Here are the initial results from our crowdsourced crowd-counting estimates
I want to find some reliable numbers, but I think it’s going to take time for this google doc spreadsheet that is collating numbers to have accurate estimates. Especially since it community driven, using news articles that don’t have good data themselves. For example, I’ve seen drone footage of the San Diego march that clearly shows more than the 25k that is being used. SDPD said there were “over 25k in attendance.” Analysis of the video puts the crowd size closer to 35-40k (and that’s just for what was in frame for the video, at the time it was taken).
I’d say the protest I was at was at least twice as big as what’s listed in that sheet. It wasn’t a major city so it’s not that hard to count either.
Our estimate is based on reports from local officials, local organizers, and attendees, and suggests the count from organizers — who report 7 million participants nationwide — may be a bit optimistic (but is not impossible). Still, regardless of whether the precise number is 5, 6, 7, or 8 million, Saturday’s events are very likely the biggest single-day protest event since 1970, surpassing even the 2017 Women’s March demonstrations against Trump.
surpassing even the 2017 Women’s March demonstrations against Trump.
I guess he really does bring people together…
Glad it has.
Big crowd in Tennessee yesterday! I’m floored by how united we are against Trump and the MAGA minority across the country, even in my deep red city. Then idea of any kind of left-of-center gathering happening here 15 years ago would’ve been unthinkable
We had a nice crowd in Kansas City as well. If only our fascist governor would let our voices matter too. But it’s nice to see that people are waking up.
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What’s next?
And the award for ugliest graph goes toooo…
Whoever made it should be sent to jail immediately
Where they will learn about bar graphs.
Ba dum ching!
Wow, its crazy seeing my little hometown get recognition. Shout outs to
P̷̧̱̳̗̫̯̜̒̍̋͂̊̈́̊̉̈́̂̈́̔̐͋͝l̴̰̣̤̣̱̻̱͙̽́͂̾̑̔̎͑͒̊̉̀̐͑̈́̈́͂̚̕̚͠ą̶̥̘̗̭̍̔̔̏̇͌͑͘̕͝͝c̴̡̡̛̝̖̥̹͕̙̘̹̜̭̣̗̮͎͎͇̙̮͓͈̖̖̘̥̎̑̌̊̿͋̃͗͒́͐ͅȅ̵͖̹̹͈̗͎̟̰̮͚̻̺͊͋̕͜ͅv̵̢̧̧̛̯̞̩͖͈̲̙̯̳͎͕͉̬̱̘͈͕̳̦͋̄̄̃̽̓͆͊͑̔͑͑̿̿̐̏̿́͒̍̈͊͛̓̅͌͌͛͘͘͜͝͠ͅi̸̡̧̛̬̣͎̥̖̣̹͖̮̜̲͍̙̪̘̤̫͇̫̳͙̞̳̘̰̬̮̖̠̎͂̀̄̑̎́̊̿͐́̔͂́̀̂͗͂̍̓͋̀̓͆̅̇̌́͐̚̕͝l̸͍̂̒̃̎͊̿́l̵̢̡̢̨̧̛̛͇̞̖̯̩̺̤̪̠̪̙̼̖͎͉͈̼̼͍͓̼̪̹̦̈́́̽̊͗̾̍̀̀̂̂͂̉̀̀̏̈́͌́́̅̏̌̑͘͘̕͜͝ͅe̷̡̡̡̧̛̗̣̯̫̣͍͓̜̩̘̦̟̣͓̘̦̘̳̹̩͓̭̫͔̾̈́̀́̂͆͒̀́͐̓͋̈́̀̈́̾͌̉͆̈́̂̍͑̌̊̚̕͝͝͝ͅͅ,̴̦͓̪̦̼͔̾̋̈̀̀̈́̃͗̒̓̎̊͑͊͌̏̐̕͜͠ ̸̡͔̥̹̞̪͉͍̮̣̫̙̻̠̮̺̝̙͔͖̘̭̙̥̬̥͈̹͇̯͌͒̋̉͒̇̓͆̐̇̀̂̓̓̓͆͗̓͘͝S̴̢̡͔̲͎̮͍̪̙̥̫͓̳̣̙̥̟̟̬̹͚͚̬̠̘͓͙̦̪̪̓͑͌̑͑͛̂̊̔̔̓̀̅́͆͘̕̕͝͠ͅT̶̡̛͖̖͙̺̖̩̫̞̅͌͋͗́͑͋̓̇̍̂̋̽̊͆̀̈̀̆̕̕͝͝
So, roughly a little less than 2% of the country protested. Awesome.
It’s pretty clear after attempt number 3 that the vast majority of Americans either support trump, or just really don’t give a shit about any of this
So, roughly a little less than 2% of the country protested. Awesome.
I think that’s actually a lot. It’s around 4.5% of voters. Just under half of voters voted from Trump, although some of them may have changed their minds since the election. There are some people who aren’t into demonstrating on the streets. There is always some percentage of people with something else going on. For example, my teenagers didn’t go because they had both run grueling races yesterday morning. My wife and I were at risk of being late because we went to a neighboring city yesterday morning to watch our kids race and because the roads and bus system were overwhelmed with people going to the demonstration and to the Badgers game, but when we arrived thousands of people were still pouring onto East Wash (the main road the Square).
That was just our life. I’m sure someone else’s kid had a big race or performance that did conflict, or their parent just received a bad medical diagnosis, or they had to work, or they’re in the middle of moving house. 4.5% of voters getting out and marching is a lot.
Paraphrasing Susan Sontag, 10% of people are decent, 10% evil and the other 80% don’t really give a shit and juat go along with whatever…
Majority of Americans can’t afford to take a day off.
And how much do they think they’ll be able to afford once the cheeto is done with his changes?
It was on a saturday! There was fewer events in fewer cities than the first run, and still managed about the same turn out.
Approximately 53 million Americans work weekends. And around 8.48 million have more than one job.
I turned out, but I had friends that couldn’t.
This made me imagine working 2 jobs on a Saturday and now I am depressed.
Exactly. The current turnout is a good sample of the overall population, but we won’t see truly huge numbers until there’s a general strike.
If you know a business open on the weekend, that’s someone who couldn’t take a day off from work. I work Saturday/Sundays on my gig. Fully against Trump, just can’t take a 2.5 hour bus ride one way and a day off of my job to attend. That money is going towards paying for the healthcare and rent of my family.
Edit: Sorry that I have a job to provide my family PugJesus. I know you hate that I have a life outside of Lemmy, unlike you.
My options were because I work Saturdays, where the closest protest is over 90 miles away:
- Take a bus the day before, spend the night before in a motel. Skip a day of work, then get food and protest, then come back home.
- Take a bus of the day, skip a day of work, and arrive about the last hour or so of the protest, and risk the police harassing me for being at a protest after they decided it was over.
So I lose our on $138 dollars to help pay rent/food, and then spend $90+ dollars on the motel and food, to attend the protest.
If there was one in my hillbilly area I’d consider it before wondering if the redneck dipshits might shoot a chubby queer.
Many Europeans genuinely do not understand the sheer size of our country. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to everything else they seem to not understand about our shitty culture that’s been glorified and lied about on TV for generations.
The fact I can cross that via a bus is pretty nice. But the fact I don’t own a car nor have to drive (never needed to, the buses here are pretty decent and have decent rates), does impact me for a lot of events. I’ve been able to attend some about a mayor in my area when he falsely accused a homeless shelter of a gunshot wound, but the police officer who said it faked it all for attention.
So the mayor made shit up, about something that was made up. A protest was organized in front of city hall, and it was very close to a bus stop for me. Attended, hung out with some organizers and helped sign some ballot initiatives. Overall a decent time telling a Republican mayor to fuck off.
Edit: Sorry that I have a job to provide my family PugJesus. I know you hate that I have a life outside of Lemmy, unlike you.
This is such an insanely stupid and ignorant comment. Maybe don’t weigh in on topics you know nothing about.
Change can be encited with a small group of people, and this was not a small group of people. Public opinion is the only weapon we can weild right now, and it’s emphatically working as Trump’s approval ratings are plummeting.
Discounting our success publicly is exactly what Trump does. If you’re going to do his work for him, you should at least get paid - go apply to OANN.
I’m not sure who pegged the number for major change at 5%, but the good news is that with the numbers seen yesterday, a rough 1.45%-2.33% of total U.S. population (342,678,000 est. as of Oct. 18) made it out. Great work by the organizers and demonstrators, roughly halfway there.
http://www.generalstrikeus.com/ says 3.5%
I enthusiastically marched yesterday and at the demonstration in June, but I am against a third of those, skeptical of a third, and supportive of the rest. So I would be mostly against their causes. The No Kings rally yesterday focused on respecting the Constitution and opposing Executive overreach. My point is the longer the list demands, the greater the chance of alienating people.
Absolutely nobody should be taking this site seriously. It’s pretty disappointing that a non honey pot alternative hasn’t popped up yet (with Union support).
They do have options to show support that don’t involved putting yourself into a database, but yeah.
Take what seriously, exactly? The number count isn’t an accurate representation of who would be willing to strike. I don’t even know what would happen if 11 million people actually signed strike cards. But isn’t it doing its job of getting the word out that this is a possibility, and that it’s something we can work toward? Isn’t it giving people a way to organize and purposefully spread the word about the power of a general strike? Unless there’s something nefarious that I’m missing it’s doing exactly what I would want it to do.
And if I say I’m still not impressed by the turn out I get treated like an enemy.
We need more people. We need all the people.
This is a good protest. It’s a good start. But too many people will go back to work on Monday and wait for another one in a couple months.
And the fascists will go back to work on Monday kidnapping their neighbours and taking away their rights.
This is the problem with these protests. Everyone knows it’s a short thing you can go do on a weekend that won’t disrupt too much since most places are closed anyway and will be forgotten about in a week or so. For these non-violent things to work (since people keep yelling at me when I point out violent actions would be better) you have to not give an end time and make it a neverending thing. Something that continues into the work week and hurts businesses that are back open during that time.
If the shit continues to get worse, the Americans might turn into the 1789 French.
God I can only hope my fellow Americans will end up being so unbelievably based. I’m down to help but I don’t think I could start the guillotine parade all by myself. That’s more of a group activity.
Man I wish.
Worth noting that it’s in spite of threats of violence and getting disappeared. There’s bound to be some people who didn’t attend because of immigration status or worry over job loss.
But immigration status makes sense right? I am on Green Card I try to avoid any political demonstration because I don’t vote. I don’t want to lose my visa, my home and be sent to a concentration camp, no everyone is protected by the 1st right now.
Yes, exactly my point, the march is suppressed by the authoritarian government. 7 million is a lot when it probably could have been twice that if everyone was able to come out who disagreed with how things are going.
Absolutely no reasonable person protesting on Saturday expected the federal government to lie down immediately and just give up, turn democratic and liberal, enact single payer healthcare and stop needlessly sending people to places like “Alligator Alcatraz” without due process. If that was your expectation, you are stupid. I still think you’re great, of course, but you are either willfully ignorant or woefully naive.
A lot of naysayers who are supposedly “on the same side” are poo-pooing all over this with statements like “it was pointless” and “it achieved nothing”. Be ignorant like MAGA if you want, it’s a free country.
My small, rural, southern town that held a protest was planning for around 150 people to attend. Last I heard, the official number of attendees was around 300. It might not sound like much, but that was an enormous surprise to pretty much everyone. We even had a Trump supporter drive around dozens of times blasting his horn and doing the most pitiful attempt at rolling coal you’ve probably ever seen. It was great!
But, I know for a fact, I personally realized that there are way more of my neighbors than I thought who are politically aligned with me. I saw dozens upon dozens, maybe even hundreds of people in their cars honking, waving, blowing kisses, giving thumbs up. I guarantee you at least some of those folks drove down the local highway feeling like they were alone, outliers, and surrounded by haters, then they hit the first intersection in town and saw literally hundreds of their neighbors who agree with them politically. That’s empowering and that’s absolutely NOT pointless.
But, I know for a fact, I personally realized that there are way more of my neighbors than I thought who are politically aligned with me.
I keep seeing people ask why and this is the answer. I was surprised to see the number of people I did in smaller towns across Texas.
I saw coverage on several of the networks and PBS. I swear, I start to fall into conspiracy theory thinking when I watch news these days. All the coverage was NYC, Atlanta, Seattle, etc… Blue cities that have been demonized by the press and magats for years, despite reality. I think it would have been way more helpful to see coverage of protests like where you are. I went to my local one, there were a few thousand people, but honestly, that was expected.
I live in Little Rock. Our Pride march was mixed with the No Kings march. Estimates were for 10-20k people between the two events, and I would say we got that many at least. The local conservative paper said “hundreds” gathered for the No King’s rally, the local Fox affiliate said “dozens” gathered for Pride. If you weren’t there, you would have no idea how big it was, a single video angle couldn’t begin to capture the size as they spread across multiple city blocks. Would be nice if they could at least try for honesty.
I live in small town Washington, population 2k, and we also had around 300 people show up in the rain to protest. In the rain!
On it’s own, it doesn’t matter at all. You can’t protest against those who don’t recognise your humanity. The exact lesson from apartheid here in south Africa. There is no peaceful way to oppose ideologies based on violence.
I agree in some ways.
But there needs to be multiple factions. These protestors are one faction. One piece of movement. Another traditional faction is the politicians. Then there are teachers… Everyone plays their part. Even criminals have a part they can play (honestly it is probably one of the most important seeing as we are dealing with people above the law… It takes one to know one type of mindset).
The fight needs multiple arms. And it’s up to each individual to play their part outside of these visible productions of display.
If you know criminals, or players of “the game”, you know they see these protests as nothing but comical and you know they can find a way to utilize them for their own gains too. So you are correct in your view. But I don’t think the protests are worthless if they are attached to the bigger spectrum and other factions of change. We just need to see those other factions have growth too. People can’t put all the eggs into this protest basket.
Learned about it from this episode of the Team Human podcast
But what is happening in Hong Kong is they come up with a slogan, which is translated as Do Not Split, which is, we know that some people are willing to be confrontational with riot police.
And when they are, that’s going to cost the state in terms of not only resources, but it’s going to cost the state in terms of political capital and support. And we know that there are some people who are not willing to do that. And we are going to abide by the protocol of Do Not Split, which means that we’re not going to criticize them openly, and they’re not going to criticize us openly.
If we’re the pacifists, we’re not going to have them criticize us for being sort of like, I don’t know, limpid or flaccid or not courageous or whatever. And we’re not going to criticize them for being more confrontational. And the thing is that the support is also tacit.
It’s not like they have to come out and tell the media, oh, we approve of our more sort of confrontational colleagues. They just keep quiet. They just keep quiet.
Understanding that a range of tactics is probably going to be necessary. Nobody really knows what’s going to work. But if everybody’s pushing back against a particularly violent state, then everybody’s really on the same side.
It mattered enough for the administration to act out, post AI, and create competition stories to have anything else to talk about
This fascist administration and fake fox news both disagree with you
Fascists are all about controlling the narrative. Any time we can seize that from them, they will be impacted. Trump has been trying desperately for months to encite violence and riots so he can justify massive military intervention. So far, his use of the national guard on peaceful cities is being met with contempt and resistance by the majority of Americans. Even his base is getting frustrated.
It sucks, but this is what winning looks like when we have a president, house, senate, and Supreme Court all captured by a hostile party looking to dismantle and divide the country.
There were protests in South Africa against apartheid
Exactly. And for all of this “the exact lesson from apartheid” we’re all supposed to have taken to heart about the uselessness of non-violent protest, remind me again because it’s been some thirty years since I last heard about it . . . where is apartheid now?
I love when these fifth columnists show up to shit on any individual effort toward change, no matter how tiny, and to shower any “I can” idea with contempt, because it tells me who they are, and confirms that my own infinitesimal contribution, in combination with millions of other like contributions, is anything but useless.
There’s a maybe too large part of me that thinks violence may be necessary, but you know what?
I’m kind of a cranky, belligerent jerk sometimes, and I’ve been wrong about a lot of things. I could be wrong again. I hope so.
And the fact of the matter is that a lot of people who I respect and love disagree with me and demand peaceful protest and are trying much more clever ideas than I’ve come up with. Inflatable animal costumes? I never considered that one. And damn if it doesn’t ruin their photo ops. Bravo!
Good people are having a lot stolen from them. It would be shitty if anyone steals peaceful protest away from them too.
I figure there is room for peaceful protest, support groups, and defiant Black Panthers. They aren’t mutually exclusive towards achieving a positive peace, they just have different methods. They should just agree to support each other in the ways that make sense - Panthers warding off ICE raids and police kettles, supporters feeding, healing, and sheltering, peaceful protesters giving body and voice to the movement.
The change for a better world is an animal, and an animal is made up of many parts. Without them, it would likely die.
The protests aren’t meant to persuade Trump. You should educate yourself on how things work in the US.
The point is to persuade the 150+ million Americans that did not vote in the last election to vote in the next one, which is only about a year away. If Trump loses the house and senate, he will be severely limited in what he can do, and many of the awful things taking place can be reversed or at least halted.
Secondarily, many people that dispassionately voted for Trump are not happy about the economy and how he’s preventing the release of the Epstein files. Those people absolutely can be persuaded to turn against him in the next election.
This is (for the moment) still a democratic republic.
I live in an ultra red shithole and even we had an easy 300+ people turn out and line an entire intersection with signs. Shit is looking good.
Same. I drove through them and it was great to see. What I was surprised to see was that most everyone was late gen x and boomer age. Very few young people.
I gave them a thumbs up out my window and they all started hollaring. It was fun, seemed like a great vibe.
At mine it looked like a mix of boomers/late gen X and older Gen Z, with very few in between.
I wasn’t able to go, but my buddy did. He and I are both mid-60s, and he said the vast majority of people were our age or older. This is southern California.
