Who brought up the crowds at the inauguration first?

There is no honest reason to dispute the low numbers.

Trump’s inauguration crowd: Sean Spicer’s claims versus the evidence

^^Obviously, everyone is trying to manipulate numbers to their advantage. I don’t doubt for a second that the turn out in DC was smaller for Trump than Obama’s first inauguration.

I still don’t know who brought it up first, and if that now famous photo is an apples to apples photo.

Vox is the first of the media to report on crowd size that I could find though a few bloggers brought it up earlier. The media was already sharpening their knives over crowd size days before the inauguration.

Obviously, everyone is trying to manipulate numbers to their advantage.

No, they aren’t.

Honest people with good intent don’t see everything as a contest to manipulate and “win”, facts be damned.

If you think that way, well, the thief thinks everyone is stealing.

There are not two sides to every story.

Good to know there are some people left who don’t doubt empirical fact…

Trump started boasting that his inauguration would be he biggest ever months ago. And they kept it up. When one keeps saying that, people want to know if you wee correct or just being wishful.

And the pictures were taken at similar circumstances and times.

Parking in DC is horrible; anyone who would go who doesn’t have a limo would take the metro. so please, @JLeslie, quit trying to defend Trump by saying his folks wouldn’t take public transit.

“But facts are chiels that winna ding” Robert Burns, 1786
Tomorrow night is Burns Night after all.

The point is that the press had evidence to support their claim, Trump didn’t.

I still don’t know…if that now famous photo is an apples to apples photo.

I gave you a link earlier that explains. Among other facts, it includes a PBS time lapse that starts before the crowds and ends as people are streaming out.

You can see in the photos from the stage that the crowd doesn’t even fill the mall directly in front of the stage.

As I said on Facebook, the Cubs drew over a million to a last minute celebration that had the date and time changed the day before. Trump couldn’t drum up a third of that crowd with two months’ notice.

The Chicago women’s march with 250,000 may have bested the inaugural.

Actually the “march” part was cancelled because the entire route and surrounding blocks were jam-packed. Aerial photo

@Cruiser The media gave a huge amount of coverage to Trump’s inauguration and reported on it in great detail. I think it is unfair to say they were ‘sharpening their knives’ over the crowd size. This was just another element in the reporting and one that most Americans would expect to be included.

It was Trump and Press Secretary Sean Spicer who made a big issue out of it, mistakenly in my view, as they gave the impression they were out of touch with reality and prepared to twist the truth with ‘alternative facts’ to support their opinions.

At the time a quick check on kayak showed hotel rooms were still available.

Omg. I’m not trying to defend Trump. @Call_Me_Jay you just called me a dishonest liar. You truly are out of line.

I never said Trumpers wouldn’t take public transportation, that is a ridiculous statement. I said people who live in DC tend to vote Democrat, and the surrounding areas. Check the election maps for Obama and Trump.

For sure the Trump people are twisting and basically lying. They compared the turnout to Obama’s second inauguration not his first. They also used number for total viewership in the world on one stat I read while Obama supporters and the media were talking about just the people present at the inauguration.

Don’t even try to tell me parts of the media don’t present manipulated numbers. Even if they don’t prepare them themselves they too often repeat them.

I was just asking for more information.

For sure the media likes to produce anything that gets viewership and ratings, and questioning what they present isn’t a bad thing. Geesh.

What about that idiot who reported Trump took down an MLK bust? I think he was quick and happy to report that. He has apologized profusely for the mistake. I don’t think he purposely lied, but I do think he was very happy to believe that’s what he saw.

@flutherother Say what you want but if your go to twitter and search “trump inauguration crowd” it will take you back to at least Nov 18th where you can see and read all the news/media salivating over the crowd size expectations.

I’m not a Trump supporter and I know @JLeslie is not either, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing to look for facts with all the fake news floating around lately.

A kid named George who was there noticed it first… ;-) It was pretty blatantly clear to anyone seeing the scene that there weren’t a huge number of people there. If only Trump had a smaller ego, he could’ve mentioned to people that Bernie Sanders said he was coming – then I imagine more people might have come too, or at least popped over from the anti-Trump protests to wave.

I wonder who would have be elected for me to bother to go to the inauguration? I grew up in the DC metro area and I never thought about going in for the inauguration, and I can’t remember anyone ever talking about it. I guess someone I know has done it? I know a few people who have been to inaugural ball, but I have no idea if they stood outside in the cold to watch the new president take the oath of office.

This sounds like a manhood size comparison.
It really doesn’t matter. People will always only see what they wish to see. Facts or no facts. But if I had to lay odd, I’m sure the media started it first. Trump may think this is unfair but the comparison has been done with many Presidents. He’s not the first nor will he be the last. Hopefully he won’t be the last. :( Here’s a snopes link that doesn’t say whether it’s a lie or true but if you scroll down you will see they show the numbers for the last 6 inaugurations.
http://www.snopes.com/2017/01/20/obamas-inauguration-crowd-larger-than-trumps/
But its like asking what came first. The chicken or the egg? The media was always going to do it but even before the inauguration Trump was bragging that his numbers were going to be bigger than President Obama. Now I do not know if he said that because some reporter asked him the question. Point is, in Obama inauguration the number was going to be larger because he was the first black President so it had historical significance. Trump was just another rich old white guy who was going to be President. It’s been done plenty of times.

People will always only see what they wish to see

Nonsense. Honest people can make a judgment after seeing evidence.

Also the Snopes link (and every credible source) makes it clear that attendance was very low. It isn’t debatable.

Snopes made the unfortunate choice of clouding the story by going into long analyses about television viewers and people watching online.

@Pandora That link was very helpful. I kind of shows that Obama’s first inauguration is more an aberration, which doesn’t surprise me at all that he drew huge crowds. It also shows very large turnouts for democrats. Additionaly, it shows Trump did have a decent sized turnout compared to the turnouts in the last 20 years.

I don’t think it really matters or means anything either. I think Trump too often lets his ego get in the way. He needs to button up his lips. Ugh. My ongoing worry about him. He can’t control himself.

@Call_Me_Jay When I said people I mean Trump and his camp and followers will only see what they want to see. But they will say the same about the other side. That is why Trump now has this new alternative facts.

@Pandora OK, thank you for the clarification

The only one who made a big deal of it was Trump. I read a few stories that casually observed big gaps in the crowd. It really does not mean anything one way or another. What is most disturbing is Trump’s serial lying, of which this is a good example. If he lies about a simple black and white fact of no consequence, how can we possibly trust what he says on more important matters? The guy scares me no end. Here are some links to articles discussing Trump’s truth aversion and its implications.
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

^^Trump lies, or at minimum consistently twists around the truth so it is so distorted its unrecognizable (as I said above) and if he truly tries to control the press that’s horrifying, and it’s ridiculous for him to threaten libel, even though it also isn’t ok for people to purposely write falsehoods about anyone in my opinion to try to damage their reputation. With Trump you don’t need to make stuff up, you can tell the truth and demonstrate where he is scary or inconsistent.

As far as flag burning. The Supreme Court case was 5 to 4! It’s not like Trump is alone or a total crackpot for being disturbed by flag burning. Obviously, threatening to take away citizenship is a ridiculous and scary way of thinking for a punishment for this sort of offense, but not very long ago states had fines and punishments for burning the US flag until it finally made its way to the Supreme Court.

It demonstrates Trump doesn’t know much about constitutional law or Supreme Court rulings, but maybe also the people freaking out about his statement about flag burning don’t know much about the history of the law regarding it either.

In any normal administration Sean Spicer’s ludicrous comments on the inauguration crowd size would have seen him fired. As @LostInParadise says the size of the crowd is an inconsequential issue of itself but when the White House press secretary makes such inane and conspicuously false comments it must cast doubt on everything he says in future. This is above party politics, it affects how America is seen by the world. Make America great again? I don’t think so.

Orwell’s 1984 made it to the top of Amazon’s best seller list. Coincidence?.

The inauguration took place on a workday.

The women’s march did not.

But I thought the Mexicans took all yer jerbs?

^ Bit of a generalized and sweeping statement, don’t you think?

By “Mexicans” I assume you mean people living and working in the United States without the legal clearance to do so.

Fact 1. Not every US citizen that wants a job has one.

Fact 2. There are positions held in the US by persons not legally authorized to have them.

Tell me, please, that I don’t need to spell it out for you any further.

Please give us a lengthy dissertation in response to Seek’s totally serious and non-sarcastic statement that was not in any way intended to be a joke.

That would be a worthwhile use of everyone’s time.

^ “Lengthy?”

Sorry for using the obscure word. It means“bigly”.

@Call_Me_Jay – I love you