If you were near the Capitol, you were likely dealing with Capitol Hill police. I worked there for seven years and can vouch first-hand, as an extremely anti-cop person, that they were almost always good, helpful, non-power-trippy people. They were on-guard at all times as their only job was guarding the Capitol, so they were used to dealing with all sorts.
They know it is not fake, they say things like that as a mnemonic aid. Like a Homeric epithet. He's reminding his pals that they all hate the news as he attacks a press person.
No, no, no… The orange man has assured me that it was the biggest crowd of all time. Probably more people than had ever been in one place at the same time. And he surely wouldn’t lie to me.
Now imagine how big the crowd would be for Harris!
Or don't.
Because until 2017, nobody gave a crap about the size of the crowd. Normal Presidents have had more important things to think about in their first 100 days in office.
And for those of you who are in a similar situation as me, where your presidential vote for the most part doesn't matter (Trump's going to win by a minimum of 15 points in my state), your votes on down ballot issues do matter.
Local and state elections are where change starts. So get out there and vote, even if it's mostly doing harm reduction.
If your vote is not important because your state is locked in on a presidential candidate, local issues / candidates are worth voting on. They can have a more direct impact on your day to day.
I'm gonna piggyback on this to make a related point:
If you take it down from +15 points to +14 points, that's gonna cost the GOP more money next time around. You don't have to win your state to make an impact. If you can make it more expensive to win your state, that takes funds away from their campaigns in other states.
(And if you make it cheaper for Democrats to win your state, that frees up funds for campaigns in other states.)
To be fair, in 2008 Obama and Hillary Clinton were viable candidates (despite not being a white Christian rich man) because the US public was really tired of Republican shennanigans, and of the Bush administration specifically. While McCain seemed reasonable Sarah Palin was scary and the McCain campaign took its cues from the ur-Maga Karl Rove / Tea-Party Republican talking points, who were only onto public benefits if no-one else got them.
Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize for simply not being TrumpBush and admitted as much it was rather silly when he promised to work to rise to the level of deserving it.
Sadly, Obama retained a lot of Bush policies and was more neoliberal than we needed.
I really thought after Bush, we'd never vote for a Republican president again, nor would we allow one to win by the EC. I was wrong and the US paid for it dearly. So I'm really sore and bitter about the whole affair.
I think there's a meme I'm missing here. Apologies.
Although I think for a mainly ceremonial head of state who has the power and doesn't use it except to use if like, a hitler tries to take power and remove democracy, it's better to not have people vote for them. Because then only those who are willing to lie and cheat their way to the top and popularity will win, so you're basically guaranteed to get a scumbag. While with hereditary monarchy you're basically rolling the dice. Like the worst thing our king has done was cheat on his wife which is pretty bad, but it's not Trump level bad. Another issue is if you elected someone, they'll only be liked by the people who voted them in generally and only represent them, vs a monarch who the only real dislikers are people opposed to the system. And even then, monarchs have pretty high approval ratings compared to political/elected head of states. Charles has a popularity rating of 56%, with 26% neutral towards him and only 16% disliking him. Although Princess Anne is more popular with 68% popularity and only disliked by 10%.
Princess of Wales (our next Queen Deo Volente) is the highest with 71% popularity, disliked by 8%
I was pretty sure it was gonna be a shit show as soon as the election results came in, but the fact the dumbass lied so obviously and pathetically only hours into his term really ironed in how fucked the next four years were gonna be.
I was one of those idiots going back and watching old Trump interviews and thinking, “Well, see, this dude can’t be the total idiot he’s putting on display today. Maybe he’s playing some crazy game and he won’t be as bad as he looks like he’s going to be.”
That lie made it clear to me that my stupid theory was no good. He won, there was no point in playing a character.
He got fame and attention for being exactly what he is. He doesn’t need to be anything else.
I mean, I watched bush's inauguration as a kid, and was stoked for Obama's having voted in my first presidential election.
Purely based on "middle aged white guy=mid numbers" and "first black president=large numbers" I feel that "first Woman, and second POC" will mean bigly numbers.
I was at George W.'s inauguration with a school group, and it wasn't as packed as Obama's but it blew Trump's out of the water, and it was cold and windy AF.
Spicey, the man who got fired because SNL mocked him. Melissa McCarthy with that motorized podium was amazing. It was almost too good, because it killed the golden calf that would have given them a ton of material.
OP sjmarf, I tried to feel you out a bit, hard to get a read on your age based on your comment history. But I gather you live in the UK. Idk if you've always lived there, or immigrated.
I was a younger American at the time of 2009 Inauguration, but I can tell you the general feeling in the air that day: fucking excitement. It was truly electric; whether you were for or against Obama, you're just kind of forced to take a few steps back & go... Wow. America has officially elected a black President. It was unprecedented, it was almost kind of strange because you've got people always screaming about how racist America can be. But there we were. Obama was handsome. Charismatic. Hell, if I were in town, I probably would have been there, too. Just for the sheer spectacle of it all & witnessing history unfold.
Going from that to another white (/orange) man taking the office, kinda old hat, kinda business as usual. I'm telling you, there's simply no honest way to compare the two events.
I also want to take a moment & say thank you for your content creation & possibly upkeep on the Lemmy platform. I had to filter out your posts, there's so much material you've contributed. Thanks. 👍🏻
I suspect Capitol Hill is just not where Trump voters live, so they did not have the opportunity to go there easily. Also he is not a great speaker and he is just another old white male president, no one assumed it would be an opportunity to attend to a historical event.
Hey! They saved up their own welfare money and descended from the Appalachian hills without any damn govmint handouts those damn libs want to give to all the illegal immigrants who vote multiple times via mail in votes.