We see in the local marches downtown in Washington D.C. that size really does matter to everyone. My friend went to march of our Lives, and observed that the crowd size was not what he thought it would be. He got a seat on the Metro going in and coming out, a sure sign that there were not that many people present. The organizers said 850,000 came out, but CBS, The Hill and FOX are all saying the number was closer to 200,000. Please note that is a big difference.
In Washington, you can just about get somebody every day to protest something. We have seen press coverage of these small (less than 20 people) events get framed in closeups that show the signs and protesters yelling, but never show a view that will allow people to say, “There are only 12 people there.” These days there are professionals who can estimate crowd size to within 15%, which to me doesn’t sound all that good, but there is a lot that goes into that estimate I guess. There are generally about 7-10,000 people downtown on any weekend day, so they have to factor that in. Twenty million visitors come to Washington every year. That would make a big crowd, so we are glad they all don’t come at once. We could never get a Metro seat, if that happened.
But, political clout comes from numbers and not wishful thinking. The real number of marchers is not going to raise a lot of interest in Congress who see those busses lined up and can count pretty quickly. They can tell if the crowds are listening or just going along for the ride and having a good time. If you want to make a point in Washington, that point is best made with accuracy and votes that can be counted. Making up numbers will not do it.
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