My only criticism of this is that, like the mainstream press, you underreport the numbers. There were definitely millions (not tens of thousands). How many millions is a question—Alt National Park Service estimates 5. That may be high, but if you total up the numbers in all the little towns plus the enormous crowds in big cities I’m sure…
My only criticism of this is that, like the mainstream press, you underreport the numbers. There were definitely millions (not tens of thousands). How many millions is a question—Alt National Park Service estimates 5. That may be high, but if you total up the numbers in all the little towns plus the enormous crowds in big cities I’m sure it’s more than 2. There were good turnouts in little towns in Wyoming, not to mention a huge crowd in Salt Lake, just to mention a couple places you wouldn’t expect. My little liberal city had thousands lining the street for at least a mile. And every city of any size had massive numbers. Underreporting protest size is a consistent tactic of the media, but should be watched.
alt National Park Service; admittedly I don’t know how they arrived at this, but they did do a tally. “Yesterday was incredible. The official count is in — 5.2 million people joined the #HandsOff protest nationwide. So many are asking: what’s next? Mark your calendars: 4/19 is the next nationwide day of protest. Let’s go even bigger — our goal is to get 3.5% of America in the streets. Some media outlets are reporting only “tens of thousands” participated, but that’s no accident. Downplaying the turnout is a tactic to suppress momentum. But you were there. You saw the crowds. Even small red-district towns showed up in force.”
I don’t know if you’ve spent time looking at photos and reports from all over the country? It’s pretty clear there were millions.
And I’m just going to push this because underreporting is so standard. Here’s from Rebecca Solnit: I was the closing speaker at the ebullient San Francisco Hands Off rally, and when I got home later I scoured the news for reports on the more than a thousand other rallies. Of course people would show up in the big cities and the bluest places, but what really exhilarated me was to see the turnout in reddest America--Utah, Nebraska, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, Idaho--and small communities not known for their protests. People stood up for their principles in the cold in Alaska and the rain in the Northeast and the heat in St. Augustine Florida. I'm impatiently waiting for the Crowd Counting Consortium to give us numbers, but some early estimates say well over three million people showed up.
Their data demonstrated that the January 21, 2017, Women's March was the biggest single day of protest in US history, but early evidence suggests to me that yesterday exceeded it, possibly by a lot. The journalist L.A. Kauffman, who's written excellent histories of protest movements and nonviolent activism, commented on BlueSky "A massive decentralized movement like this – everywhere all at once, with everybody pitching in – is extremely difficult for any regime, even the most autocratic, to derail. There are too many leaders, coordinating in too many different ways, for a movement like this to be easily neutralized. And while you usually can't tell the true effect of a protest until long after it's over, today's actions have already made a major impact where we most needed it right now: on people's morale. That in itself is a win."
My only criticism of this is that, like the mainstream press, you underreport the numbers. There were definitely millions (not tens of thousands). How many millions is a question—Alt National Park Service estimates 5. That may be high, but if you total up the numbers in all the little towns plus the enormous crowds in big cities I’m sure it’s more than 2. There were good turnouts in little towns in Wyoming, not to mention a huge crowd in Salt Lake, just to mention a couple places you wouldn’t expect. My little liberal city had thousands lining the street for at least a mile. And every city of any size had massive numbers. Underreporting protest size is a consistent tactic of the media, but should be watched.
do you have a reference? I can see 100s of thousands, but I'm pretty skeptical that it was millions.
alt National Park Service; admittedly I don’t know how they arrived at this, but they did do a tally. “Yesterday was incredible. The official count is in — 5.2 million people joined the #HandsOff protest nationwide. So many are asking: what’s next? Mark your calendars: 4/19 is the next nationwide day of protest. Let’s go even bigger — our goal is to get 3.5% of America in the streets. Some media outlets are reporting only “tens of thousands” participated, but that’s no accident. Downplaying the turnout is a tactic to suppress momentum. But you were there. You saw the crowds. Even small red-district towns showed up in force.”
I don’t know if you’ve spent time looking at photos and reports from all over the country? It’s pretty clear there were millions.
Noah, thank you for giving me the arguments I need to get people out in the protests who are skeptical of their value. Excellent post!
50501, also an organizer, also reports 5 million. That may be high, but not so high as to make the numbers only in the thousands.
And I’m just going to push this because underreporting is so standard. Here’s from Rebecca Solnit: I was the closing speaker at the ebullient San Francisco Hands Off rally, and when I got home later I scoured the news for reports on the more than a thousand other rallies. Of course people would show up in the big cities and the bluest places, but what really exhilarated me was to see the turnout in reddest America--Utah, Nebraska, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, Idaho--and small communities not known for their protests. People stood up for their principles in the cold in Alaska and the rain in the Northeast and the heat in St. Augustine Florida. I'm impatiently waiting for the Crowd Counting Consortium to give us numbers, but some early estimates say well over three million people showed up.
Their data demonstrated that the January 21, 2017, Women's March was the biggest single day of protest in US history, but early evidence suggests to me that yesterday exceeded it, possibly by a lot. The journalist L.A. Kauffman, who's written excellent histories of protest movements and nonviolent activism, commented on BlueSky "A massive decentralized movement like this – everywhere all at once, with everybody pitching in – is extremely difficult for any regime, even the most autocratic, to derail. There are too many leaders, coordinating in too many different ways, for a movement like this to be easily neutralized. And while you usually can't tell the true effect of a protest until long after it's over, today's actions have already made a major impact where we most needed it right now: on people's morale. That in itself is a win."
Thank you for sharing this quote.