Trump Fails To Deliver Again

As is my usual practice, I want to fairly quickly post some information about the attendance at Donald Trump's rally in Phoenix today, and the people who turned up to protest it.  I do not have the heart yet to comment on the utterly repugnant content of Trump's remarks, so I will stick to crowd size, first noting that Trump bragged as usual about the alleged huge size of his rally, and the small number of protesters outside.

Well on to the evidence.  Here is the  most common view of the crowd inside the arena while Trump was speaking:

If this was a view of the entire crowd, I think you would be justified in saying that there were less than four thousand people there, in fact, perhaps less than three thousand.  And in fact, this is pretty much the whole audience.  Here are two views from the back of the room:

You can see that behind the viewpoint of the carefully cropped crowd picture above, there is almost nobody.  A miserable showing, for the President of the United States, in the center of one of the most Republican States in the United States.  Again, I feel confident that, contrary to his disgusting bragging, he was unable to get more than 4,000 people to attend his great speech.

Now for the protesters.  This is a little more difficult to assess, because the relatively narrow street outside the hall made it hard for people to get good views of this crowd.  Nevertheless, here is something:

I have looked at several other photos, and I agree with a Politico reporter who was there and assessed the crowd at between 4,000 and 5,000, or somewhat more than the star-power of this worthless President was able to attract.  When last I heard, the Phoenix police were (predictably) tear-gassing this peaceful assembly.  

Support for this miserable would-be dictator has crumbled.  Even his own supporters, in their hearts, know what a horrid mistake they have made, though they will never admit it.  But he can't even begin to generate a real show of support at this point, and anyone really paying attention knows it.  He may hang on to the White House, but if he does, it is solely because the other Republican leaders are just as corrupt as he is, and they don't want to tip the boat before the rich guys get their tax cut.  Other than that, we all know the truth.  

And now, a major update:

You have seen above the photos of the real crowd that attended the Trump rally yesterday.  Here is one of a number of images now being circulated by Trump partisans, in which the crowd has been photoshopped to appear to fill the entire auditorium

You can see from the real photos, what a ludicrous act of dishonesty this is.  

This leads me to a comment.  When I estimate crowd sizes at right wing events, I always try to be totally fair to them, which means giving the largest possible number of people I can possibly account for in the photos. In truth, I thought the crowd was actually smaller than 4,000, but I couldn't be positive, so I went with the number I gave.  I now see a number of estimates from people that were there, putting the crowd at as low as 2,000.  I guess I should have gone with my first estimates, and stated openly that there were no more than 3,000 people at this event, a miserable turnout for an official Presidential appearance.  Witnesses also report that by the end of Trump's 75 minute tirade, many of the people had left, or were sitting on the floor, busy with their cellphones.  May I note that Trump himself collaborated in this lie about the crowd size, by pretending to beg the fire marshals to let more people in (a standard trick of his,) ignoring the fact that the room was half empty.

In the meantime, this should provide a laugh.  Here is a picture that is being circulated on the right today of the tens of thousands of people trying to get into this speech:

Only one problem:  This is actually a photo of the victory parade of the Cleveland Cavaliers, an image which has a history as a "stand-in" for the massive crowds of invisible people who show up for right wing events:

Lies about the crowd inside, lies about the crowd outside.  The truth is, people can't stand this guy and won't even turn out to see him in one of the most right wing places in the country.  He cheated his way into office, but that doesn't mean that he, or his malignant vice President, or his hateful Supreme Court Justice, or anyone else connected with him should be left in Washington.

And now, some independent confirmation of what I have said above:

Note:  Pictures inside taken by David Catanese; the outside one taken by Saba Hamedy.