In case you missed it, Save Jerseyans, there are photos circulating on social media of what appears to be a side-by-side view of the crowds during Obama’s 2009 inauguration and Trump’s 2017 inauguration.
Liberals are attempting to make themselves feel better about the inauguration of President Donald Trump by sharing these photos as some type of evidence that the American people lack support and enthusiasm for the new POTUS.
Below is a version of the photo shared by The Daily Show:
https://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow/photos/a.10150284949646800.382185.7976226799/10154968087541800/?type=3&theater
Over on Twitter, Fusion shared this side by side video:
Wide open spaces on Donald Trump's #InaugurationDay. pic.twitter.com/I0O8moW2TL
— Splinter (@splinter_news) January 20, 2017
Fusion was one of a few media outlets that later acknowledged that by 11:50AM, minutes before Trump’s swearing-in, the crowd had grown:
The National Mall has filled up for #Inauguration: pic.twitter.com/zxd5ZnhvP7
— Splinter (@splinter_news) January 20, 2017
These types of comparisons are an expected form of partisan competitiveness (read: sore losers) and, given Trump’s own bold prediction that the day would bring “unbelievable, perhaps record-setting turnout,” it’s no surprise that lefties are jumping at the opportunity to prove him wrong.
But these aren’t just partisan jabs being made online.
Mainstream news outlets are also reporting on the turnout as if there is some shocking implication here (the same news outlets, I might add, that went out of their way to ignore the huge crowds at candidate Tump’s rallies compared to the small, scarcely attended Clinton rallies).
Their underlying goal is obvious: discredit, delegitimize and plant seeds of doubt in the minds of the American people.
This isn’t new; it’s part of an ongoing pattern being employed by the Left in and outside of the media ever since Donald Trump won the election. The blatant and veiled insinuation the Left is trying to paint with these photos is rooted in a disingenuous comparison.
First, the significance of President Obama’s inauguration was inimitably momentous which is why, according to WaPo, a record-setting 1.8 million people descended on the National Mall. Any honest person has to acknowledge the reality of President Obama’s historic victory as the first black American president as reason enough to find comparing the two events duplicitous.
It is also worth taking into consideration that Obama’s core constituents live in and around Washington DC and Baltimore. Not only does the surrounding area largely consist of Democratic voters, it is also home to a dense African American and minority population. Contrast that to President Trump’s supporters who were likely coming from outside the Beltway, and most likely from other states.
Another little wrinkle? Early threats of violence from Democrats and liberals ahead of the ceremony must be taken into account. Days ahead of time, we heard from the Secret Service that the threats were “different” from previous ones and that they were taking them very serious. The fears of many who chose not to attend came to fruition today. Officers have been injured, fires have been started, windows smashed, cars damaged, even set on fire and if you watched the live coverage on tv, you saw people throw rocks at police. Despite some in the media attempting to downplay the violence as minimal, the National Guard has reportedly been called in to assist law enforcement.
The weather could have been a factor in turnout, too. Cloudy, 40 degrees and rainy isn’t “let’s hang out for hours outside” kind of weather. .
The violent lefties blocking the entrance gates, even for uniformed U.S. Air Force Veterans, could have affected turnout.
Maybe working people thought it best to prioritize their jobs over an expensive, potentially dangerous trip to DC?
Or MAYBE the turnout is not nearly as embarrassingly low as the Left wants us all to believe. Maybe, if taken in full context, the crowd looked like what was realistically expected.
The exact number of people who attended President Trump’s inauguration will not be conclusively known for a few weeks; however, Federal and local agencies initially estimated the number to be somewhere between 700,000 to 900,000.
Politifact dug up the following crowd size totals from President Reagan to President Obama:
Barack Obama, 2013: 1 million
Barack Obama, 2009: 1.8 million
George W. Bush, 2005: 400,000
George W. Bush, 2001: 300,000
Bill Clinton, 1997: 250,000
Bill Clinton, 1993: 800,000
George H.W. Bush, 1989: 300,000
Ronald Reagan, 1985: 140,000 tickets sold
Ronald Reagan, 1981: 10,000
So even if Trump brought in even a low estimate of 700,000 observers, that would still be a strong crowd compared to past inaugurations.
The photos that sore loser liberals are sharing should not be a cause of glee for the Left; they should cause them to pause and look in the mirror. The ongoing liberal narrative has been that Trump is unprecedentedly awful, evil, and espouses ideas so dangerous and so diabolical to everything they believe America stands for that he should not have ever become President. Yet he managed to win the election and beat Hillary Clinton. It speaks volumes to how AWFUL, corrupt and unlikable Hillary Clinton was perceived. The fact that the Left can’t acknowledge this as they jubilantly share these photos is telling of just how dense they are.
Since the Left is interested in looking at side-by-side images today, might I suggest we dig up the photos of all the racist, hateful, rioting conservatives and Republicans smashing up buildings in DC because Obama was elected?
You know, just to compare them to the liberal rioters lighting up DC in 2017.
I bet that would be a stark contrast, too.
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