Source: NYT.
The Mall today:
Source: PoliticsUSA.
From PoliticsUSA:
CNN reported that more people are at the National Mall for the Women’s March On Washington than attended Trump’s inaugural
Estimates of crowd size, from Vox.
Source: Vox.
Another shot, noon at the National Mall:
President Trump won with less than 50% of the popular vote. Unidad Popular presidential candidate Salvador Allende took 36% of popular vote in Chile in 1970, governed like he had a significant majority support, radically mismanaged affairs including arbitrary expropriations and ultimately provoked a violent military coup.
The Trump mandate is weak. These street demonstrations are the warning shot. If Trump and his supporters in Congress are not careful, the American street will come alive and the air will buzz with threats of impeachment.
Businesses and investors, reacting to Trump corporatism-like attempts to influence major American company business decisions through public shame and bullying, will be met by market participants voting with their feet. The promised natural experiments should keep graduate students in policy-related sciences busy for decades.
Reality TV is incredibly boring but this real life episode — the President Trump era — promises to be most fascinating and splendidly entertaining.
Millions more marched against Trump today across the nation than attended the inauguration yesterday.
But not surprising considering millions more voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for Trump.
Here’s how Trump’s opponents protested the peaceful transition of power on inauguration day. I suppose the irony of wearing black uniforms while they destroyed the city was lost on them. Or maybe not. Meanwhile, this is the sort of thing Trump was doing.
Regarding that little red dot in Washington DC, here’s an example of a speech given to the cheering marchers in opposition to Trump. I expect this level of discourse-fact based, objective, and incisive-from Trump’s opponents over the next 8 years.
People should better accept the election outcome, result of a democratic process.
Trump will unmask himself soon enough. In the meantime, Menzie should prepare a couple of posts about mercantilism (remember Adam Smith ?). All of Trump’s hot air talk “We are first, the best, the great” is only a reflection of his exaggerated insane ego.
Trump friend billionaire Wilbur Ross will soon forget about the middle class, and when the people realize, Chelsea Clinton will help us all to make America great again around November 2020.
“result of a democratic process. ”
Some would say “result of a demonic process”. A complete and abject failure of the concept of the Electoral College. A concept designed to reject a person like Trump.
Normally, politicians in a campaign don’t take extreme positions, because they don’t want to lose votes. It’s amazing Trump won. It’s more than a mandate, it’s a revolution. With his party controlling Congress, I expect big changes. Of course, the media, liberals, Hollywood, etc. will work hard to take him down or make him look bad, which we’ve seen, since he won the nomination, and even more after the election.
PeakTrader Normally politicians don’t make brazen lies. Almost all politicians shade the truth around the edges, and when they it usually shows up in their body language. Hillary Clinton was a horrible dissembler because she obviously felt uncomfortable when she got caught stretching the truth. But Trump is different. He’s a sociopath. He lies like a rug and is perfectly at ease with himself. He’s the ultimate used car salesman. BTW, did you notice the obvious physical distance between “the Donald” and his latest Trophy Wife during the parade review? Their son Barron (who names their kid “Barron”?) clung to his mother and avoided the old man like the plague. Meanwhile Trophy Wife was a good 6 feet from her predator husband. (Watch out, Melania…you’re 46 and it’s time for “the Donald” to start trading up.) All marks of a sociopath.
I’m quite sure that the media (excepting the fawners over at Faux News) and liberals and Hollywood will work hard to take him down. They should. But they really don’t need to work all that hard to do so; Trump does a pretty good job of doing that all by himself. But in the end I suspect that it will be up to the dimwitted, clueless and economically illiterate to find ways to defend this clown show of a man. He’s a laughingstock. Orange hair and all. If you’re really a “Peak Trader” then now would be the time to dump the Trump stock, because he’s just hit his peak.
Joseph: Have you seen the news item about the retweet from the National Parks Service?
In the New York Times, the piece covering the item is entitled: “After Silent Period, Park Service Says It Regrets 2 Trump-Related Retweets”
Side-by-side photos of the Obama inauguration in 2009 and the Trump inauguration in 2017 showed that about 3 to 5 times as many people showed up for the Obama inauguration. Hilarious stuff.
It should remind us all that social media is media. It in itself does not have a personality or an agenda. Those who live by social media can also die by social media. Figuratively of course.
P.S. I loved the way Trump grovelled at the feet of the CIA. That was a good call.
Trump needs to do that for Latin America, otherwise American investors, entrepreneurs and American-based multinational companies will see the ‘American boat anchor’ effect in Latin America worsen.
Many Americans would be surprised at just how many ordinary centrist, free market capitalism-loving Latin Americans do not like or trust ‘los gringos’ or ‘los malditos yanquis’.
Trump spends the first two days on the most important job in the world arguing with the press about the size of the crowds at his inaugural. One has to wonder if he is mentally ill or psychotic. Anyone with two eyes could compare the pictures of the crowds and see that Trump is lying. This is the sort of thing he devotes his time and effort toward? He is not a well person. He is certainly not up to the job of running the country.
Joseph: Clearly you have not understood the deep truthiness of “alternative facts”.
Except the two pictures from the New York Times were more fake news designed to damage Trump. Trump had a perfect right to be upset about what the NY Times attempted to do.
At the top of this NY Times tweet are the comparison pictures which they disingenuously titled “Comparing the crowds at Donald Trump’s and Barack Obama’s inaugurations” The media ran hard with that, claiming that Trump had much lower crowds than Obama.
But this is the age of the internet and the new media. The NY Times can’t get away with that so easily. It turned out that the NY Times had dishonestly taken a picture of Trump’s crowd earlier in the day, before more people had arrived. If you follow the linked NY Times tweet, you can see the pictures people posted of the real size of Trump’s crowd.
Did the NY Times and the other media outlets apologize? Of course not. Instead, they immediately pivoted to comparing the size of Trump’s crowd to the March the same day. And amazingly enough they have the chutzpah to call Trump a liar.
cnn = ny times = #fakenews
Rick Stryker: (Or should I say Sean Spicer?) Ah, yes. Trump’s assessment that 1.5 million attended must therefore be true, right, and correct. I believe that is the conclusion we are to take from your statement. And it belongs in the same basket that asserts that 500,000 new jobs/mo in a recovery is typical. For contact with reality, see here.
Menzie,
Here’s what Trump said:
“I turn on one of the networks, and they show an empty field,” “I’m like, wait a minute. I made a speech. I looked out, the field was, it looked like a million, million and a half people.”
Trump was reacting to the outrageous fake news started by the NY Times and then spread by the media that there was empty field in front of Trump. Trump said it looked like 1-1.5 million people were there, not that it was a fact that they were there. The VOX article you cite is wrong to say that Trump claimed 1.5 million people came to his inauguration.
VOX speculates that the number is between 250K and 1.5 million. Who knows, but I’d think there are a number of reasons to think that Obama’s 2009 inauguration had more people:
1) Obama’s inauguration was an historic event, and many people probably attended who didn’t support him
2) Although many Republicans disagreed with Obama, they have too much respect for the law and the office of the Presidency to protest violently as progressives did on inauguration day and too much decorum to plan a large march against Obama. Trump supporters who wanted to attend the inauguration had to compete with protesters and marchers for plane seats, train seats, hotel rooms, etc. There are only so many to go around. Also, there were reports that progressives might get violent, and that no doubt deterred some people from coming to the inauguration.
3) Obama had strong support in the East Coast states close to DC. It’s a short trip for them and they didn’t have to compete with protesters for transportation and hotel rooms. Trump had strong support in states much farther away, in the midwest, etc, so it’s a more arduous trip for them.
Rick Stryker: Them’s weasel words. If I were to say “it looks like inflation is up”, I think you would say I was saying “inflation is up”. Should we not apply the same standards to President Trump? Or does he get to play by special rules?
It “looks like” numerous aliens from Planet Tralfalmanor attended the inaugural, to me.
The March turnout in Reno yesterday day was impressive. It “looked like” 5 million but wasn’t.
it looks as like rick stryker will continue to embrace trump and his “alternative facts.” rick has been embracing such a view for quite some time.
but i must say, that rant of excuses for the lack of support at the trump inauguration was rather laughable. conservatives surely came out in droves to approve of the black president! riiiiiiight. such a loser.
i learned that remark from the republican president.
The media didn’t report Trump’s large crowds during the campaign, but it certainly reported a smaller crowd during the inauguration.
Cripes, Rick Stryker, below is a time lapse video that shows the entire day from early morning up to everyone leaving after the ceremony. Who you gonna believe — Trump or your own lyin’ eyes?
You guys are really into Kellyanne Conway’s “alternate facts.” Real data and facts mean nothing anymore to Republicans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdantUf5tXg
Menzie,
Depends on the context. I wouldn’t automatically assert that you said inflation is up definitively if you said it looks like it is.
Trump did an eyeball estimate of what it looked like to him, which was in reaction to the NY Times photo that showed a relatively empty field. He’s hardly making some kind of definitive statement in that case.
The NY Times on the other hand did say something definitive. They claimed those two pictures were an accurate comparison of the two inaugurations. Was that a lie? It depends on what happened. If they knew the pictures were taken at different times, then yes it was a lie. I think what’s more likely is confirmation bias. They expected that Trump’s crowd would be significantly lower and when they got a picture that confirmed their bias they didn’t investigate it very much.
Mistakes like that can happen. But then the NY Times and other media who ran with that story should have apologized.
Rick Stryker: I’m trying to find verification for your assertion that the two photos were taken at different amounts of time before the swearing in. Now, if you want to say that people filtered in at the last minute for Trump, and not for Obama, well that’s your prerogative, but I don’t think that constitutes media dishonesty. Finally, if the end-conclusion is unchanged by viewing similarly timed photos, then this is all deflection.
I am still waiting for President Trump to apologize to anybody — the physically disabled reporter he mocked, Shisir Khan and his wife (and I don’t mean some weaselly statement of the “if anybody was offended, I apologize” sort).
Menzie,
I’ve looked at this more closely and I think at this point it’s much more clear that the NY Times did not make an honest mistake but is in fact being dishonest.
Look at the photo comparison the NY Times originally put up on its twitter feed and compare with the photo the NY Times has up currently in its article in which it accuses Trump of making false claims. As you can see, the new photo of Trump’s inauguration crowd is not the same as the first. The new photo has more Trump supporters at the inaugural in the back but it’s still looking sparse compared to Obama. One difference between 2009 and 2017 that’s clear is that there was more space for Obama’s people in the back. In 2017, there are white structures in front of the Washington monument where people can’t stand; they weren’t there in 2009. The new picture of the Trump inauguration the NY Times put up in its current article shows almost no Trump attendees in the white tarmac in front of the white structure and the next white tarmac is about 1/4 filled. But they did switch the picture.
Now compare this new NY Times picture with CNN’s gigapixel. You can zoom into the back and see that the Trump crowd goes right to the back of the white structure. The NY Times can easily fact check the photo they have against the gigapixel.
When the NY Times behaves with such brazen dishonesty, they only confirm Trump’s critique of them.
interestingly, the article by menzie was focusing on the women’s march vs trump inauguration. the differences are stunning! do you refute those differences as well rick? or do you acknowledge the trump inauguration had a poor showing compared to the women’s march?
Menzie,
BTW, I realized I didn’t answer your question. The original NYT tweeted photo was taken at 11:15 am, about an hour before the CNN gigapixel.
Rick just gets nuttier every day. First it was videos of ninjas invading America across Lake Erie. Now it is conspiracies about photos of crowds.
You keep comparing pictures from the elevated vantage of the Washington Monument with ground level photos from the vantage of the Capital. There is a principle in photography called foreshortening and that is what is displayed in your Capital picture. You can’t get an accurate view from that vantage no matter how many gigapixels you have.
If you want to see the actual crowds, look at the time lapse video below shown from the Washington Monument. It shows the entire day so you can’t complain that the timing is off.
Hard to believe that Republicans are so whacked off about this trivial fact. Almost half the mall was empty for Trump’s inauguration.
It’s scary that the Trump administration is picking this thing to argue about. Trump is mentally unstable. He is a victim of his inferiority complex and fragile ego. How can he run a country?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdantUf5tXg
Well, Rick, now that you have seen the video and seen that the New York Times was not deceiving anyone about the crowds, are you going to apologize?
My head is spinning. One minute Rick Stryker tells us that the pro-Trump crowd was YUGE. The next minute we’re hearing all kinds of reasons why the crowd couldn’t have been as big as the Obama 2009 crowd; viz., new barriers, no hotel rooms, protesters, global warming…oh wait, not global warming. No, come to think of it, the 2009 inauguration was much colder. Maybe it’s because Trump supporters are old, rich white geezers who aren’t comfortable having to stand amongst the riff-raff outside port-a-potties. Maybe Team Trump should have hired a few hundred thousand more rent-an-audience folks like they did over at the CIA headquarters on Saturday.
As to violent protesters, perhaps he forgot about those violent Tea Party protests. As I recall a couple of black Congressmen required medical attention after being attacked by those brave patriots.
Garry Kasparov said “Obvious lies serve a purpose for an administration. They watch who challenges them and who loyally repeats them. The people must watch, too.”
We are watching who loyally repeats them here.
Abraham Lincoln said “You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry.”
Trump is a very small, petty man.
Oh, my. Today Trump pushed another lie as he talked to Congressional leadership. He claimed that he would have won the popular vote except that 3 to 5 million illegal immigrants voted for Clinton.
This man is mentally unstable. He is obsessed with trivia and his fragile ego. This is a scary time for America.