How many people at Trump's rally?

General Questions
#1

I haven’t seen any numbers for the size of the crowd at Trump’s speech, before the rioting started.

The clips I saw on the news were all filmed by somebody standing at ground level, and only showed a couple hundred people in the immediate vicinity of the cameraman.

(I know that there is no good way to accurately count huge crowds, and for the past 10 years or more, the authorities have usually refused to officially provide numbers, because the numbers get used for political agendas, even if they are wrong.)
But still…I wanna know! :slight_smile:

So does anybody have any rough numbers, or comparisons with other recent protests?

#2

I heard one TV reporter on the scene say there was between 20,000 and 50,000 protesters, but he was just guessing. If there was one good overhead shot of the crowd you could probably come up with a good estimate.

How many people actually entered the Capital itself should be easier to determine since I assume there are security cameras at most if not all of the entrances.

#3

Decent pix where hard to find. Saw one of the mall that people often fill during inaugurations. Sidewalks were full, but not grass. Maybe 10,000. Most shots were taken from close up and low down. That makes a crowd that’s only 4 or 5 deep look bigger. Never did find any good shots of Trump’s speech.

Counting crowds is like counting colonies on Petri dishes. You count a sample, then multiply by area.

#4

Counting crowds is like counting colonies on Petri dishes. You count a sample, then multiply by area.

Apt.
How perfectly apt.

#5

Reminder. Let’s avoid political commentary in GQ. This thread is exclusively about the specific crowd size and methods of estimation.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator

#6

Aye; that’s pretty much how you do it.

I’d say more than 8,000 but fewer than 12,000, based on what I’ve seen.

#7

I’ve looked, at some length, for this info but can’t find it anywhere. I find that curious.

It’s funny that the first “controversy” of President Trump’s term was his concern with the size of his inaugural crowd vs. President Obama’s inaugural crowd size and the media’s obsession in proving him wrong.

#8

Hmm, I just came here to post this because I read a washington post article that said it was 8,000 and I wanted to see if that was accurate.

An army of 8,000 pro-Trump demonstrators streamed down Pennsylvania avenue after hearing Trump speak near the White house.

#9

Presumably, not all of those at the rally ended up “streaming down Pennsylvania avenue”.
Thus, ~10,000 at the rally, ~8,000 heading toward the Capitol, give or take.

#10

I don’t recall seeing your posts before so thank you for posting this. It’s a big help & likely a huge time-saver.

#11

The media wasn’t obsessed with proving Trump wrong. Proving him wrong was trivial, it was obviously wrong. The media actually, as they often do, massively failed by “teaching the controversy”, acting like this was a balanced issue with two sides disagreeing. It was only a story because it was the leading edge of the propaganda movement designed to push us into a post-truth reality.

#12

I’m amazed that we haven’t seen aerial views shot by a drone, even it was a government one. Was there an official drone seen anywhere? How could they NOT have aerial surveillance? I’m assuming that private drones would have been prohibited.

#13

And that it continues.