Jophiel wrote:
You'd think that Trump was an abused child or something rather than Leader of the Free World. He then went on to lie again about the viewership, saying that it was the most viewers in person, televised and online. We already know that the in person count was unimpressive, the televised ratings were far below 2009 (by 7mil viewers) and he has, and offered, no actual evidence that online viewership made up the large deficit.
So what? The point here (which ties into the point I made in my previous post) is that it does not matter how large or small the crowd is. The media will find some way to downplay it. The crowds were smaller (really? To the first election of a black man to the presidency? I can't imagine that!). There were protests (yup. we incited them and then reported on them!). The speech was bad. The wind was blowing too much. He picked the wrong bible(s). He had the wrong people in attendance. This. That. The other thing.
There will always be a negative spin in the media to *anything* related to the political Right Joph. That's what you're not getting. And that's precisely what people on the right are increasingly pissed off over. The media dipping into the
exact same pool that just inflamed people in the election is another case of doubling down on stupidity. Of course his people are making a big deal about this. Because it doesn't matter what the crowd size actually was. It's about the fact that the media had to make a point, any point, to downplay and dismiss this inauguration. Just as they do every other time there's a conservative leaning event, person, speaker, idea, etc. That's the pattern he's playing on here.
You're literally looking at the wrong part of the equation. The lesson the Left should have taken from this last election cycle is that they need to stop playing word games via media surrogates and actually start speaking honestly and "to the people". But it's like they just can't help themselves, and fall back to the same old tired methodologies. Let's get a bunch of poor people and bus them in to protest. Let's get a bunch of women and bus them in to protest. Let's get a bunch of out of touch celebrities to smash talk (and protest). It's like you weren't paying attention. The whole thing is about a rejection of the "planned protest", and the orchestrated outrage, and the big celebrity events, and all of the other tools that the left has been using for decades to browbeat people into accepting their narrative and worldview.
It doesn't matter what the crowd size actually was.
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As for the protests themselves, while the public display was certainly a large facet of it, more important is the collection of names, numbers and email addresses, participation in local groups and people feeling personally invested. Those would be, hopefully, spun into continued activism and support at more local levels. That's much more important than signs and pink kitty hats, although seeing a couple hundred thousand people like you in one place is a nice reminder that it's not just you and ten friends on Facebook who feel this way and a good push for morale during an otherwise depressing period. Only time will tell if it works although, hey, people (myself included) laughed at the initial Tea Party protests and we see how that turned out. If people are hoping to replicate that success, a million-plus people taking to the streets would look great when they write the history.
Honestly? The problem is that the Left lost its way about 40 years ago IMO. They don't seem to actually stand for anything. It's about pure momentum and opposition process. They aren't "for" anything, just "against" the evil bad conservatives. Their protests have been mostly astroturf for decades now (yet laughably that's the label they used towards the Tea Party, because they'd apparently forgotten what actual grass roots protests look like). They have hordes of followers who are emotionally invested in whatever movement of the day has been picked out for them, but almost none of them can even elaborate on what that movement is really about, or what they want to accomplish. They're involved because they are told they must be involved, and they're bad people if they don't, so they put on their t-shirts, pick up their protest signs, and get right into line.
The very fact that you're talking about the process of organizing speaks to this difference. Conservatives become active because they understand the ideology behind a given position or objective. Liberals become active because someone gathered their names, put them on a list, and they feel like it's their duty to support <insert cause here>. That's the whole process of such organizing. It's less about adopting an set of ideological positions and more about manipulating people into following you, regardless of where you are leading them.
Many on the left just don't get this. I remember laughing at some news reporter showing up at a Tea Party rally and literally walking up to people and demanding that they tell her what organization they were working for, a member of, or which bussed them in, etc, etc. She became increasingly upset when everyone told her that they just showed up after reading some posts on line talking about the event, and they weren't a part of any actual organization. She assumed they were all lying to her and just didn't want to admit who they were working for/with. That's just how ingrained the process is among liberals though. They've been doing this for so long, using these same methods, that they just assume that this is "how it's done".
The mocking of conservatives and their hand made signs (and the whole bad spelling meme too) is part of the same "not getting it". The thing they were mocking them for what what made their movement "real". But they're so inside the process that they could not see it. In much the same way that the media today is continuing to use the same methods to try to dismiss Trump and the GOP that they used during the election (and honestly, all the time). But the more they do that, the more they're just proving us crazy conservative conspiracy theorists right. They're just highlighting their own bias to a larger and larger number of people.