explained it was because *their* people had to stay at home and work at jobs, like responsible adults.
The Department of the Interior had its social media accounts frozen Saturday, after someone there tweeted comparisons of the crowds for Trump’s inauguration, and Obama’s two ceremonies. Hint: Trump’s crowd was far more sparse.
On Saturday, Sean Spicer trotted out to do a hasty press conference…claiming the media inaccurately showed Trump’s crowd. Then Spicer flat out lied about the size of Saturday’s protest, spawning instant comparisons to Baghdad Bob.
I repeat: Spicer’s claim was a blatant lie. From The Guardian. From the NY Times. From USA Today. From Vox. From The Atlantic.
Because the National Park Service no longer provides ‘accurate’ counts of crowds (due to backlash), we have only indirect metrics to estimate the difference in crowd sizes. Days before both the inauguration and the Women’s March, we knew that organizers had applied for around 200 bus parking permits for Trump’s shindig, whereas Women’s March organizers had applied for at least 1,200 bus permits. Every indication is that those buses were full, too.
The DC-area transit authority reported that on Friday, January 20, approximately 193,000 people rode the Metro system as of 11am. The crowds for Saturday were estimated to be at least three times that, around 470,000 people.
The reason WHY this important?
It shows the level of engagement of really angry people, who feel that the new administration is corrupt, venal, rent-seeking, ignorant, and illegitimate. Who fear the loss of hard-won civil rights. Who fear the devastation even know showing from global climate change.
Trump is entering office as the most unpopular President of the United States in four decades. He barely won the Electoral College votes, and that was because of antique apportionment rules that give more sparsely populated rural areas more voting power than urban areas. He lost the popular vote by at least 3,000,000.
He has no ‘national mandate’ and he knows it.
‘Alternate facts‘ are lies.
Crowd-size arguments show how truly thin-skinned Trump & Co really are. Their unpopularity is a yuuuge problem for them, a soft target, and they know that, too.
Trump has no depth of character: his only personal metrics are his apparent wealth and ratings. Trump’s own ego is the biggest trap awaiting him. It forces him to engage in constant damage control against the slightest insult from the smallest source. Obama was, in many respects, the too-calm ‘Shake It Off’ President, and comedy routines spawned around how much we wanted to see him get angry (The Rock Obama).
Trump & Co shown that any pushback on their perceived popularity hurts them, which just shows us where to strike. Maximum impact! Show up at marches. Ding Trump & Co on social media. Start organizing at local levels, and learn from the Tea Party’s exasperating tactics. Support at least one actual news outlet with a subscription. Call out fake news when you see it. Punch Nazis whenever you can. Resist the normalization of fascism.
Remember that the last time we had extremely large protests against a President, Watergate happened and Nixon was forced to resign a year later.