Kim Field

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Two Crowds

I attended both the Inauguration and the Women's March in D.C. this weekend. As I posted on Inauguration Day, the crowds were surprisingly small. I've read estimates if 250,000, and although I had a limited perspective and am no expert, that feels about right to me. Spicer is correct that it took quite a while to get through security. When I left, right after Trump's motorcade went by, there were still a few hundred people waiting to get in. But the idea that hundreds of thousands of people tried to get in but couldn't is complete fantasy. This photo is one I took while I was standing at Pennsylvania Avenue and 8th Street NW and listening to Trump's Inaugural address as it was being broadcast over loudspeakers minutes after noon. The Inaugural parade went from the Capitol to the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, so this photo was taken right on the parade 3/4 of a mile west of the Capitol, at about the halfway point of the parade. There were access points to both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue. I was on the north side. As you can see very clearly in this photo, there were almost no people on the south side of Pennsylvania, and the viewing grandstands were empty. (There weren't many folks on my side if the street, either.) The Women's March, by contrast, filled the entire mall and all the avenues and side streets in the Federal District. EASILY four or five times the crowd at the Inaugural. Any statement that the Inauguration was the biggest in history or exceeded the size of the Women's March is an utter, and purposeful, lie.