Newspaper stories, TV and online sources have had little on the size of the mob that stormed the Capitol on January 6th or the crowd outside and what there is seems wildly varied and unreliable. A recent AP story on inauguration security says “.. thousands of supporters of President Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol…” I heard the same thing on MSNBC. Surely those figures are exaggerated and alarmist, making it sound like thousands will be available to do mischief on Inauguration Day.
I’m no expert on estimating crowds but I would say “few hundred” at the most. Even counting those who hung out on the steps, it didn’t look like 1000s. One estimator purporting to be something of an expert said that 20-30 000 “participated,” whatever that means. One estimate said “scores” entered the building.
Of those gathered in front of the Capitol how many were genuine protesters with no intention of breaking the law? How many were onlookers, the simply curious?
Then there’s the question of the potential size of the most hardcore of Trump’s supporters. Somewhere on TV, perhaps MSNBC, I heard the estimate that of the 70 million who voted for Trump about 20% could be counted on to fight for him. The implication being that he has a potenial army of some sort of 15 million people! I wonder if there’s anything in that at all. There are a lot of guns out there.
Is that the situation: that many willing to take up arms , that many who would also have stormed the Capitol? Or is it more like a few hundred or maybe in low thousands of “extremists”– strangely dressed, unhinged people like some of those seen with Auschwitz t- shirts or horns, with so little to lose that they’ll do anything–dangerous but just a marginal “fringe”? How much danger is there of genuine civil war over election results or BLM or now the second impeachment of their hero?
How much danger will tkhe inakuguration be in next week? Can the police and other security forces be trusted when their heads are Trump appointees? (Was that what happened on the 6th:: the failure to protect ordered by Trump?)
Of Trump;s almost half the vote, 70 million, how many would take up arms? (It’s come to this?) Someone estimated 20 %, 15 million. Really? How many were at the jan 6 event? Of those how many went in or tried to go in and how many were only protesters or onlookers? Not seeing any figures. AP story today on inauguration security says
Oak Bluffs man: ‘Mostly peaceful people outside the Capitol’(MV Times) another es of 20-30 000 “partdicipated”, whastever that means. Or was it scores inside.?
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