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Response to Claim That More Women Protested Than People Attended Inauguration



Once again, even most Trump supporters have failed to adequately defend him on almost every major issue, leaving it to me to do so once again (also see the series of my articles along the way, by checking the archives section by author first name, in Canada Free Press). There are two categories of responses to the claim that more women, maybe even double the number, attended the women’s protests, than people who attended the inauguration. The first category of responses deals with the claim itself, and the second category of responses deals with the analysis that should take place even if the claim is accurate.

The Claim That More Women Protested

First of all, not all the people present were women. Secondly, not all the people present were protesting.
  1. Many in attendance said they were present out of a sense of fear of what might happen in a Trump administration.
  2. Many were there to show the president that they care about women’s issues, in general.
  3. Many were present to demonstrate solidarity with fellow women.
  4. Many were there simply to be together with other members of their families.
  5. Many were present because they sensed this would be a historic occasion. They knew that no inauguration could be as historic as that of the first African-American president, but the demonstration itself could be considered historically large.
  6. Many were present for an unusual and interesting family outing.
  7. Many were simply anti-establishment agitators who would participate at any anti-establishment rally, and therefore could just as well have felt comfortable at a Trump rally.
  8. Many were anarchists drawn to protests like moths to fires.
Thirdly, the photographs of the attendance at the inauguration were obviously taken at different times. Fourth, there is no evidence that every news outlet showed the overviews of the attendance at the peak time.

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Fifth, if anything, there is evidence that the overviews of the inauguration showed by Fox News were more impressive, generally, than the overviews of the inauguration shown by some of the other networks. Sixth, some of the overviews showed by the non-Fox networks during the inauguration misleadingly showed the attendance before it reached its peak. Seventh, many of the people at the protests were mercenaries. We had discovered during the election season that many of the protestors had been paid by George Soros or other Democratic Party supporters not just to protest but even to pretend to be supporters of Trump misbehaving. Eighth, there was quite understandably and necessarily more security at the inauguration ceremony than at many points along the inauguration parade route, and more security along the inauguration parade route to protect the president of the United States than there was to protect the protestors from each other. Enhanced security reduces attendance by those who do not wish to be subjected to this. Ninth, the enhanced security at the inauguration ceremony and the parade route rendered it physically more challenging to be present since it limited access to facilities for personal hygiene. Tenth, the people who were at the inauguration ceremony could not easily leave and come back, while most people at the protests could freely come and go as they pleased. Eleventh, protestors could thereby leave an event and come back to it, and thereby be seen there twice. Participants at the inaugural ceremony, for all practical purposes, had no such option. Once they came, they pretty much had to stay, and couldn’t practically come back to be seen and photographed at the scene a second time. Twelfth, in the case of the inauguration, there were two main events, three secondary events, and many more events spread out over the inauguration day itself and the day before. The main events were of course the inauguration ceremony itself, and the parade. The three secondary events were the inaugural balls. The other events were additional public and private parties. Many people attended the parade who did not necessarily attend the inauguration ceremony itself. By contrast, the people who came to protest came primarily to be seen, and not necessarily to listen to harangues full of exaggerations, unsubstantiated allegations, outright untruths, expletives, non sequiturs, and just plain nonsense. The protestors had no parade because they were too undisciplined.

Even If It Is True That More People Attended the Protests

Many if not most of the people who came to the protests came with the intention of influencing the president and public opinion, and to make history. The people who came to the inauguration and its related events came primarily to celebrate and to be present at history. There was more of a motive to influence events than to simply be at an event, so the motivation to attend the protests was greater than the motivation to attend the inauguration ceremony and celebrations. The protests promised to be more historic than the inauguration, since nobody expected the inauguration of a president who won despite opposition from the establishment and most of the press to be the most historic in terms of numbers of people present, yet the protests the next day promised to make history in terms of the numbers of participants at the protests. There was thus more of a motive to make history at the protests than at the inaugural. What counted, of course, were the ballots that were counted on Election Day. That is the day when voter turnout was most important. A high percentage of the protestors had not bothered to vote on Election Day – or even on the many earlier days available for voting this year, making it easier to vote than ever before. A high percentage of the people at the inauguration had indeed taken the trouble to vote on or before Election Day. That is what counted. More people voted for the president, in the aggregate, than for anyone else on Election Day in 48 of the 50 states. Hillary’s majority was based on the votes of two cities – New York and Los Angeles. Without them, Trump would have carried the popular vote in addition to the Electoral College. Had the outcome depended on the popular vote without the Electoral College, Trump would have surely campaigned and advertised in New York and California, and won many more votes there, in all probability enough to win an outright majority of the votes countrywide. Trump simply outmaneuvered Hillary in the election campaign, by campaigning in all the right states, just as his supporters outmaneuvered the protestors by making themselves heard by voting rather than by protesting. Social media whipped up the protestors into a frenzy in the days before the Day of Protest and Rage. The people who attended the inauguration knew about it far in advance – hundreds of years in advance, actually – so they didn’t have to read social media in order to attend, and weren’t influenced by the hysteria and herd mentality generated by social media. Historically, the social media hadn’t been a significant factor in Inauguration Day turnout, but is an increasing factor in generating turnout for protests. Most of the members of the media encouraged turnout for the protests, and covered them favorably; while most of the members of the media discouraged turnout for the inauguration and covered it unfavorably. Washington, D.C. consists of members of minorities overwhelmingly, well over 90% having voted against Trump, so there was obviously a built-in supermajority of protestors in Washington, D.C., just as there had been a built-in constituency of African-Americans to generate the record crowd that had participated in the Obama inauguration. Significantly, incidentally, after African-Americans saw how Obama failed to keep so many of his promises that would have improved their lifestyles and that would have unified the country, once they knew who Obama really was, the turnout for Obama’s second inaugural was approximately half of what it had been for the first, when many Americans could have realistically believed his promises of hope and change in a way that would better their lives, not make it worse. It rained on Inauguration Day, limiting turnout. It did not rain on the day of protest, enhancing turnout for a reason having nothing to do with the popularity of Trump or of protesting. The protests were not just of women’s issues, but also of every issue under the sun where there was some disagreement with Trump. It is virtually impossible to agree on every position of any candidate. Many people who supported and continue to support President Trump disagree with him on at least one issue, and many of the protestors were there to highlight their advocacy of a single issue rather than to protest personally against the president. Above all, it should be noted that the deep-seated and visceral opposition against President Trump is based to a great extent on distortions and lies generated by the Democrats and spread with every bit of venom by the press as they railed against Nixon, except in the case of Nixon there was some truth to the basic allegation of what had happened at Watergate and the cover-up that followed, and the press opposed the principle of law and order, whereas in the case of Trump, the substantive arguments on the issues were distorted, and their main legitimate arguments were about his personal life, while the voters that mattered decided that the issues of state trumped the issues of Trump’s personal life. Furthermore, the cover-ups this time around focused on the Wiki Leaks disclosures of what the Democrats were covering up.

The Lies against Trump

The lies against Trump were discussed in my articles referred to in the first sentence of this article, and easily accessible by Internet, as described in that sentence. But just to summarize: Trump was and is not anti-women. He married one – actually, in different times, three – and treats them better in the workplace than most other employees, or at least as well, and what counts to most Americans is how women are treated in the workplace, and their general standard of living. What Trump may have said and done regarding women in his personal life affects almost nobody other than those individuals. Trump is not anti-immigrant. He married one – actually, in different times, two. And even Hillary conceded that these immigrants that he married perpetuated excellent values to their children, together with the-then-future president. Trump is not a racist. He was considered a moderate or even a liberal socially most of his life. Law and Order would help African-Americans more than it would help whites. African-Americans in the poverty-ridden and crime-ridden inner cities have not been helped significantly to rise out of these circumstances. Trump has a record of job-creation and promise fulfillment. African-Americans have more reason to hope for upward mobility under Trump than they had, in retrospect, under Obama. Trump is not anti-Muslim. He opposes people who do not share basic American values. Inadequately vetted immigrants from ISIS-infested countries, terrorists, and Sharia law happen to put Americans at risk of life and limb. The planes of 9/11 killed people of all faiths on the same plane, and caused the deaths of Muslims without discriminating in their favor. Trump is not anti-Semitic. He opposed the Iran deal that saved Iran from collapse, and that in many ways supports the world’s greatest backer of terrorists and most serious threat to annihilate Israel, God forbid; Trump advocates following the law passed by Congress to move the embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; he brought up his children with such positive feelings toward Israel that all three of his married children married spouses with Jewish blood, including one who is even a practicing Orthodox Jew who has become one of his closest advisers. Trump is not anti-gay or lesbian. Until after Obama’s election as president, liberals even including Obama took the position that marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman. Now anyone with such views is considered to be anti-gay or anti-lesbian. Trump is not anti-disabled people. The flapping motion he made on one occasion with his hands when insulting a reporter who had unfairly contradicted him was his way of making fun of anyone who he wants to insult. Most members of the media intentionally failed to show how he made the same motion against Cruz, and even on one indication a self-deprecating instance against himself. Furthermore, although that reporter has a disability, it has been noted that because of his disability, the reporter himself can’t even make the gesture that was supposedly being imitated. Stop and frisk helps African-Americans and is not unconstitutional. A debate moderator misused his position and misled the American people by stating that stop and frisk is unconstitutional. It was only ruled unconstitutional when improperly used in New York, and it remains constitutional and effective in reducing crime and saving the lives of African-Americans, and others, where it is used properly. Trump is not against war heroes, or John McCain’s heroism. He obviously meant to say that it is more heroic to risk life and limb by taking the initiative – like the son of the Muslim who insulted Trump at the Democratic convention – than to be captured. Trump clarified instantly that of course he considers McCain a war hero, though Trump had some substantive differences with McCain as to positions taken as a politician. Trump did not insult the Muslim father of the true war hero, or the war hero himself, but simply made an offhand comment about the mother not speaking up at the Democratic convention, which if anything was a dig at the second class position of many Muslim women, contrasted with the enlightened way he treats women in the workforce. Even if the Russians influenced the election, they served as the messengers to the substance of what Hillary did, and their influence was more than offset by the influence of the biased press that was in Hillary’s pocket, with all the lies they perpetrated against Trump, as outlined in this article. “Kill the messenger” is not an enlightened way of thinking. Vetting Muslims from ISIS-infested countries is far less objectionable than the “liberal” FDR’s interning of Japanese during World War II or preventing boatloads of Jewish refugees from the Nazis to land in America, or than the “liberal” Jimmy Carter’s sending Iranian students back to Iran when Iran took American hostages. The fact-checkers themselves were often misleading, influencing the election in favor of Hillary as well, and even taking an exaggeration or an inarticulate statement by Trump and designating it as a lie, time and again, and equating it with Hillary’s many intentional felonies and misdemeanors which she managed to elude unscathed, until this most recent election. The biggest bullies and anti-true-liberal values are the Democrats. People who advocate traditional values, and Trump, are often not only vilified by “liberals” but also fired from their jobs or not hired. That’s a major reason why most of the polls were wrong and most entertainers did not publicly perform at Trump events. Supporters of traditional values, and of Trump, are afraid to speak out for fear of losing their jobs, friends, or relatives. Hillary was the bully in some ways, as was Bill. It was she who purportedly played a major role in suppressing the “bimbo eruptions” after women accused Bill of more than just bullying them. It was she who as an attorney defended a known and admitted rapist of a child, who again did more than just bullying the child. The ultimate irony is that Trump has come to symbolize a person strong enough and willing enough to be publicly politically correct, though described as incorrect. He took more punches – below the belt – than any other politician in history – from the Democratic establishment, the Republican establishment, the newspapers, the mainstream television commentators, and members of virtually every interest group. He was able to overcome them all, while most of his supporters beyond his base are still afraid to openly support him or traditional values – or even to attend Trump rallies – or, yes, Trump events even celebrating his victory. Let us hope that Trump will be able to do the one thing needed more than anything else he has pledged on the campaign trail – to restore the true freedom of expression that Americans used to take for granted by the Constitution, and to restore credibility to the press and to politicians.


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Ron A. Y. Rich -- Bio and Archives

Mr. Rich is a self-described liberal with common sense and an open mind.


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